Acuity
Adapting a Conference During an Unforeseen Season
Acuity is a multi-billion dollar lighting company with numerous products and brands under their umbrella. For years we have partnered with an event agency, Two Story House, to produce Acuity’s on-screen content for their annual Expand Conference. This ranges from simple straight to camera briefs from industry leaders, to quirky product launches that need creative direction, and even travel across North America to promote new products in development.
The Expand Conference is where Acuity will launch their largest products for the year, discuss various issues/questions from agents and obtain valuable face time to continue to build their relationships. This event is foundational for their business to continue to be an industry leader within their space. The 2020 Expand Conference was set to be in April and was expected to host attract many clients, vendors and industry leaders across the country but was cancelled one month prior due to the emergence of the novel coronavirus, but hope was not lost.
Finding A Solution In A Viral Atmosphere
The Expand conference was Acuity’s main platform for communicating to direct selling agents and partners, truly cancelling this event was not an option for them and we were happy to help their team strategize on how they could move forward.
Together, we were able to quickly re-group and find a working solution for Expand. We felt confident that we could meet some very tight deadlines and deliver a great product that would keep Acuity ahead of their competitors. Our deliverables included:
New Guidelines
Film 9 event videos that would adhere to new CDC COVID-19 requirements
Custom Graphics
Create a new digital graphics package that would fit the Expand Conference brand
Editing
Edit 16-18 new videos that need to be created to fill the gap of the event not being in-person
THE CHALLENGES
We're small, but agile
With any project there is always the potential for challenges and we anticipated there would be due to the environment we were in. We are working with 8 different groups across the country that included many stakeholders who had a hand in the decision making process, and we were in charge of orchestrating this project in a limited amount of time. So, we had to get creative!
Being a small company, we knew that we have to be agile in finding solutions and being cost-effective. We knew that we had to produce an online experience that was branded, engaging while staying within budget. Our team came up with some great ways to avoid driving these costs and eliminating travel out of the state.
We knew that Acuity placed company guidelines that required only around 5-6 people to be in one room together and that the CDC advised that people remain 6-feet apart at all times. Luckily, we already film with a very small, efficient crew and this allowed for us to follow those guidelines and set our equipment up in a way that would keep us, and our client, safe.
There was one particular client, located in Colorado, that was a key part of Expand and it was important for him to be a part of this digital conference. We came up with a solution to send the client video equipment for him to setup in his home to film himself in a way that would be to be cohesive with everything us we’ve filmed here in Atlanta. It turned out great!
THE RESULTS
Expand is Digital!
One thing we are certain of is that we work with clients who are incredibly trusting and value creative ideas when producing great stories. It is important for us to find solutions that benefit our clients and we feel that we did that with Acuity. We feel that we were able to package a normally in-person event into a digital-friendly medium….all while complying with CDC standards of health.
Instead of a week-long conference, the Expand conference will launch on April 6th, 2020 and the company will slowly release conference material through mid-May.We are working closely with them to edit their content to launch on the assigned week that it is set to go live. While we would love to show you a snippet of their conference content, it contains proprietary information and we must maintain their confidentiality.
Messaging
Building the Story Framework for the event.
Directing
Oversight of the story, and interview.
Filming
Original footage shot on location.
Editing
Weaving the footage into a compelling story.