AI's Rise: Your Brand's Secret Weapon is Events!

Thank you all for being here with me today. As you heard, I'm the chief marketing officer for Cvent, and I'm just so honored and appreciative that you took the time to be here with us this week. And I hope you're having a really great time so far. How's it going? Okay, awesome. Okay, awesome. Everybody okay with the green? >> [laughter] >> It's a little green up in here. >> [gasps] >> Okay, awesome. Well, you saw Cvent's news story today, and I just want to show you what it means for those who are doing the work, because here's what I keep coming back to. Um AI can write anything now. We know that. Which means everything could sound the same, and the only thing that cuts through is trust. So that's where I want to start today. Here's the paradox that we're all living in. AI-made content AI-made content easier to produce easier to produce than it's ever been, but that's exactly the problem. Your audience is drowning in it. Drowning in it? Anyone? 30% of enterprise outbound is already AI-generated, up from 2% in 2022. And trust went the other way. Over half of consumers now distrust what AI search hands them. And when people sense AI wrote something, they trust it less. Every digital signal is easy to fake now. And your buyers know it. Our buyers know it. So they pull back. Does this resonate? Here's the strange part. The same wave of AI flooding that's happening in the market is making one thing more valuable than it's ever been. So I'm going to hold that thought, and I'm going to come back to what it is in a in a here. But let me back up and tell you

how I think about brand. It seems like an opportune moment for me to talk about that today. >> [laughter] >> [laughter] >> Because >> Because it matters. it matters. I've been building brands for three decades and three things are always true. I hope I'm not moving too much for y'all. Um first, brand is every interaction point. It's not a logo. It's not a campaign. It is the perception of your company or organization. It's the sum of every single touch. And the more consistent you are, the more it compounds. So getting that consistency across every interaction point is really really important. Um today, even with our new brand, we worked very hard to make sure every employee understood um how we represent Cvent, what are the do's and the don'ts, um making sure that we're every we're all on message and every bit of content that's going out is very consistent. And we also wanted to make sure as we built this new brand, that people experience a very consistent version of us at every interaction, whether they're on the phone with us, they're showing up at an event, etc. That really matters. And if you think about brands that you love versus brands that you maybe are not super loyal to, I guarantee you inconsistency is one of the pieces that is the problem for the brand that you don't love or you aren't loyal to. There's one coffee brand that I really love and they're very consistent every single time. And there's one super inconsistent. Depends what franchise I go to. So I don't usually choose that one.

Okay, second, familiarity beats awareness. So people can be aware of your brand, your company, your organization. They may have heard your name. But if they're not familiar with actually what you do, that's a problem. It's what turns into consideration, um this familiarity piece. So we think about brand awareness, familiarity, purchase consideration, you have to have that familiarity to get that purchase consideration. Now, for us at Cvent, just full transparency, I shared a little bit about that this morning, we did a global brand study when I first got here a year ago, and everybody knew about Cvent. Cvent, Cvent, Cvent, Cvent. We were very well known versus our competitors and um across the whole market, which is really great. But, when we started to ask questions about, "Well, do you know what we really do?" People were like, "Well, I know like this." And they only knew a a portion of what we did, and they couldn't really articulate that. So, what happens is that ends up making our jobs much harder, and it makes it more costly to run the business. Meaning, if our marketing teams and our sales teams have to spend a ton of time helping um prospects and customers understand what you offer, it's going to cost more. Whereas, if you have a really strong brand, that makes sure people are really familiar, then it's going to be, you know, a better ROI for you. And easier for your sales teams, they will love you. Okay, third, a brand is a promise that

