Chat’r – a decade of inspiring connection and engagement

Chat’r Xperience recently celebrated a decade of excellence in the events industry. In June 2013, John Arvanitakis founded Chat’r Xperience, after having worked for 10 years as a partner in an event management company. He was inspired to take the leap of faith and fly solo, as he saw a need in the event market, for something new.

From the beginning, John founded a company that would in time become a 100 per cent independent, proudly South African, integrated experiential marketing studio, with the goal to have a footprint stretching from home turf to the rest of Africa, and ultimately, the world.

John’s founding vision for Chat’r was to create award-winning experiential engagements, be it events, conferences, activations, exhibition booths or digital social media campaigns, in person or virtually, by delivering the right strategy based on the clients’ needs and brand message, that reached the target audience for the client, helping them to achieve their campaign goals.

Over the last decade, Chat’r has remained true to this purpose. Today, Chat’r is one of the leading experiential communication agencies in South Africa.

John said that we are often asked why we called ourselves Chat’r (pronounced chatter). “It remains a daily reminder that for every project we work on, that we remain focused and true to our purpose. In essence, it describes what we do — inspiring connection through engagement,” John said.

John added, “All we do is crafted and created to generate engagement. We design talkability, as our work generates conversations and connections.”

“Our clients can be assured that every piece of work that comes out of our studio ensures that it has an element of talkability in it. Our work is designed to give our clients that additional organic PR, that translates to engagement with their audience, their customers, or clients, that gets them talking about our clients’ brand, event, or exhibition booth. We turn observers into fans and likes into love; in that way we generate chatter for our clients and, subsequently, additional exposure,” John explained.

Chat’r boasts a team with over 80 years combined experience, in the experiential marketing industry. “The size of our team ensures we are agile and effective — we get stuff done like our clients want it, and when they want it. Team Chat’r is highly skilled in their craft and has an attitude of excellence. The shared belief of the Chat’r team is getting stuff done, and creating work that is not ordinary.”

John added: “Our team lives the words of Ralph Marston: “Excellence is not a skill; it is an attitude”. The Chat’r team are not just crew — but are here to create art.”

The Chat’r team are committed, down to earth, warm, diverse, and proudly South African. “We take personalised service to the next level through dedication and an in-depth understanding of our clients’ needs and objectives. By doing so, we have formed long-term and authentic relationships with them over the past 10 years.”

“The team has the capacity, professional project management skills, design skills and manufacturing ability, resources, and experience to operate at any scale, from small intimate gatherings to massive events, conferences, activations, and exhibition stand builds. We can go as big or as small as you can imagine,” John said.

At Chat’r it is all in the detail and the little things. “We pay attention to all the fine details; from carefully checking media, to design and DTP, personalised messaging and a million other little things that make a good event a great event!”

“Our promise is that at Chat’r we know how to realise the magic hidden in those who come to us for help for their next event, conference, brand activation, exhibition stand design and build or social media campaign.”

“With creativity and strategy at the heart of our solution, we set out to evoke a thrilling, inspiring and an exciting experience for our client’s audience. We like to call it COI — Chatter On Investment. That is what our clients pay for, and we give them the best value in return for their investment by ensuring that the entire conversation revolves around the connection between our client and their audience — before, during and after the engagement,” John added.

Ultimately, though in the words of Scott Belsky: “It is not just about the ideas; it’s about making them happen,” and it is here where Chat’r has, over the past 10 years, managed to excel in, by achieving a number of industry-recognised awardwinning projects, that they have been involved in creating and executing on behalf of their clients.

Nothing gets in the way of Chat’r, they have climbed mountains for their clients, literally!

For four consecutive years, Chat’r were tasked with setting up the Dimension Data hot spots on top of the highest peaks in the Cape Mountain ranges, as their client was a sponsor of the Cape Epic Mountain Bike Challenge. Nothing stood in the way, as Chat’r ensured that their client was able to broadcast live video messages, from loved ones all around the world, on big screens placed on the top of the mountain, via satellite to the cyclists participating in the Cape Epic. In assisting Dimension Data and Leo

Burnett with this activation execution, Chat’r lived the philosophy that they will climb mountains for their clients. This campaign resulted in a Loerie Award.

