Online events & augmented reality with Marc Convey

Hello and welcome to today's episode of the Agency Accelerator podcast. Today we're talking about taking live events and putting them online and just getting some inspiration around what people can do and how they can replicate and do new things that they couldn't do in person events. And that also takes us on to talk about how companies are going to be using augmented reality, in fact, how they're using it today, but how they're going to be in the future. So especially with the advent of the Apple glasses. So it's a really interesting podcast today. I certainly learned loads from Mark. So let's get on with today's episode.

Accelerate your agency's profitable growth with tools, tips and value added interviews with your host agency owner and coach, Rob Da Costa.

So today I am really excited to have Mark Conway with me from 23digital. Now 23digital creates engaging digital content using film, virtual reality and animation to tell a client's story. So, Mark, this sounds really intriguing. You're going to be better explaining what you do and who you do it for.

Thanks for having me on, Rob. It's a real pleasure. I've been really enjoying your episode so far. We are primarily a video agency, as you say, but we're also trying to be quite innovative and future thinking. So we're looking at ways that different types of content can reach a consumer and animation and a more immersive kind of content is going to be a big growth area in the future. So we're trying to prepare ourselves and get in position to take advantage of that. But I would say that video is at the core of what we've done for the last three and a half years.

So then the obvious first question I have for you, and this episode's being recorded in late August, September of 2020. So when the coronavirus pandemic hit the UK, like a lot of agency owners, their business sort of fell off a cliff because their clients were struggling or their clients clients were not working. So I guess most of the video you would have shot in the past would have been with a client face to face and then suddenly you can't do that. So when, what did you do to make sure that your business didn't fall off a cliff and die during this, during this crazy time?

Yeah, you're absolutely right. Our business did fall off a cliff over a period of about four days. We do a lot of event filming and also we were starting to specialize more in food and hospitality. So if you look at the events, food and hospitality businesses, there were the three kind of hardest hit and everything had to shut down. So about 90% of our work over a week disappeared. We're also, yeah, it's pretty bad. I'd also spent six months planning for applying for an Innovation UK Smart grant. So we'd been planning this idea to impact the restaurant industry, digitalizing menus and trying to help cut down food waste. So this was a half million pound grant we were going for. Had the support of the big NGO and another nonprofit, but all sort of match investors who were interested in getting involved. Restaurant chains that we were going to test in everything disappeared in the course of a week. And it just was not the right time to try to be digitally impacting a restaurant industry. So that was gone. All the events that we had planned to go and film at were obviously either cancelled or delayed. We do some filming with local restaurants and some other brands that all went. So it was, yeah, it was pretty devastating to start with.

What was your first reaction when all that happened? Because that is a pretty. Like you say, you're in the two worst sectors, the event sector and the food sector. What was your first reaction when you literally lost all that work within four days?

I think I was just in shock. I don't think I really let it set in. I think it was just a case of just been in a bit of a daze for a few days and I'm actually. It's probably the proudest thing that, you know, since myself and James, since we started 23 digital is how we reacted. Then the week after that, we'd gone through a bit of a tricky period as a company and we restructured and brought it back to myself and James and became very, very lean and lightweight. So we looked at ourselves and we thought, well, the last year of just making sure that we survive in the long term and refocus where we're going, we thought that was almost our Corona boot camp. So very quickly we put it into perspective and thought, okay, we're innovative, we've got a good client base. Even though they don't have any work for us, let's talk to them. This could play to our skill set. You know, our backs are against the wall, but let's see how we can, we can pivot and innovate our way out of this. So very quickly we decided to be as positive as we could. And for the next two months, I'd say we probably worked harder than we ever did without really bringing any revenue in to just to try and find a way out of the situation we were in.

Okay, so that sounds amazingly positive and proactive, which is what we should all be doing. What conclusions did you reach and what did you do?