you can actually back up. It's not the most clever thing that you can say. It's a real value proposition that you deliver on every single time. And I'll tell you, with our current brand that we just launched today, you know, when we started talking about this concept of performance, you know, I've been a nonprofit CMO, I've been a for-profit CMO, and we talked a lot about, well, whatever outcomes people are trying to get, we want to help them do that. That really resonates. And I remember thinking every single time that I am in a company or organization, I'm asked by my CFO, "Well, what's the ROI on that event spend? You spend a lot of money on events. Like, what do you get?" And in my earlier career days, I used to say things like, "Well, you know, loyalty and retention, and we get more business, and it helps with pipeline velocity." But, I couldn't prove it, right? And now I can, which is a good thing. But the truth is is that you have to be able to deliver on the promise. So, we spend a lot of time as a company talking about we can't just say that to our customers. It's going to change how we invest in product innovation. It's going to change how we do customer service. It's going to change how we communicate, which is why what's going to happen um just inside track for all of you watching today, you know, you're going to see us start to evolve in really special ways to continue to work toward um delivering that in a really powerful and consistent way. Okay. So, every interaction point, familiarity beats awareness, and then of course being able to deliver on that promise. And honestly, that's what a brand is all about. Okay? Not a logo, >> [laughter] >> not a color, a clear promise the proof that you can back up. That's the bet Cvent made, as I told you this morning. And you know, here's the turn. Brand has

always been treated like an afterthought. I've worked in so many companies where I It was very difficult for me to get brand investment dollars because it was a nice-to-have. Um but it but events and brand create a powerful growth story um and and brand is really central to what you do. So, if you can articulate that in a way that will um get everybody rallied around you in the company, get your investment secured, it'll be really powerful. And in an AI world, you know, brand is not optional anymore. It's the one differentiation lever that we have left. So, that's what a brand is. And let me show you what it does. I love this slide because this is this This is where brand gets dismissed, but people don't understand that all of these things are impacted by a strong brand. You know, they they treat a brand as soft, the logo, the look, the nice-to-have. It's not soft. It's one of the hardest business drivers that you have. So, strong, consistent brands, as I just said, grow revenue faster. Brand makes up nearly 20% of enterprise value on average. And for some companies more than half. 82% of investors weigh brand strength before they decide where to put their money. Companies with strong brands hold 46% more market share and they hold onto their customers longer. Revenue, valuation, investor confidence, market share, retention. That is not a vanity slide. Take a picture of it. It's a really important slide and that helps make the business case. I've used this a lot to convince people. Like this is why we need to be investing here. Brand, thought leadership. So, that's the P&L. So, here's the question that should sit with all of us today. If brand drives all of that that I just showed you, what would you expect it to be in terms of the line how much it's how much is funded in the line of marketing? It's actually the opposite.

It's the most under invested line in marketing. Why? Because the pre-funnel part part is so hard to attribute, it gets treated as a nice-to-have, like I just said earlier, and and it becomes waste. And the pressure we're all under makes it worse because the average marketing budget, 7.7% as you see here, down from 9.5% 3 years ago. And 59% of us say it's not enough and half are at 6% or less. So, we cut the thing that we easily can't measure. I get it. This is not the right way to think about it. It's totally backwards. A strong brand makes everything downstream more cost-effective. cost-effective. Like I said, demand gen spends less time explaining who you are, sales spends more time closing business and not trying to convince. And brand is not a tax on the funnel. It's what makes the funnel more efficient. Okay, so I think I've made my point here. So, how do you build a brand when you have a finite budget and a number to hit? By the way, can I just pause a minute? I just want to say, we talked a lot about pipeline, revenue, bookings, all of that this morning. I want to be really clear, if you are an association or a nonprofit in this audience, we're building this brand for you, too. You know, I pressure tested everything we worked on with this brand with my old nonprofit CMO hat, and I just want to let you know, we care about your membership, your donors, your fundraising dollars, all of that. Okay. So, you have a number to hit, you have an outcome to hit. Um let's talk about these channels that are really helpful from a brand perspective. Thought leadership, PR, awards and recognition, customer advocacy, customer advocacy, your own employees as ambassadors. You're seeing ours do that today. These things require thoughtfulness. And here's the thing. There's one asset that feeds every single one of them, and it's already sitting in your budget today.