John added: “Not only do we climb mountains for our clients, but we also scale buildings and suspend giant inflatable balls on the side of their buildings. Chat’r was asked to execute the launch campaign for the Altech Node campaign, where we suspended giant balls on the side of the Altech building as a teaser campaign for the Node launch.”

Other award working projects that the team has been involved in over the past decade include an exhibition stand for Anglo American at the Mining Indaba 2020. This exhibition stand was recognised and awarded by the RTF – Architecture, Construction & Design Awards.

Over the past decade, Chat’r has planned and executed projects for some of South Africa’s most recognised companies and brands:

• South African Tourism — Africa Travel Indaba, branding partner in 2016 in conjunction with FCB.

• Durban Tourism, platinum awardwinning exhibition booth at Africa Travel Indaba in 2016 and 2017.

• TotalEnergies exhibition booth at Mining Indaba 2022 & 2023.

• Branding and communications agency for Routes World 2015, hosted in Durban. Routes World brings together airlines, airports and aviation stakeholders from across the world to build air services and global economic growth.

• Official hospitality and brand agency for International Jazz Extravaganza hosted in Durban in 2016.

• Conference organiser for Brand South Africa internal and stakeholder conference 2015.

• Inaugural conference organiser for CSOS in 2016.

• Global South African launch event partner for AVIOS travel rewards programme.

• Naspers results presentations.

• Exxaro Sustainability Summit 2022 and 2023.

• Brand South Africa Brand Village at World AIDS Conference 2016, hosted in Durban.

Extending their reach beyond the borders of South Africa, Chat’r has executed exhibition booth builds for Standard Bank at the Africa Energy Forum in Mauritius and Lisbon in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

In 2018, Chat’r was asked to design and build the exhibition booth for the South African National Department of Health and SANAC, in conjunction with The Presidency, for South Africa’s participation at the World AIDS Conference in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

John was also privileged to be asked to assist Lorin Bowen Business Events with exhibitor management at the inaugural IATF2018 (Intra-African Trade Fair) held in Cairo, Egypt in 2018.

Most recently, in March 2023, Chat’r was privileged to win the pitch, against some of the biggest players in the exhibition industry, and was appointed by Grid608, to assist them with the design and installation of a temporary exhibition to showcase the epic creative work of one of South Africa’s most rewarded and iconic advertising agencies, Hunt Lascaris, at their 40th anniversary celebrations. Hunt Lascaris is recognised as having created some of the most memorable advertising campaigns in South Africa. The honour of working with this legendary advertising agency and creating the platform for them to showcase their work was not lost on the team at Chat’r.

Chat’r are also extremely proud and privileged to be working with the President FW de Klerk Legacy Foundation on The Centre of the Constitutional Transformation of South Africa. Again, Chat’r was the David-against-the-Goliath in pitching for this project. The Centre is designed to be a permanent exhibition showcasing South Africa’s transition to democracy, from the groundbreaking speech delivered by then-President FW de Klerk to parliament on 2 February 1990, to the creation of our globally renowned and respected democratic constitution, that was signed into law by our founding democratically elected President Nelson Mandela on 10 December 1996.

“Just as there is great success, there are also challenges along the way. Any business owner that says otherwise is not being true to themselves or fair to their company,” John said.

He said: “Building a start-up is not easy, it comes with many challenges, from funding and cash flow challenges to client acquisition and retention and, of course, staffing and resource management. And then, of course, there are external factors that are completely beyond your control, that also throw a spanner in the works. Chat’r was not immune to any of these. But, it was how we responded and handled the bumps in the road that has helped us to overcome these challenges and got us to the point that we are at today, celebrating our 10th anniversary. They say that the first five years of a new business are the hardest and, if you make it past these years, you are on the road to greatness. I challenge that, as in my opinion, every day is a challenge and every day we need to climb a new mountain; staying on the path to success requires constant attention and constant innovation to remain relevant.”

“Through our ten years we have been challenged, such as the time our exhibition stand was stuck on a ship at sea during a hurricane and was not going to make it in time for us to build it for our client at the Africa Energy Forum in Mauritius. Luckily, our team is agile and innovative and, when we realised we were not going to get our stand in time, we started to make plans to build another stand from scratch in Mauritius with just 48 hours to go. Time was not on our side, but by the time the conference opened, our client had their stand, an exact replica of the stand that was on the ship, and no one attending the conference was any the wiser. Needless to say, the original stand arrived at the harbour, on the day the conference ended!