We started talking to clients and asking what needs that they had. And effectively what we are doing is helping them either communicate internally, communicate with their customer base, B2B Communications, you know, it's what we do is, but we just do it through either, you know, video or animation. So we're like, how can we apply these skill sets to enable you to keep as best as you can run your business? So instead of doing video, we could do some animations which could either, you know, help communicate what's going on with their business to their customers to keep marketing, whatever it may be. But the real big need was for them to be able to continue to communicate with their internal teams, with customers. And really that obviously that had to be done all online via Zoom, but it needed to be taken up to a bit of, a bit more of a professional level. So we started hosting webcasts, webinars, we talked to some streaming companies and different people that were able to use some third party software so that you can put some, whatever you want on the screen. We did some branding sessions. So we did a big branding session for Quorn. They needed to, you know, to communicate to their customers what their, their brand range is going to be, their product range for the next year. So we were able to host that. The hospitality industry, if we, we go back to that, one of our clients is a, is a food PR company and they work very closely with a nonprofit networking company within the hospitality industry called a Calderna. So William Murray are our clients and in conjunction with William Murray, we sponsored this series of webinars so that they could help find experts, put them on the panel and discuss the issues that hospitality industry was going through and how they could work their way out. So each week had to be a different expert. And actually it was from that that we ended up managing to get Korn as a client. So, so just by helping solving other clients problems, it actually then brought in some custom as well.

So when you talk about hosting webinars for your clients, what did you do that made them different? And I think we're at a point now we're all kind of a bit fatigued from Zoom and you know, sitting on webinars, which seemed like a novelty at the beginning, but perhaps now, because it's the way of life, people are a bit tired of it. So what was the value that you were adding to make them, I don't know, more engaging or More appealing.

There were a lot of people who had never even used a webcam on their, on their computer before. Really never really done video calls. They might have done the odd one, but it was, it was still quite rare that we found. So we had to do rehearsals with, with whoever was going to be speaking. We'd also have to work out what kind of content that they wanted to deliver.

Yeah, I guess there's a whole new wave of agencies that are providing that kind of support for their clients. So you know, making sure that they recognize that the way they might have communicated before doesn't always naturally directly translate to an online form of communication and that they need to consider their audience and create content that's going to work via the web.

Yeah, absolutely. Big time. And one of the biggest, biggest challenges and the biggest project that we did was for a client who are a, they're a PR media organization and they have PR award shows four times a year and they're ticketed, sit down big kind of gala dinner events and they're extremely important for their, for their revenue. They're almost, you know, sort of tent poles in terms of how they plan their year. And this, this particular client had a $1,000 sit down dinner scheduled for the end of May in a quite famous building called the Citriani in New York. And it couldn't happen, would have put their entire organization at risk by not being able to have it. So we jumped in with them and said, right, how can we potentially take this Online revenue is really important. So how can we ticket it? If you're going to ticket it, then it can't just be a, you know, a kind of slightly elevated normal webinar like the ones I was just discussing. It had to be a full on production, really good. So in conjunction with a couple of other stakeholder teams over the course of a month, we reimagined the entire thing as a, as a virtual event. So our closest animator, who's world class who works with us, he, he mapped out the entire inside of the Cipriani. He created avatars of the presenters of the big CEO award winners. The entire room is filled out with 1500 people sat roundtables like they were actually at the banquet. So avatars across the room. We then pre shot the three different presenters on the green screens safe distance filming. So there was a couple of shoots in London, one in Hong Kong and all the award winners as well. Their acceptance speeches were recorded on their webcams. So we did as much as we could pre the actual event going out live. So it went out live on Zoom with Vimeo Enterprise plugged into it and it was live mixed on the night. So then on the night the actual presenter would do the intro and the outro, but then all the way in between was live mixed in and all the presentations, green screen, big animation. It was amazing, actually. Since then we've. Which is, you know, where our kind of real demands come from. It was. We were very lucky that all the biggest players in the, in the PR world globally saw the production quality and they were like, okay, who did that? We've done two more of them since. We've got more lined up in the autumn. So it's quite actually exciting development that we never even thought of doing anything like that, you know, three or four months ago. But now all of a sudden there's this amazing looking product that also works fantastically well for marketing benefits and for PR in between events because it is very dynamic looking and it really stood out from anything else that really is out there at the moment.

And it must have been quite stressful for you guys because I've certainly experienced in the last few months that if technology can go wrong when you're doing something live, it probably will. So must have been quite a stressful time during the whole conference.