Your events. Surprise, right? Surprise, right? >> [laughter] >> [laughter] >> Remember the paradox? Real humans and the most authentic comment content are right there. One thing AI is making more valuable, not less, this is it. You can't fake being in the room. You can't fake being in person with people or present online in a digital meeting. 80% of buyers say in person events are the most trusted channel there is, and 58% come mainly to connect, up from 39% in 2021. So, why spend extra money building a brand when your asset is right in front of you? I think that's good news. I think that's really good news, cuz if you think about how you can dial in events uh in a way that builds your brand, then you don't have to spend more money. So, events aren't just a top of funnel thing. Um they they um are at every interaction point. So, events are supposed to be across the entire journey. Flagship events, on the stage you're sitting in front of right now, that's how you attract, right? Field events convert with the highest intent signal there is, people who chose to show up. User groups and affinity groups deepen the customers you already have. I think user groups get often left out. It's a really, really important focus area. And advocacy gets captured live in the room where the enthusiasm actually happens. And most teams use events for that first one, that first column, and they leave the rest on the table. And every one of those moments is producing something you can't buy anywhere else. Do you know what it is? Authentic content. And this is where it compounds. One event, run well, becomes a quarter of content. Clips for social, fuel for your thought leadership, nurture for demand, stories for your advocates, lead-ins for your PR, materials your employees can share. The heavy lift already happens in the room. in the room. Re-purposing is the part AI is genuinely good at. That's how brand building gets cheap and fast at the same time. So, let me show you what I mean

>> Today's events have become one of the highest performing marketing channels. And in response, the best marketing teams have stopped treating Event Tech as just an operation tool. And now they're starting to treat it as a core part of their marketing staff. Event tech is mar tech. That's the next transformational shift. And together, we'll help you move your events from the cost column to the growth column. Because when you spend 34% of your budgets on events, this is exactly what CMOs and CFOs want to see. >> Okay. So, we recorded the stream. Y'all remember this one from this morning. I think most of you were there. All right. And since this morning, my team turned it into that. It's cut, captioned, ready to post. And that's how easy this has become for you and all of your teams. But here's the catch. Events are the biggest line in the offline budget and the least measured. That's why events and brands get cut first when the CFO comes looking. By the way, we're picking on the CFO a lot today. Did you notice that? Poor CFO. Our CFO, Kathy, she's so amazing. I love her. Um But they have an important job to do, right? The fix isn't to spend less. It's to measure what events deliver. The content, the relationships, the pipeline, the members, whatever the outcome is, right? Show that and events stop being a cost center that you defend. They become a growth engine that you direct. That's a boardroom conversation right there. Okay. Full transparency. Okay. Full transparency. As I told you when I came out, I'd been here about a year and we're building this exact motion ourselves. Our own event strategy now creates content at a speed that I've never had before, which is really exciting. So, if you take three things home today,

take these. Ready? You can take a picture if you want. One, brand is your most under invested asset and the only differentiator that AI cannot copy. So, don't treat it like a nice-to-have, okay? Two, Two, events are the most authentic, cost-effective way to build brand across the entire customer journey. So, be strategic about thinking of that whole journey through. Three, prove it. Three, prove it. Measurement is what moves brand and events out of the cost center column and into the boardroom. Okay, so Okay, so you ready? you ready? Has anybody given you homework yet? Homework, okay. Here's one move to make on Monday. Pick [snorts] your next event and plan the repurposing before the event, not after. Decide what brand assets the event's going to produce while the agenda is still being built. The marketers winning right now aren't producing more. They're building brand from the one place AI can't compete in. And they're proving it in the language the board funds. Now, Now, does this all make sense? Okay, so we have a fair amount of time right now for Q&A. So, what I would love to do is I'd love to bring out two people that I absolutely adore and respect who live this work every single day. Um the first is Kelly Tang, our head of marketer strategy. And uh she came to us as the CMO of Goldcast and it's just an honor to work with her. And the second And the second is Zach Napolitano and he's the director of product marketing at Cvent, focused on our marketer strategy. So, come on out, both of you. >> [applause] >> Hello. >> Hello. Hi. Hi. >> [music]

