A few years after we launched Impact Productions, we began marketing the tagline “Live Branding Specialist” to help set us apart from the myriad of event suppliers turned “production companies” around the time of the dot com heyday. Unlike a lot of those dot com companies, the phrase stuck, and since then it’s become our signature, our niche, our differentiator.

So what does “Live Branding” mean?

Well, unfortunately, it’s not an easily definable noun that’s easily pigeonholed. Live Branding is an intangible process. More to the point, it is an experience, and it’s different for each brand and for each audience…but let’s start with the core principles of Live Branding:

Focus on the Audience. Audiences are everything. Reach them and call it a success.  Fail, and explain to the CEO why the company spends a lot of money on a fruitless meeting every year.

Engage the Senses. Yes, this means sound and lights and video and graphics and live entertainment. It also means a deliberate, strategic mix of them – a plan for the overall flow of the presentation, and how it supports the goals of your event and company.

Deliver A Clear Message. Live meetings are full of stimuli…noise, if you will. Live Branding pushes the non-essentials to the side and amplifies the important themes.

Make the Connection. Live Branding stays with your meeting attendee; it doesn’t get left behind like a hotel towel. It accomplishes this by providing a multi-sensory vehicle to answer the all-important question, “What’s in it for me?” Live Branding, when done right, generates a deep connection with each member of your audience – your clients, employees, shareholders – resulting in the creation of brand champions.

Live Branding is hard work because it isn’t formulaic. Each corporate event has its own goals, settings, and audience. Each company has its own culture. Live Branding takes all that into account to deliver an engaging and memorable experience; one that goes home with you—not just because it’s stuck in your brain, but because it’s relevant to you. Because your audience is ready for it, receives it, processes it, understands it, appreciates it, and believes in it.

I coined the term Live Branding years ago and it has guided my craft ever since.  That practice has made my clients’ events and meetings more successful and I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned.  So stay tuned and let’s explore The Power of LIVE together.

Sheila Stack

Thanks for joining us. I’m Sheila Stack, Founder and President of Impact Productions – and I’m a champion of the power of live events.

Check in here to engage your brain toward the pursuit of making business meetings more meaningful, driving home your message and making it resonate beyond the flight home.

That’s what we do here. We bring your audience all the way in. We take their experience beyond what they expect. We take your brand and place it center stage, creating emotional connections with your people at every turn giving it…well, impact.

Here we’ll address hot topics in the meetings and events industry…I’m sure you’ve noticed there are a lot of them right now. What are the challenges we’re facing, how are we rallying to overcome them – at what cost, and to what degree of success? We’ll also look at what folks in our industry are doing to make corporate events more memorable. What fresh ideas are out there, and what trends are shaping our industry going forward?

Let me tell you, we at Impact Productions love this business to the core. Do we necessarily love the overnight load-ins, eating in 60 seconds flat between general sessions, going for days on coffee and energy bars? No, we’re not that crazy; but we do embrace it. Pride and joy, after all, comes from experience. (For the record, and speaking for myself, I do actually thrive on all of the above working conditions!)

I sincerely hope Impact’s fervor comes through in this blog. I want you not just to hear what I say, but to feel it with me. That’s important, because that’s our signature: connecting with audiences on a deeper level. We arouse thoughts. We move people. It’s no longer enough for your audience to have something to see and hear; they have to feel it, they have to believe.

The Power of LIVE in action

That connection… that’s live branding done well. That’s Impact Productions. This is our journey. It’s good to have you along.