Yeah, it was. And, but it went, it went really well. The only worry was a delay at the start and it kept getting delayed and I was wondering why it was getting delayed, but it turns out that the client hosted a champagne reception on Zoom just before the award ceremony started and they couldn't get people to leave their champagne reception. So all these people having too good a time drinking champagne, just chatting together on Zoom, we were trying to get them into the, actually that, you know, the main conference so we could start the stream.

In terms of commercial commercials for the client, were they able to, if that was their main sort of revenue generating activity for the year, were they able to replicate something similar? Because obviously you're not going to be charging, I assume you weren't charging as much as you would if someone was going to a face to Face dinner.

No. Yeah. So the face to face dinner is actually a $1,000 per ticket, sit down dinner. So it's like the flagship, you know, PR event globally. But this one, I think we ticket it for $109. But the fact is that, you know, without having to rent the Cipriani and all the extra overheads, the. I think they actually ended up making more money.

I'm assuming that they could invite more people than they would have been able to sit down event as well.

Yes, they could do that. And they were very lucky that they were able to still get the event sponsored. So I'm not sure if it's, you know, it's absolutely sustainable to that degree long term. But, but what it does do is, is offer up options now going forward. I really like the idea of a, of a hybrid approach for events, for conferences, and just offer people, offer people options. So that if you really focus on the people that can't be there as much as the people that can be there. Because there's a lot of reasons why people can't attend events or conferences. You know, there's a lot of barriers to entry, be it travel costs, the cost of the ticket itself, hotel costs, childcare, and there's a, there's a huge demographic of people that were just being ignored because, you know, the old, the old argument was, oh, well, you can never replicate being there in person. You know, you just, it's just, you know, you just got to be there in person. And it was before COVID 19, it was hard to argue that point because there was little evidence to show otherwise. It was almost up to you to prove that. No. Well, it can be somewhat effective online, but now the conversation has immediately shifted and the kind of digital approach has had a huge shunt forward and people are adopting digital now because they've had to. And then they've realized actually, oh, this is so bad, and we're not trying to replace the actual real live event, but now we can actually throw the net a bit wider. We can open up new revenue streams, we can create content that works all year round so you don't have these peaks and troughs in between events that a lot of companies who communicate with their audience have. So, yeah, I think we're entering a, a whole new kind of digital adoption kind of era and it's exciting to be a part of it.

Yeah. And I guess like you say, people have realized that they can do things this way. And also, of course, they've realized that it's economically more viable and easier to reach a wider audience. And I guess we still don't quite know what the new normal is going to look like once we have the virus under control or a vaccine or something. Because certainly in the short term you'll get this is the way your people are going to be running events.

Right.

Because at the moment people can't travel and even if they can travel, they can't get together in large groups. So I guess a lot of Organizations will be now realizing that this is not only something they can do, but is a really good, viable alternative or as you say, in the end, something that can complement the big live events as well.

And we have to think about the, the environmental impact that the events have. We've all got every, all these countries have got 2013, 2050 targets to me. So if we can even just shift the needle 10 or 15% on the amount of environmental damage that we do by having these things live, then surely that's just, that's a good thing as well.

Yeah, absolutely, of course. And I think a lot of people are realizing that they can be just as efficient and effective having virtual meetings and saving a ton of money, time and carbon by doing it remotely. How do you replicate some of the networking, being around other people, that atmosphere, that buzz, how can you replicate that in a virtual event? That's still tough.

I think that's the, that's the hardest bit to replicate. You know, you can keep people really informed, but creating that buzz is, is, I think, the. Where we're going to see the most innovation over the next couple of years. There's a whole host of different options coming out at the moment. It really reminds me of the sort of late 90s, early, early thousands when websites were just all sorts of different shapes and sizes and costs. And it was a bit like the kind of wild west, gold rush kind of thing. And there's a lot of software options that are coming out, some that have already been in development, some that have been rushed out. And I've been chatting to a, to a lot of providers, looking at who we can partner with to sell into our client base. You know, you can get, you can have breakout rooms, which is good. I think that the biggest problem that a lot of these platforms have is that especially if we just take, you know, the basic one everyone's been using, which is, which is zoom, is that as soon as you get more than, you know, eight or nine people in the room, if you start talking over each other, then it just becomes an absolute chaos of noise. So having, having breakout rooms, having a bit more organization, having a bit more structure around it is, is important to create that atmosphere and that buzz. But then it's, it does feel like organized fun in a way. So I don't think you are ever going to replicate it. That kind of buzz and atmosphere. We may see more. I think when, you know, virtual reality and augmented reality becomes a lot more widespread, then I think we can maybe create, recreate some of the buzz. But Right now for me it's just hardest bit to replicate.