>> Okay, between the three of us, we'll come back here. come back here. Uh there's not much about events, content, and brand we can't get into here. So, I'd love to hear your questions. I think we're doing it in the app, is that right? >> questions, please do submit them in the app and then we'll bring them right up on the stage. I think we do have some questions. >> Great. Oh gosh, I didn't wear my glasses. Okay. Okay. We recently went through and this is from Megan. We recently went through a rebrand, too, but something we've always struggled with is that our customers know our products and solutions, not our brand and company. What are your recommendations or solutions for that? You want to take that one? >> I have a little bit of an anecdote from recently. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> [laughter] >> [laughter] >> We went to Hattie B's. >> We did. >> So, I was thinking about you and your your career Goldcast a little bit cuz we we went to um um Hattie B's together. Then when I was walking back to my hotel, I was listening to a podcast about basketball, something I do to unwind. And the interesting thing from there and it got me thinking about brand was they said, "The NBA is more profitable than it's ever been, but people don't watch the games." And I was like, that got me thinking about brand because I'm like, "It's such a narrative-driven league. People are always talking about things like, 'Hey, is LeBron better than Michael Jordan?' There's the narrative piece." Um Um and then there's that idea of familiarity Amy brought up and then I weirdly connected that to you at Goldcast. I came from Splash. We were competitors for a while. >> Don't we love that? >> Yeah. And And I didn't know a ton about your products, but the thing I always noticed was and I would tell people, "Goldcast has the best brand and they have the best events. I've never been to one of I was never able to go to an event cuz I I was a competitor, but the way you posted on social about them and the way you even designed the appearance of them and the the digital format stuck with me in such a way that I had that familiarity and anytime someone brought up Goldcast, I would go, "Incredible brand. The best events ever." >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So, I think there's something to that about like the storytelling the storytelling from a brand perspective you could do from your events across different channels, even the way you aligned yourself with different speakers who are relevant to your brand. That was a big part of what made me think about Goldcast in such a high regard was, "Wow, look at the people they're associated with. Look at the people they're bringing into these events. They do amazing events, yet I I'd never been to one." >> Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, Megan, I'll tell you, you know, a couple thoughts. Number one, yes, who you associate your brand with. So, if you build partnerships and strategic alliances where you're going to market together, you're going to have that brand lift and that immediate amplifier effect. That's one. Number two, definitely think about what your thought leadership net or hook is going to be in the market. That Think about what differentiates your company, but what is that idea or that concept that you can uniquely own, and then use that as a thought leadership net for the company brand, right? So, it's not always a call to action, right, to a piece of demand generation or to your products. And then thirdly, I would say that just I just caution people on building up um brands that don't put the company name in their in their product name. >> Mhm. >> Like we're Cvent X, Cvent Y. Why is that? Because we want to get that familiarity with our brand, want to get that consistent. It's also way more cost-effective versus building up little P&L brands with all these different names of different products and solutions. So, there are a couple things that come to mind. Um so, hopefully that's helpful. >> Well, I I do also think that the the brand hierarchy is important. So, if you do have a big cross-sell strategy when it comes to the different products and solutions, you want to make sure they ladder up to the larger brand narrative, so then you can cross-sell and enter that narrative with the different products and solutions. So, I think if there is some kind of architecture that needs to be systemically built and over time, you know, transferring brand equity from the product and solutions to the the parent brand and company. >> Okay, I like this question. How did you

