Extending on this – the following is a post made in November 2011. We presented a workshop last year for the International Special Event Society Hong Kong Chapter on how event agencies or for that matter stand alone legacy events could develop an effective social media strategy.

The following is what we presented and what we are currently working with. If you have any suggestions or feedback, it’s always welcomed and appreciated.

Happy twittering, facebooking, linkedin-ing, youtubery and so on!

Source Notes: This video was sourced from YouTube and uploaded by the moviemagicguy1 employing xtranormal and thumbnail from ithacaevents.com

Sensational Events through Powerful Experiences.

FACTOR168 Creative Event Company delivers creative, strategic, and tactical event management and event production services across Australia and throughout Asia.

A quick straw poll amongst the FACTOR’y team and with our highly valued vendor partners reveals that we have ALL experience all three of these scenarios more than once in our working life.

‘We didn’t budget for this’, ‘Cheaper at the Taco stand’, ‘I’ll pay for the highlights next time, for now just throw them in for now’, ‘I’m not making any mone on this either,you gotta help me out… this is not a challenge it’s an opportunity’, ‘I can cover your hard costs but that’s as far as I can go’, ‘Show us how you did it so we can do it inhouse next time’

Oh man… Still better to laugh than weep.

A number of comments attached to the above youtube clip that extend on the frustrations of this odd vendor/client relationship -

“I don’t have any money, but it will look great on your reel.”

“missing the part where they don’t pay the invoice for 3 months because it’s “company policy”!

” “What do you mean i need to pay for this addition? i already paid you once for that project and i paid a lot of money”

Look the reality is – if someone pays for a service or a product they are customers. Pay on time and as agreed – they are highly valued customers you’ll move heaven and earth for.

If they do not pay, or short-pay, they are indeed a lot of things but a valued customer they are not.

It’s not unreasonable for vendor partners to expect to be paid fairly and in a timely fashion for their contributions, their time and effort, their creative strategic or tactical services. Conversely, clients should expect the level and quality of service or product they have contracted for. Let’s not be haters people – let’s just be reasonable and aim for a win-win situation everytime.

Okay. Unexpected commercial sermon from the digital pulpit finished.

Let’s close this post out with this great gem we’ve only recently stumbled across – a spoof on the famous courtroom scene between Tom Cruise and Jack Nichloson in a ‘A Few Good Men’. Except this version is all about those creative warriors developing advertisements on the stand.

Gentlemen and Ladies – “You Can’t Handle a Bigger Logo!”

Never a truer thing has been said – the size of a logo really doesn’t sell  more product – but for mine, I really like the phrase about ‘rises and sleeps under the blanket of creativity’ … amen.

Gonna have to watch that last clip again so that we are prep’d up fr our next meeting with the big boy company procurement department. Should be a quick meeting… Hopefully they won’t have seen the first video. Those guys have no sense of humour.

Until next time – good event’ing people!

We wish your current or next corporate event is a sensational experience for guests and stakeholders alike.

That is on-budget,  that it mission critically achieves all your commercial objectives, and that it is compelling enough to be the source of much animated discussed around your clients and or staff’s  water cooler or over a mug of java the next day.

Good events translates ultimately into more sales and that can never be a bad thing.  Cha’ching!

Source Notes:

The Client Vendor Video is the product of the talented people at Scofield Editorial 

The Jack and Tom take on writing ad’s is from  Youtube posted by a huge handful of people… we’ve failed to find out who did this spoof so we can’t credit them, but if your out there, nice job!

 Happy Canada Day 1st July and Happy Independence Day on 4th July for our North American clients and pals.

Have some sherbet drinks on us.

Sensational Events through Powerful Experiences.

FACTOR168 Creative Event Company delivers creative, strategic, and tactical event management and event production services across Australia and throughout Asia.

A strong live communications experience is driven by clear event marketing which is packaged and presented in a theatrical manner. This is where professional event agencies and studios play a critical role.

• Identify the most important message you want to share with guests and focus all the event elements at each sensory level. This will ensure your message is communicated at an intellectual and emotional level.