“Then, of course, like everyone else in our industry, our business suffered from the catastrophic decimation of the event and exhibition industry caused by the

Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant two-year lockdown of our industry. Like many companies in our space, Chat’r’s business was not immune — we had ten planned projects cancelled within 24 hours of the announcement of the Covid-19 lockdown. This took our business to the edge of the cliff; by 2022 we were on the brink of collapse, already financially ruined,” John said.

He added: “Thankfully, we were thrown a lifeline, as a result of the loyalty and support from some of our clients, whose own businesses managed to survive the Covid-19 pandemic. This is where our commitment to our personalised service and our dedication to our clients’ needs paid off. Over the years, we formed long-term and authentic relationships with our clients, based on our committed philosophy of service excellence, integrity, respect, leadership and ingenuity. This allowed us to come back from the edge of the cliff and to begin rebuilding Chat’r from the ground up — so, I guess if we use the earlier analogy of the first five years of a new business being able to survive, we are once again on a five year respirator — however we have moved from the ICU to the high care ward, staying with the Covid-19 analogy.”

John said: “Having survived the catastrophe that was caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and come away from the edge of the cliff, for which we are most grateful, and as we reach the end of our first decade, it is time to reflect on the past years and to plan for the future as, in the words of Benjamin Franklin: “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.

“As mentioned earlier on, we at Chat’r firmly subscribe to the view that to stay relevant in our industry, we must keep innovating, and innovation is at the core of our plan for the next decade.”

“One of the lessons that the team have taken away from the recent pandemic is that our world is in a perilous state, increasing diseases are spreading more rapidly and are becoming increasingly immune to our borders, climate change is a reality, the world is on fire and global warming is affecting all of us. The sustainability of our planet is increasingly becoming a problem.”

The Chat’r team has this reality at the top of mind, as they plan their growth strategy for the coming decade. Sustainability and the environment will play a key role in any project they work on in the future. John said: “Just like when we started, we made sure that every event we were part of had an element that encouraged chatter, we are now committed to driving sustainable and green event practices in each and every event, activation, conference or exhibition booth we execute on behalf of our clients.”

“At Chat’r, we believe it is our responsibility, as event organisers, to provide our clients with guidance, solutions and answers to hosting more green events with minimal environmental impact and much reduced carbon footprint.”

A question that John asks of his team daily: “Have you ever stopped to consider the impact on the environment of the wastefulness of the events, exhibitions and conferences we organise?” — most people don’t.

“Conferences, events and exhibitions are – by nature – extremely wasteful. Consider that you’re setting up a small community for one, two or more days, placing everyone into an environment where they are beholden to what’s on offer from the event venue. Everything is designed to be single-use, fair weather, stop-through and temporary” — Kevin Cobus, Event Sustainability: The Evolution of a Wasteful Industry

“I could not agree more with the sentiments expressed by Kevin, and it is with this in mind that Chat’r has taken the firm decision to make a difference where we can, and to bring our clients along with us on this new journey,” John said.

John said that these are some facts and stats that he would like to share with his clients when discussing the impact of their event or exhibition participation on the environment:

• The typical conference attendee produces 1.89kg of waste each day, of which 1.16kg will end up in a landfill.

• The average conference attendee produces over 170kg of CO2 emissions per day.

• The carbon footprint of global air travel related to events contributes 2.05 per cent of global C02 emissions, about the same emissions as those of a country, such as France, emits.

Chat’r founder John, is a big fan of the Earthshot Prize environmental initiative, initiated by Prince William, The Prince of Wales, and he believes that the event industry needs to change its behaviour to support the outcomes that this initiative is aimed at — to find and grow the solutions that will repair our planet in this decade. Chat’r is part of an industry that is one of the biggest contributors to the waste in our environment, and is committed to ensuring that for the next decade they play a role in helping to reduce the impact our industry has on the planet. This philosophy is at the heart of their work for the next decade and the entire team at Chat’r have bought into this vision.

Chat’r believes that it is the responsibility of all stakeholders in the event industry to develop and work towards their own event Earthshot.