execute a rebrand so quickly? Do you think a year was quick? Actually, I guess it is. Aw, thank you. Yeah, I I think some agencies were telling us it would take 2 years. I was like, I don't have 2 years. Sorry. >> [laughter] >> Um but how do we do it so quickly? The first thing that we did was got alignment as a leadership team on what problem we were trying to solve for. Because if you don't have alignment, you're going to have many, many, many cycles and iterations. So, we need to be really, really clear about the future of Cvent, the next generation of Cvent needs to represent these five things. We need to be clear about these five things, addressing these things. And then that was basically the brief for the entire project. And of course, we brought an agency partner in, Wolf Olins. They were incredible to help support us. And then we just had that alignment and we went from there. Um and for me, I've done about a dozen rebrands in my career. So, I know what corners you can cut and which ones you can't. Um but it's um it's a pretty special process, and I think we're going to spend some time maybe doing a little bit of a case study for the market, cuz a lot of people have already asked us, you know, how do you do this? How did you do the flip at an event? Um which is kind of cool. We were really excited about that. We had this whole mission control thing uh going on uh in the background. Um you know, signs are flipped, lights are flipped, banners are flipped. Cuz you know, the whole idea was that while you were in the keynote, the whole event was changing. And even around the world, our website, everything. So, that was pretty fun. So, we'll share more about that um as well. Okay. What did it take to rebrand this entire event in real time, both digitally and physically? How many people had to be at the ready? And how much of it could be scheduled to flip automatically? Okay, I love these questions. They're so interested in our rebrand. It makes me so happy cuz this is definitely my baby, our baby, right? Yeah, so we had you know, people were talking to me about you know, what are you going to do at Connect? Connect's going to be the moment. So people are just going to show up and see the new brand. I'm like, no. No, no, no, old brand and then we flip. People are like, really? Yes. And then we had one vendor that was like, we have an idea. How about a logo comes out of the floor in the middle of the keynote? And I was like, no one cares about our logo. They care about the promise we're making, right? This is not a launch of a, you know, new visual identity. So what we did was we thought about the flip specifically. If you notice when you got here, it was very modest Cvent brand. Our logo wasn't everywhere even though you had kind of the old looking feel. We were very intentional about panels and things like that that were printed. In some cases we swapped them out, but we actually spent less money this year on printed materials than we did last year because we did most of it digitally. We had some incredible digital partners that helped us which was great. So it became more of a digital flip and yes, the digital tools were set up with a schedule, you know, so they could kind of go live and then my team was walking through the event while you were in the keynote checking floor one, floor two, everything's good, everything's good. So that was pretty fun. But I did I did say to someone yesterday when they told me that they were on a schedule. I was like, it's on Central time, right? And they were like, actually it's on the time of the machine that pushes go and I was like, let's make sure that computer is not on Eastern time. That was kind of funny. Okay. We're considering a rebrand. Wait, I did I answer that question okay? Okay, just to make sure I covered it. But it was Um, me back up. So how many people were involved? Um There were probably at least 70 or 80 people that were on our core launch team that were in a Slack channel with us. Um, you know, um, the product has flipped, the website has flipped, and everybody had a role and a responsibility, and they knew what they were accountable for at what time with a whole run of show. But, there were hundreds of people that worked on the brand and our engineers, etc., throughout the entire project. Okay, we're considering a rebrand, but

one of our biggest concerns is preserving the recognition and trust we've built with our existing customers. How do you determine whether a brand needs a refresh versus a full rebrand? Gosh, it's such a good question. And I think it's really important, for sure, to understand what your customers need, which is why last year here at Connect, I personally sat down with dozens of customers to get their input. So, what are we doing well? What are we not doing well? What do you want to see us improve? And again, it wasn't just about the visual identity, it was about every interaction with us and our our solutions, etc. So, that kind of gave us a little bit of a guidepost to know how far we had to go on the spectrum. Um, and for us, um, we had a long discussion internally about evolution or revolution. And we probably could have done a nice sweet evolution, and y'all would have liked it, and it would have been pretty and beautiful, and, you know, everything would have been okay. But, for us, one of the reasons that we went bold to revolution and completely different is because we wanted to mark a moment where the industry knew we were making another pivot yet again for you, because we believe you deserve that from us. And we want you to hold yourselves and your technology partners to a really high standard, and we knew that if we kind of just eased into it, it wouldn't mark that moment. But, we wanted to be very declarative about, "No, this this is our commitment to you. This is our promise. Things are changing." Um, so, I think it really depends on what you're trying to accomplish. And John, if you want to ping me um on LinkedIn or something, I'd be happy to have a conversation with you to talk more on offline about that because it's a it's a nuanced conversation, but it starts with what your customers tell you first and then where you're going. Like where do you want to go as a company? What do you want to be known for? Okay, we talked a lot about convincing the CFO why events should remain part of our brand strategy, but how do you convince different parts of our corporate marketing organization to dedicate resources and time to promoting events? With that one? Yeah. Um so I think when you think about your marketing team and orchestrating any kind of execution of the campaign, every function has a a role to play. And so executing a brand strategy has layers to it. I think either there's the the top layer of the the actual awareness campaigns and programs and then there funnels down to like demand generation. So really making sure that you uh work cross-functionally to your sub-department teams to to cross-functionally make sure that you are partnered together to make sure every step of that customer journey because from that top funnel to that middle mid-funnel the it needs to it needs to have the same energy, same brand. It cannot feel fragmented. So that's where I really think that you really have to explain to your leadership um how this actually needs to come to life to be able to say, "I need more resources from other teams to help me get this through to the finish line." >> Yeah, and I think of a big theme from like getting a little bit more tactical with this going back to this morning was you know using the data from your programs to prove the value. And you could do that across the buyer journey like you were saying, Kelly. And hopefully like with that idea with AI and the signals we've always relied on clicks and downloads getting harder to trust, hopefully that's data you could bring into the conversation to do the conversations with the team and be like, "Hey, things that we were doing the last few years, that playbook's not working the way we used to. I think we can generate this much pipeline or this many leads or accelerate deals this much more by investing in these tactics." >> Yeah, I totally agree. I think that all is 100% spot on. And just helping people to understand what I was telling you earlier, right? Which is that you can't think about the event just during the event. It's before, during, and after. So, your corporate marketing team plays a huge role in the before and after. And if they don't understand that, that's a problem. Right? So, it's it's one connected team. And then if that doesn't work, speak their love language. If your PR team wants media impressions, tell them you're going to get more, you know? Uh speak their love language, but but they should really understand this this narrative as well. Okay. Event teams, brand teams, content teams, etc. Can all seem to be on different islands. How do you ensure they're together to drive the brand forward? Silos are so real across orgs. Thank you, Harrison. I should have mentioned everyone's name when they sent a question in. Okay. >> I feel like that's very like what I said about the cross-functional alignment. I think it really comes from the top down, really making sure that the leaders of these cross-functional teams are speaking to each other and talking to each other, making sure that they have their priorities aligned. If brand is a top priority on everyone's plate, then they should be talking about it with their teams and disseminate down to So, the silos should be broken if the communication up top is fluid. >> Mhm. Yeah, like just alignment on what are we trying to accomplish here? So, at the higher level, we're doing this campaign or this initiative to accomplish X, and all of us need to come together, and the plan includes events, the plan includes PR, the plan includes thought leadership, it great content, and everybody has a role. And in my organization, everybody has measurable goals. So, I don't like things loosey-goosey. I like when I really understand, okay, for this project, this is the role content marketing plays, this is the role the demand team plays, this is the role my thought leadership team plays, my brand team, etc. And here's what you're all accountable for, and they become almost like a virtual team that are running at that objective together. Okay, what advice do you have for