• Plenty of events have failed with ill-prepared presenters fumbling about on stage, while a black-clad production crew desperately try to second guess their intentions. The solution is to set aside a block of time, say two to three hours, for rehearsal time to see the event run through from start to finish. Care should be taken to physically rehearse presenters (and entertainment on stage with technology. The full complement of event production crew should be in attendance. No event has failed because it was rehearsed too much.

Darren Kerr, Partner and Producer of the FACTOR168 Creative Event Company

Source Notes:

The above published in the South China Morning Post. Strangely this September ‘MICE BIZ’ supplement it featured in is not available online… so the source material snapshot is below along with the Chinese character version alongside it.

Sensational Events through Powerful Experiences.

FACTOR168 Creative Event Company delivers creative, strategic, and tactical event management and event production services across Australia and throughout Asia.

The top of the pop Apps that all iPhones should ship with are, in no particular order of preference, the following:

AccuWeather (wet weather contingency), Twitterific (keep up to date in bite size data packets), Facebook (check out whats up with your people), Skype (for talking to your people long distance), Linkedin (keeping your professional profile in the minds-eye), FourSquare (where is everyone else right now), and the electronic ideas scrap book in the form of Evernote

All the other Apps that most iPhone users should have on-board.

In no particular order we also recommend Alarm Clock, the News gathering at one spot portal of NewsOneLite – you’ll quickly realize like us that most ‘newspapers’ run the same news just under slightly different slug-lines.

We also like ‘Studio 54′ inspired Battery LED app which tells you in a trippy visual way how much power your phone has got in it depending on your future use.

The app Bump is a really cool idea although we have to confess that we know of NO ONE who has actually used it.

However almost everyone who works within the international environment seems to use XE Currency which is really good. The desktop version also has a tool for calculating overseas expenses which is mana from heaven.

Another handy app is Free Wi-Fi – a quick email sync at no or little costs. Bless.

All these Apps are Free with the exception of the Alarm Clock that has gone Pro. This Pro version will set you back a whole .99c but in return you can wake up to The Steve Miller Band’s ‘Fly Like An Eagle’ (or a song of your choice that you’ve pre-loaded) which is much more civilized than the BLEEP BLEEP BLEEPing version.

Kinda handy tools

These four Apps are free although we suspect that the sensational Dropbox will be the first to start charging a fee for their services. Really hand app for anyone who comes across lots of stuff in their day on the web but doesn’t have the time to read or review right there and then – easy, just drop it into your box. Probably better suited for your laptop but still you never know, and it will sync.

The other three are just plain handy. Ever wondered what to do if bitten by a snake? Before passing out from the shock, click on your wikiHow app and all things will be revealed.

The SitorSquat app is very American-centric but then it’s development was ‘sponsored’ by Charmin who are huge in the States when it comes to toilet paper… nice synergy there. The future usefullness of this sort of app is dependent in part by the data that users contribute to and certainly within Australia and Hong Kong it is… well spotty at best. Still… if your travelling and can’t find a restroom, it certainly couldn’t hurt to have this on hand.

The last handy tools app should really just come loaded on with the iPhone and perhaps with the new model it will. Some really nice Backgrounds for your iPhone can be found here. Oh and it’s free which is a good price.

Communications

FakeCaller – Free and yet Priceless. This App is often referred to as the Dating Parachute and employed as part of one’s Meeting Exit strategy… come on – like you never wished you’d had this at one of those hideous committee meetings where everything needs to be debated. Bam! That’y my man Tommy White – must take it!

The two other communications Apps that are popular are Meebo and another free app called WhatsApp To be honest we are not 100% sold into either but we are run them for different reasons.

We use Meebo as a instant messaging dashboard of choice off our PC’s. It’s big drawcards is that it allows you to IM with people regardless of their own messaging preference provider. One person could be on yahoo, another on gmail, other son hotmail or even meebo itself – and you can chat across these proprietry domains. Cool.

WhatsApp was recommended to us as a handy way of IMing over iPhone… seems to be replicating the IM element of Skype and some people we’ve invited to communicate via this app have been successful and others not. Hmmm… this app may not be long for our phones me thinks.

Hope you’ve found this list and quasi reviews handy – if you have any you can recommend please let us know.

The second part of this post can be viewed here.

