Unilever
Knorr’s ambitious strategy Reinventing Food for Humanity aims to deploy their scale, expertise and reach to help two billion people eat in a way that is better for them and better for the land by 2025; from working with farmers at a local level around the world, to national nutrition campaigns, to teaming up on industry-leading collaborations.
In 2021, Unilever asked Identity to help deliver the inaugural Knorr global summit, with a focus on positioning the brand in line with the strategy, for a global team of 800. Previously the brand had held a series of annual meetings with staff in each key location. For 2021, the global summit needed to move to a virtual environment, taking place over a number days and catering for upwards of 200 at any one time, with sessions repeated to allow for different time zones.
A core requirement was that the event be highly engaging and interactive; that it offer more than a standard virtual meeting or presentation environment.
Deliverables
The project required delivery of an internal hybrid-virtual event with a mix of plenary sessions, and these had to encourage staff to go beyond simply passively watching the broadcast but to take part. Identity’s role was to provide support and implementation across the entire event as well as pre-event communications.
With a technically ambitious client, Identity first identified a range of platforms and tools that we could use to promote effective team collaboration. Engagement competition was put at the centre of the criteria for a platform that would excel in interactivity: lots of platforms are good at keeping users within in them, but few are effective at facilitating cross-platform user movement in an unobtrusive way.
A tried and tested off-the-shelf platform was first identified and then customised to the client’s requirements, for an interactive 3D environment that was highly effective in directing users from different areas of the platform to external sites and with a rich selection of collaboration tools that could be used throughout.
As the event would take place across multiple time zones, large blocks of the presentations were pre-recorded in order to ensure high-quality transmission would be maintained at all times. This intensive work involved careful and close engagement with speakers and key stakeholders, coaching and preparing them for the recording and live elements of their presentations.
Key stakeholders’ presentations were supported with an engaging assortment of 3D assets, made by Identity’s experienced creative studio, for an added dimension to the end show.
Results
This inaugural virtual event was notable in that it was also planned, devised and executed virtually: at no point in the project did Identity meet the client or the supporting agencies; and yet we were able to work incredibly closely, providing innovative & engaging solutions and bringing together multiple streams of content, to deliver a successful event with energy and vigour and which was well received by the client and summit participants. Although the project was subject to scope creep and expansion of roles, delivery was nevertheless kept within the final budget.
“Identity was one of the most collaborative and creative event production companies I have ever worked with! From the very beginning, they took the time to internalize my vision and brief, making the event one we could all be a part of creating. The end result was a memorable multi-platform, interactive, fun, and purpose-driven event with overwhelmingly positive feedback from our community participants.”