nonprofits that operate conference centers that can't always use traditional marketing tactics? How can we effectively promote our facility while staying aligned with our mission? I'm trying to think I wish I could ask this person a clarifying question about the traditional tactics that they can't use. I think that the best thing I can think of, and this person is welcome to ping me offline as well, cuz I really want to give you an answer for this one. I think for me, when I was in the nonprofit space, the piece that really became powerful was my volunteers, my advocates, my donors, all of those people who were um really connected with our organization and our brand, um and they were the ones helping tell the story through their channels and mediums. So, that might be one that I think about. Any other thoughts from the group? All right. Is it better to have more frequent small events per year events per year or less frequent larger events per year? >> I will say that we just recently released our trust report, and we There is a trend that says that Sorry, our trends report. There is a trend that says that people are doing smaller-scale events um more frequently and more often. Um Um Is it better though? I think that's a really tough framing of a question because better for what? Um I think you know, large events has its role to play if it aligns with your goals, but smaller events is also a great way to have really, really intimate connections with people like your customers, um people like your donors. Um so, I think it really depends on, you know, the framing of better. Uh but like what what is your goal? >> Yeah, I think um the smaller events definitely resonate with me for for that reason and that kind of that idea like you can really lean into personalization. It's a smaller group, so you can be really thoughtful about the experience you're creating and try to influence an outcome. Whereas the larger you get, it becomes a little bit more one-size-fits-all. And when you think about the way people consume content, like when you go into Netflix, like everything is curated to exactly what you're interested in. So, I think people want to bring their personal life content habits into their professional life, too, and be like, "Hey, this experience is built for me. It's with people that I want to connect with. I'm going to learn about things that are highly relevant to my job and make me better." So, I think that's the power in the the smaller events and like you were saying, Kelly, why a lot of businesses are starting to move in that direction. >> Okay. Do we have any more? Okay. >> Rachel, where's Rachel? She's the River Alliance. Hi. She asked if I have the new logo on my fingernail. No. I have the line work stripe on my fingernail because my head of corporate marketing told me if I made everything green, it would be really distracting in the keynote. So, she said, "Just do a little bit." Um but it's the lime. The line in our brand, the line work, represents, you know, room blueprints blueprint. So, there's the blueprint line on my hands. on my hands. >> [laughter] >> [laughter] [sighs] >> Oh, what? >> They zoomed in on your nails. >> Oh, gosh. >> [laughter] >> [laughter] >> Okay. There they are. >> To quote one of my favorite movies, Meet the Parents, geniuses choose green. >> What's funny is I was going to paint them white and then take it off and like have a whole brand reveal on my but I was like, I have I have too much to do this week. I'm so stressed out. I'm just wearing green. Okay. Tell me about event branding. When do you suggest an event have a standard event brand versus a brand that changes annually based on the location, etc. Sarah, great question. >> This is interesting cuz Amy, we were talking so much about consistency here. Is it okay to break consistency for certain types of events? >> Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think it just really depends on what you're trying to accomplish, right? If you are have a set of very different, unique audiences and purposes, you might have that abstract kind of stand-alone brand name. But um I also think that you have to just think about making sure that you if you are if your purpose is to attach it to your large company or organization brand, that you don't distance it too much. So, if you have that fun name, you can call it by like by Cvent, right? Or Cvent Connect, if you're going to do that. Um that's fine, but I think if you go and you call it something like um gather, right? And you don't associate it at all with your brand, you're not getting that brand equity. So, you if you're going to do that, you have to be really intentional. Um but you you'll see here, we've actually changed Connect doesn't have a lockup anymore. When I say lockup, it's like a logo kind of look and feel. It doesn't anymore. We're just saying Connect, that's the name of the event. We're typing it out really clean with the Cvent logo. Um so Um so yeah, I mean, have fun with it. Have fun with it. But make sure you tie your brand to it. That'd be my recommendation.