FACTOR168 Creative Event Company

Creative. Strategic. Tactical.

Sensational Events through Powerful Experiences.

Celebrity New York wedding planner David Tutera has found himself in a spot of PR bother. A number of newswire reports claim he took more than AUD$224,000 from a Singapore couple in return for his creative expertise but didn’t actually show up at the event.

In fact – it is further claimed that he sabotaged the wedding by instructing vendors not to fulfill contractual obligations.

“There is no more money,” the dad supposedly said. “Don’t get on the plane.” “Tutera did as advised,” said spokeswoman Eda Kalkay. “He looks forward to clearing up this matter in court.”

Hmmmm. There seems to be more to this that what is being reported but we are not surprised – one potential Bridezilla and one celebrity TV star who seems to spend an awful lot of his expertise centered on floral arrangements, crockery and flatware…. tears were bound to happen.

It does strike me as odd that someone would spend a coupla’ hundred grand and a couple of pair of business class New York to Singapore tickets for a wedding planner to provide – a bridal bouquet, tablecloths, a dance floor or a VIP table.

He’s well regarded by many – although the Singapore couple described the reality TV star as being “despicable” and “arrogant” when planning the high-priced wedding. So now they’ll all get together in a  New York court.

We haven’t sighted them but apparently the photos of the wedding show the couple beaming on their big day and reveal that, despite Tutera’s absence, the couple managed to come up with a bridal bouquet, a dance floor and towering centerpieces. Bless!

Although the reception for some reason was bathed in purple light… but apparently that was on purpose…

And for those not familiar with David Tutera – enjoy some snippets of him in action.

So there you have it. A montage snapshot of the world of David Tutera in action.

Look, if you really must get some more David, then he’d be delighted to sell you one of his massive coffee table styled books with glossy pictures of ….floral arrangements… and other floral things.. arranged….  at his website which can be found over here.

In closing off this post, I implore anyone commissioning an event – be it personal or corporate, always consider a professional event service provider. If you don’t know of one, check out outfits such as the International Special Events Society of which FACTOR168  is a long standing member.

Sources: An Australian report here and a USA report is here.

FACTOR168 | Creative Event Management Company

At one point they form an image of the ‘Mona Lisa’ with the various coloured LEDs on their back. Cool.

Apparently more than a million internet users have watched the viral video in the four days since it was released online.

The creators of the video revealed that they recruited Welsh national sheep herding champion Gerry Lewis, and a team of Welsh sheep herders to guide the flocks into position. They also admitted to the use of computer trickery – which in a sense is kinda of a pity so let’s just quickly brush over that revelation.

Matt Smith, the co-founder of ad agency The Viral Factory said:

The people on camera are real farmers and they were really controlling the sheepdogs. Rather than trying to fake it all we did it for real. The sheep herding bit is straight up – no trickery but there is a fair amount of computer trickery and post production work. We thought the Mona Lisa was the big wink to people – once they saw that we thought they would realise it was not all real. But we have been quite surprised that there is still a debate about whether it is all real and people have been coming up with various theories.

Matt said the main problem on the shoot was not herding the sheep, but getting enough of them.

We filmed it at the end of last month and it is lambing season so we could not disturb the sheep that were lambing because it would have been too stressful. We used different sheep over the two day shoot because we couldn’t have them running around all day. We didn’t give them any treats because they got to wear an LED coat – I can’t think of anything better. The video is silly and joyful. This one has caused a real stir.

Here’s the ad – enjoy the cast, their flock of stars and their combined efforts… and forgive the computer trickery.. if you spot it that is. (we could tell you but then we’d have to have you with mint sauce!)

So how successful do you think their efforts were? Did it sell more Samsung product?

That we don’t know. But a quick show of hands indicated that this ad was a huge hit with the staff at FACTOR168 and the real testiment to the success of this ad was when we questioned friends and regulars at our local coffee haunt – a surprisingly large number of people remembered the ad and almost all associated it with Samsung.

This strong and positive recollection was, despite a considerable amount of time having passed since the ad went ‘viral’, pretty impressive to say the least.

FACTOR168 | Creative Event Management Company

FACTOR168 | Event Management Company