Sure, yeah. I mean I run a group coaching program and we do twice monthly group calls. This is the self running agency program and we have about 16 people typically on a call. And what I've noticed is that there's a whole new role that's sort of invented because of this world we live in at the moment, which is like someone who's managing when people are putting their hands up and muting and unmuting and just trying to make that the conversation flow and not be stifled or talk over each other because like you say there's a big group you talked about. This event started with a champagne reception. So how did that work? Did everybody have their bottle of champagne at home having a drink?

They did, yeah. And people got dressed up. You know, there were people in black tie. It was a real kind of event on top of an event. It was an event to show that you know what we're all facing this crisis but let's be in this together, let's keep, keep each other, support each other. So it was a, it was an amazing experience actually that everyone really went to, to an effort and they would, you know, set their laptop up the nicest room in their house. So it was a real kind of jovial, celebratory atmosphere.

So tell me, what do you think the future of video is in marketing and how clients will think about using video in the future in this new world that we're in at the moment.

If we talk about short term, I think they'll be, they'll be more open to, to different types of way content is created. So you know, animation is very powerful. So I think we're going to see a lot of that for the next, I mean it's hard to say how long for the next 612 months. I still think people are going to be wary of dropping too much money on a shoot. I think it's going to be a slow, gradual movement back into real life shooting. So if it can, especially in the corporate world, if animation can do, then I think that's still going to be a big demand area. I think in terms of meetings and that kind of stuff, I, I think a lot more will be, will be done online. But what you need to do is I think have some content support for that. So some of the branding sessions that we've done, you know, pre recording bits, having support and then mixing it in with live. So I think there'll be a mixture still of, of live and pre recorded slightly longer Term, I think we are that, you know, said that the kind of digital adoption is pushing things down the road. So I think immersive content, I think will start to maybe grow at a faster pace and then I think if we go a little bit even longer term than that, not look at Covid. I'm really excited about augmented reality and how that's going to impact corporate communications and content marketing.

I'm really interested in that. So could you just give us some examples of how you think businesses will use augmented reality?

I think they're going to use it to showcase their products in situ a lot more. So you can already see it with, you know, Ikea, you can place your furniture in the rooms you can look, and now you can take a photo of your room and add wallpaper and paint. So that's the first kind of way it's product placement and it's how you view those products. So that's going to be a big thing. Because augmented reality to me really is just a portal to get information. If we look at it just for the business perspective, what I'm interested in is you can use it as a way to get more information to your customer, to your consumer. So it's hard to get so much information on a packaging, on a food menu, whatever it may be. But through the use of AR and AR markers, we've had QR codes for years. AR markers, you can create a unique marker that works with your brand and you can get more information to your consumer. So there's a really interesting wine brand down in Australia and they've got AR labels on it and hover over and next you can see a beautiful drone video of the vineyard of where the grapes are grown. You can see where the wine is pressed and where it's stored. You can have an interview with the winemaker. If you're looking at other types of food, you can communicate information to a customer in the supermarket, telling them about the nutrition, the provenance of their food and the allergies. And that can all be done without putting huge amounts of information on the back of a packet, which means then you can really be a lot more. Have a lot more interesting packaging as well. And then once Apple dropped their AR glasses, you know, we had Google glasses before, but they were just too soon because the infrastructure wasn't around them to be able to support it. But the alignment of, you know, widespread 5G plus AR glasses made by Apple and you've got pretty much, you know, the most powerful hip computer in your pocket, which is the iPhone so that you can power the glasses. When that happens, then that for me is going to be the tipping point of this technology. Then the whole world can be your screen. It can be like a digital, digital layer across the entire earth if you want it. So at that point you could be, you know, walking down the street and have adverts popping out with you if you want. Obviously you can turn these things off. It'd be really big in education as well. So, you know, when the Apple glasses come out, I think that's going to be the big tipping point for the, for this technology.