Okay. Um I work in a company with multiple branches divided into regions. It's very hard to keep so many field staff on brand. Any advice? Any advice? I've no idea what you're talking about. I've never experienced that in my career. >> [laughter] >> [laughter] >> Do you guys want to comment? Do you want to take that one? >> Go for it. >> Okay. So um Okay, there's the tactical answer and the strategic answer. I'll do the tactical answer first. It's really important that everybody is trained. And we also certify everybody. So we're certifying our team right now on how to talk about Cvent and how to make sure that we translate our value proposition through conversations. So it's not enough to be like, here's the guidelines. It's training and certification. And for some people it might mean, like for sellers, you have to to tell us we're going to video record you talking to us about the company because we want to make sure we have that very consistent version of ourselves. So I think making sure you do that obviously resources and communication, constant emphasis. But the strategic answer to the question I found is about making sure that people understand the why. Because if they don't understand the why, they're never going to give you their support. Oh, it's like a thing. It's a brand thing. No. No, the why is that we want to be the most successful company and organization possible. And studies show that the more consistent you are with the experience you deliver, the more profitable you are, the more productive you are, the more loyal your customers are, the longer you retain your employees. Remember all those stats I showed you earlier? So here's the deal, we all play a part in that story. It's up to all of us. So when you come work for this company, you are not an individual. You are an ambassador of that brand and as such that means that you carry that toolkit, you internalize that toolkit, and you exude that out in the market. So, our expectation is that all of you will come together and embrace this and rally. And you can do a lot of really fun inspiring things too to get them excited versus kind of the hammer the way I just was, you know, make it fun, but get them inspired, get them rallied around the why and then the what will follow better. >> Can I Can I share that Amy this morning hosted a pep rally right right here and that's how we all kind of amps up right before the keynote. And so I think those types of rituals like doing them frequently helps keep that brand DNA within those field staff. >> Mhm. You can do other things too like um have awards and recognition for the top brand ambassadors, hold people up and recognize the people who are doing it well. Uh if you really want to be dangerous, you could have a wall of shame. When it isn't done well, we're not going to show the name of who did this, but this is the implication of that. Uh so uh yeah, but I think the why is the biggest one. Other questions? Other questions? Our CEO and VP of marketing believe our brand speaks for itself. It is a challenge to get approvals to invest in our event marketing and implementing innovative things. Any advice? You want to take this one, Cal? >> This So, if I were in the situation, what I would do is I would go straight to my competitors and see how they are doing their own kind of brand investment because I think it if you're speaking to your CEO and your VP of marketing, you can show them where our competitors are winning and where we're losing. It's a very It's a very quick motivator to get action behind. >> Yeah, and just uh piggybacking on something Amy said earlier. You have to ask yourself a tough question, which is is our brand living up to the the promises of our audience? And if it's not, that's when you have to make some tough decisions. If if the brand the brand is way more than a logo or a slogan. It's a it's a promise to your audience about what they can achieve. So, that's the I think that's the the lens to look at look at it through. >> I'll also say this, not that in any way I'm accusing this company of doing this, but it just made me think about something I observed once when I was consulting before um you know, hubris is a dangerous thing. When you get overly when your confidence in your leading value proposition takes you to a place of cockiness, like we're untouchable, um that's a problem. So, when you feel like, you know, your brand speaks for itself, we have nothing left to do, you're wrong. You always have something to do. The market's getting more crowded every single day. More people are talking to your targets. So, you actually have to continue to differentiate yourself in a meaningful way and connect with your customers and prospects in new and meaningful ways. So, now you might say to me, the person

