6 minute read
IoD Scotland's virtual awards
Virtual events are going from strength to strength. Here’s how IoD Scotland rose to the challenges posed by celebrating remotely.
BY ROB SMITH
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What important meeting with a new client is coming up. Or perhaps it’s an appraisal with your boss. Or your in-laws.
What should you wear? Business casual? A tie? A suit? Or just stick with the onesie you’ve been hanging out in since March?
It can be pretty difficult to judge the dress code when you’re sat in your spare room. What is connecting you to the other end of the webcam?
It is hard to think of an area of business which has been more affected by the new way of ‘meeting’ than events. Since the COVID-19 pandemic struck early last year, the industry has seen a wave of cancellations and downsizing.
Those special evenings of celebration had become just another Zoom call after a long day of Zoom calls. Standing out from the screen time was a big concern for the team organising the Institute of Directors Scotland’s 2020 Director of the Year awards.
“I know when it all started, meetings from kitchen tables were normal and happening everywhere but I was really keen to have the feel of an in-person event,” says Joyce Lamond, director of First City Events, who spent hours watching every kind of online event possible to get a feel of what worked and what didn’t.
The Director of the Year Awards (DoY), in which leaders from across Scotland are recognised across 21 categories, is one of two key events on the IoD calendar, the other being the annual twoday conference held at Gleneagles Hotel. The DoY campaign is split into three activity phases: shortlist announcement, the run up, and the night itself. COVID had a knock-on effect for each of these.
From early 2020 it had seemed clear that a delay was inevitable. Lamond and the team at Clark, who were providing PR support and social media support, were quick to start considering alternatives, bringing their timetable forward so they could consider all options thoroughly.
By early March, there was still no official guidance for the events industry and the team were unsure what route to take.
“We kept on going into April hoping that it would be an in-person event. But the judging took place in early April and from then it moved very swiftly to a virtual event,” recalled Lamond.
While the details and format of the virtual event were being worked out, the messaging around the changes needed to be just right.
Award ceremonies are a highlight of the year, and during the first national lockdown, taking away something to look forward to could have added to the general sense of doom and gloom.
Fortunately, the ‘all in this together’ spirit was on the rise in the country and the community was very understanding.
“There was a change in the way people were behaving around that time,” says Kirsten Paul, account director at Clark. “There was a lot more empathy and people were taking more care of each other and that came through here as well.”
SPONSORS
Attracting sponsors is a key part of running any event, and can be the difference between breaking even or making a loss. While the backers of the DoY were understanding of the special circumstances, the team were keen to give added value to both sponsors and finalists.
“When we knew that the event was going to at least be delayed we were keen not to lose momentum,” says Lamond. “Ordinarily we would have a six to eight week turnaround between the shortlist coming out and the awards taking place but that was extended to about four months.”
The extra time did not go to waste. The finalists in each category were asked to produce one minute videos sharing what it meant for them to be a finalist – sponsors were also invited to make videos, an added bonus that was not in the original agreement. These were then ‘drip fed’ per category over a number of weeks complementing the wider social activity that the IoD was doing as a membership organisation.
THE BIG NIGHT
While the social team at Clark were keeping up the awards’ momentum, Lamond used the extra time to develop a programme for the online event that would keep guests engaged.
To keep the feel of an in-person event that Lamond was aiming for, the team recreated the stage with host, BBC Scotland presenter Grant Stott, in a studio linked via the big screen to all 54 finalists via Zoom.
Now you’ve read the dreaded Z word, you might be thinking that the awards would have been little more than a virtual presentation – but you would be wrong. The feeling of being there was not just reserved for Stott, as Lamond explains: “The finalists had this lovely gift box delivered to their homes. There was a cocktail glass for their bespoke cocktail, a menu card which had all the ingredients for the dinner produced and prepared by an Edinburgh chef and shared via a masterclass video. There was a candle for ambience, biscuits with cheese, and even chocolates that complemented the cocktail. “It was the awards in a box.” While it caused the AV team a few sleepless nights, Stott was even able to interview the winners live – and while plenty of evening dress was on display, one winner couldn’t resist revealing it was the first time he’d collected an award in his socks.
All of this created a very social atmosphere, with the finalists chatting in the Zoom room and sharing pictures on social media of their dinners and cocktails – evening dress included.
“Our digital manager set up shop in the office and live-tweeted results, and encouraged people to share selfies from their homes of the dinners they had made, their tuxes and ball gowns,” said Paul. “Because it was virtual it just exploded. People wanted to show that they were engaged with this event.”
With congratulations flowing and selfies snapped, the awards trended in every city across Scotland for more than two hours, leaving the team ‘gobsmacked’.
Finalists and viewers took to Twitter to encourage and congratulate each other in ways that are not so easy when sat at different tables.
“People have been wanting good news,” said Paul. “One of the biggest things to have come out of the pandemic is that people are on each other’s side. They’ve got their back.”
The success of the event was reflected in the coverage. Despite the media environment being saturated with news about COVID, the event achieved 29 pieces of media coverage, comparable with years that had less packed news agendas.
The feedback from finalists was positive, with many saying how it has opened their eyes to what an online awards ceremony can achieve.
Whether awards are able to be in-person again this year or if we still are able to give acceptance speeches in our slippers, or perhaps some combination of the two, the lessons learned in the pandemic will surely present more opportunities for the events industry.