Wow. So I'm a bit of an Apple geek, so that's exciting to hear. It just sounds like a lot of the sci fi movies that we watch is starting to actually catch up with where we are now. So that's, that's really exciting. So we could talk about this forever. I think this is quite inspiring for them to think about how they can carry on serving their clients and you know, looking at what the needs of the clients are going to be in this new world and how to inspire clients to look at doing the things they've traditionally done in a slightly different post Covid way, I guess.

Yeah, that's exactly the way to describe it. It's just, it's not completely altering what they do, it's just kind of shifting what they do and a little bit more digital adoption and it just, it gives them more choices, it gives the people that they're communicating to more choices. For me, it's just a slight shift and opening up more options rather than a mass digital revolution at this stage. Yeah.

And I think it's our job as agency owners to inspire our clients about this stuff and what they can do. Because I think a lot of people have thought in a rather black and white way like, I can't do this event, so I can't do it. Rather than, well, I can't do it that way, but I can do it this way. Okay, so I'm a bit conscious of time. Although we could carry on chatting about this for the next few hours. But let me just ask you a couple of last questions. And the question I ask all my guests is if you could go back in time and give your younger business self some advice, what would it be?

Okay. Well, I'm very much like a forward thinking person, so I often think, oh, if I could go back and tell myself something, would I? And I think sometimes you have to allow your younger self to make mistakes. And I think it's through those mistakes that you make that you actually learn the most. So if I was going to go back and talk to my younger self when just starting out a business, I wouldn't really give any specific advice. What I would just say is just, just be as informed as possible. You know, knowledge is power. So, you know, I'm just, I'm just a sponge for any new information. And it's just to, to make sure that that was like properly instilled in me a few years ago because I'm getting more and more like that as I get older. So I would like that have instilled in me a little bit more when I was younger.

Yeah, okay, that's a really good answer. It's not an answer. I often get very similar answers to this question, but that's not one that I've had before. And you're absolutely right. You know, we learn lessons in life in two spaces, in a really difficult space and a really safe space. So yeah, you know, some of those, and I guess some of the mistakes we make along the way enable us to become the person we are now. So if we didn't make those mistakes, we wouldn't be who we are. And so my final question, mark, if people want to find out more about you and 23 Digital, where should they go?

Well, the best way to kind of get hold of me is I'm really becoming much more active on LinkedIn. So emails is great, but LinkedIn I prefer just because we should support each other in a community and LinkedIn is really becoming a community. So if you just find me on LinkedIn, I'm always open to chat with anyone about ideas, advice. I'm trying to post more and more on there about what we're doing. So just adding me on LinkedIn is the best way to get a hold of me. Great.

Okay, so I put your LinkedIn URL into the show notes and actually on that note of LinkedIn, we have an interview with someone who's a LinkedIn specialist in a couple of weeks time and I'm really looking forward to that because like you, Mark, I am a big fan of LinkedIn and over the years I've tried many ways of engaging with my audience, such as paying for Facebook ads and so on. But doing smart LinkedIn outreach is definitely the most successful route I've found. So I'm completely with you on, on the use of LinkedIn. So listen, that was really interesting conversation today. I know that our listeners are going to find what you've got to say useful and hopefully inspiring. And, and I'm also intrigued to find a virtual event like you've described and actually go and join it so I can experience some of what you've explained today.

Brilliant. Thanks, Rob. It's really, really easy to talk to. And yeah, pleasure being on today.

So there we go. I hope you found that interesting. I certainly learned a lot and got quite inspired by the way people are moving things online, being creative, and also the advent of augmented reality and how businesses can really use that to expand upon their brands. As ever, please make sure you've hit the subscribe button and I would love you to leave a review and share this episode with your colleagues as well. Now, we've got some great content coming up in the next few weeks. I've got a really good interview with someone who's an expert on LinkedIn and is going to teach you and I all about how we can better use LinkedIn as an engagement and business development tool. So I will see you next Thursday for the next episode of the Agency Accelerator Podcast.