who wrote this question might say, well, great philosophy, but what do I actually do? Here's what I would do. I would show them the proof. of why events deliver outcomes that actually grow the business. Show them the implications of dialing back investment spend and what happens and show them examples, whether they're your own or if you don't have the investments, show them from other places, even studies online. We're launching a couple more in the next couple weeks um to show them, no, this is why we need to invest. And the other barrier that I've gotten to work in my career that break down is a great little phrase I like to use. How about we pilot it? I was in a company once and I really felt strongly we need to invest here. And my CFO was like, no. My C My CEO was torn. Felt like they were in the middle. And and they were like, no, we're not doing it. And I was like, how about this? Why don't you give me a little bit? I'll test it. And then if it doesn't work, you're right. We'll never talk about it again. But if it works, we're going to keep doing it and you're going to give me more. So, we made a deal, we tested it. Guess who was right? >> [sighs] [gasps] [gasps] >> Okay, any more? Advice on how you manage opinions disguised as feedback. We have a lot of field sales reps who think they're brand and marketing experts, which ends up turning strategies into committee projects. Mhm. Mhm. >> This is a This is a good question and I think a lot of marketers here would probably also identify with this. So, I I My My advice here is to stay really close with your sales partners because they are your partners. Take their feedback seriously, like really seriously, because they do speak to customers and prospects on a daily standpoint. You need to listen to them, but you're also the marketing expert. You should definitely lean into your own expertise. Make sure that you're making strategic decisions and not just taking feedback and taking feedback as decisions. So, making sure that you look at your feedback and looking back at your always mapping it back to your objective and strategy and seeing if it if it makes sense. Because I think that there's the challenge of always receiving feedback. It feels like we're working for sales and that's not a partnership anymore. >> Yeah, well said. Making them Making them feel heard goes a long way. Not suggesting that Maria you're not hearing your team out. >> Well, I got some amazing advice once in my career from a graphic designer who worked for me who was like, "You know what I don't like is when someone comes up to me and says, could you make that circle a square?" Cuz they don't know that that doesn't work. Um what that person said is, "What is the outcome you're trying to get? You tell me the outcome you want, the problem you're trying to solve for, and I'll tell you the how." I still quote that so much so much today. Of course, I listen when people give me feedback, but what I say is thank you so much for your feedback. Um let's just talk through what's driving that. What's the concern you have? What's the outcome you're going for? Here's the deal. Great feedback. How we get there, I'm going to ask you to trust us as the experts for what's best, but we'll work on that outcome. So. Okay, literally I'm watching this timer go down. So, I think we're out of time, right? Are we done? Okay. Um okay, well thank you Kelly and Zach so much. Um I thank all of you for spending this hour with us. Um here's a thought I want you to walk out with today. Again, AI leveled the playing field on everything that can be copied. Your brand's the one thing that can't be. You don't need a new budget to build it. You need the rooms you're already paying for and the proof to back it up. So, pick your next event, plan what it produces before it happens, and when you're I'm just not going to say CFO, when anyone comes looking, don't defend the line, show them the scorecard. Okay? Enjoy the rest of Connect. Thank you so much. >> [applause]