Ensuring that we stay committed to this path, Chat’r supports and is a signatory to the Net Zero Carbon Events pledge, a United Nations supported industry initiative to address climate change. Chat’r is also a member of the Event Greening Forum (EGF) of South Africa. “The way forward for Chat’r is to work with a purpose, work with meaning. To work towards ensuring that all we do, for ourselves and on behalf of our clients, makes a difference and contributes positively to society — both the environment, in a sustainable way, and economically, with the objective to conserve the limited resources on our planet,” John added.

New eco design division launched Chat’r is proud to announce the launch of its new eco design exhibition stand design and build division, ECO-DESIGN powered by Xanita. With ECO-DESIGN, Chat’r has entered into a partnership with Xanita to design and build exhibition booths, branding and marketing material that places the sustainability of our planet at the forefront of our work. John said: “We are very excited about this new journey, and we look forward to making a real impact and difference to the future of the events industry in South Africa, and globally.

“We are sharing our new strategy because we want to show the industry that greening an event can be done. It’s not too difficult, you just need to be prepared to do things differently. We’ve also tried to be very transparent about the challenges which we – as an industry – face, while highlighting the solutions we choose — and the fact that there is always something you can do to mitigate these challenges and their impacts,” John added.

John said: “We are confident that our future is bright green! If you are ready to start doing things differently, and more sustainably, for your next event, conference or exhibition stand design or build, consider contacting us at hello@chatr.co.za.”

Chat’r clients can be assured of our commitment to professional events, delivered with integrity and accountability. Chat’r is a member of the following industry organisations, which hold us accountable to industry best practices:

Event Greening Forum (EGF), Southern African Association for the Conference Industry (SAACI), and Association of African Exhibition Organisers (AAXO). John was recently inducted into the Professional Conference Organisers Alliance (PCO Alliance) of South Africa, an industry association of professional conference organisers by invitation only. But don’t just take our word, here are a few testimonials from some of our clients, who we like to call our fans!

Jan Hutton — CEO, Australian Tourism Data Warehouse, previously CMO South African Tourism

“You take pride in your work, your creative concepts, and project managing each step, which gives SA Tourism great confidence in the end result. Your skills do not just fall into the ambit of events management; they also add immense strategic value at the origination stage, packed in brilliant creative execution. In a summary, you’ve been a preferred service provider, simply because you deliver — with great work, on budget and on time. It’s a rare pleasure to work with people you enjoy, people who share the same work ethic, are forward-thinking and understand our business needs.”

Cyril Sadike — Managing Director, Sadmon Projects and Consulting

“I would like to formally commend you on the excellent service that you and your team provided Sadmon Projects and Consulting/Department of Health. Your task was to come up with a concept, design the stand and build the South Africa stand for the International AIDS conference 2016. In my opinion, the level of dedication provided by you and your team exceeded expectation. We were very impressed with the level of professionalism and the willingness to go the extra mile to meet our deadline. Your availability to make last minute changes was appreciated. What impressed us most was how well your team worked to ensure that we got exactly what we had asked for and within the time we had stipulated.”

Melusi Khumalo — Regional Marketing Manager, Durban Tourism

“Thank you, Chat’r Xperience, for the excellent service that the company provided to Durban Tourism for the INDABA 2016. Chat’r was responsible for the entire concept, design, build and on-site maintenance of the Durban Tourism Stand. The stand was 250 square metres, as well as the aisle pillars alongside the exhibition stand. In my opinion, the level of service that Chat’r Xperience extended to Durban Tourism was far beyond our expectations. We were greatly impressed by the management and service by John Arvanitakis and his team of designers and on-site exhibition builders. In an era where exceptional service excellence is the norm in the industry, the work that this team did was an exceptional example for others to emulate. What is particularly impressive is the level of service provided by the director himself. John invested a lot of time preparing and planning for this to be a great success. This was the basis of efficiency to effectively meet and exceed our expectations.”

Anita Alves – Strategic Marketing Manager – First National Bank

“I have worked with John Arvanitakis and the Chat’r Xperience Team over a number of years and the team are all highly skilled, professional and tech savvy. John and his team have many years of experience within the events and experiential marketing industry and deliver high quality work.”

Ami Kotze – Group Project Director – IRL “Chat’r Xperience is a reputable events specialist company that I can highly recommend. Their service is of the highest quality, and they are always willing to assist, no matter the deadline or ask.”

Contact details

Email: hello@chatr.co.za Web: chatr.co.za