meeting budget
By Nancy Mann Jackson

Take One: Working With a Production Company to Stage Your Meeting

More than 60 percent of PCMA members attend the association's annual meeting. Because many of those attendees aren't involved on a chapter level, the convention is their only touchpoint with the organization. When PCMA President and CEO Deborah Sexton realized those statistics, she determined "we needed to ratchet it up a notch. I decided it needed to be the most professional event we could possibly put on." While meeting services is certainly within PCMA's realm of expertise, "production itself is not something we do," Sexton said. "So we thought it could be helpful to go outside and work with a production partner, freeing up our team to focus on the education and logistics."

At PCMA's 2007 Annual Meeting in Toronto, the work of outside production company ProActive, in partnership with AVW-TELAV, shone through in general session staging, performances, behind-the-scenes general session management, and the awards luncheon. Whether or not attendees realized that a professional production company was behind the scenes at this year's meeting is irrelevant, Sexton said. "The point is for attendees to walk away and say, 'That was really well done,'" she said. "The goal is to ensure that we deliver a higher quality program than ever before."

While a production company might add sparkle to a longtime event, it might also offer assistance for launching new initiatives. At the American Marketing Association (AMA) meeting, organizers turned to an outside production company for help in developing and producing a brand-new event, Mplanet, which debuted in November 2006.

While staging and production is "not a skill set available on staff" at AMA, the association also needed help from a manpower perspective, according to Patricia Goodrich, AMA's senior director of professional development. "Launching Mplanet was a major initiative for us; we looked at it as an industry meeting within the marketing industry, which included the world's senior marketing executives, industry luminaries, and top academics," Goodrich said. "In terms of execution and meeting management, we didn't really have the bandwidth to add another program, as our staff puts on 80 other events each year."

After an in-depth screening and interview process with several production firms, AMA selected Minding Your Business Inc. (MYB) to help produce Mplanet. The MYB team worked with AMA for almost two years in developing and producing the premiere event, and the two organizations are already consulting about the next one.

Understanding the Options
While production companies have long been considered capable of adding flash and pizzazz to events, in many cases, they offer much more than smoke and mirrors. "Production companies are starting to have a new face; we're not just 'lights, camera, action' anymore," said Max Suzenaar, CEO of MYB. "We're trying to create full, well-rounded experiences and we do that by trying to understand an association's goals and who their audience is, and become part of their integrated strategy."

While many associations may turn to a production company at the last minute to help round out a meeting experience, most production companies are set up to be more of a long-term planning partner. "We try on the front end to get a good handle on the expectations and mindset of the audience and combine that with the association's goals," said Tony Lorenz, president of ProActive. "The opportunity that attendees have to learn makes an association meeting a critical place to be. As a partner, we feel a responsibility to deliver as powerful a message as possible."

To help develop that message, ProActive starts by creating a qualitative, Web-enabled survey, which is distributed to attendees and other stakeholders. Survey results are used to develop meeting objectives, which can then be used to develop content. While associations sometimes view their partnership with a production company as a one-time event, it can be much more effective as a long-term partnership, Lorenz said.

"Ideally, a production company can help [an organization] to continue its communications throughout the year with an intelligent communication plan," he said. "The conference is an anchor experience, but it goes on throughout the year to support the desired message."

In addition, ongoing communication with attendees can save you money by ensuring that your event budget is being spent most effectively. "An ongoing communications plan can save you money because you may be spending money on staging and lighting and other things that may not make sense," said Mike McCauley, ProActive's vice president, creative.

For instance, one ProActive client was accustomed to holding a large production-focused meeting and thought they were having problems with message retention; however, ProActive's surveys and communication revealed a different problem. "They were getting the message out but we found that attendees did not trust the organization and there were a lot of hurt feelings," McCauley said. "We told them to leave out the PowerPoint and establish a warmer, one-to-one communication model. They went from 37 percent message retention to 97 percent message retention. It's imperative to understand the mindset of the attendee, measure that against the objectives of the organization, and then come up with a plan."

Sharing the Load
For associations working with outside production companies for the first time, determining how to distribute labor can be a tricky issue. "It was an interesting experience to figure out how best to maximize the experience of the production company, and there was a learning curve involved in deciding what we should do versus what they should do," Sexton said. "But now that we've gone through it, we know exactly what we want them to focus on."

For PCMA's 2008 meeting in Seattle, ProActive (which was recently acquired by Freeman) will oversee the look of the meeting's marketing campaign, production of general sessions and general session speakers, allowing PCMA organizers to focus on the logistics, food and beverage, and the education to be delivered.

In AMA's case, the production company offered so many creative ideas and skill sets that its list of assigned tasks gradually grew longer and longer. "MYB provided production services, which included staging, audiovisual, and scenic décor props in session rooms and outside around the venue," Goodrich said. "They also provided meeting services, pre-registration and registration. And they did a number of other things that just kind of happened. Through our ongoing meetings, MYB offered a number of ideas and they had a very creative influence on marketing, a lot of impact on the content, and they got involved in staging panelists and preparing panelists, rehearsing all speakers on site, and they even had a hand in some of the speeches."

° Contributing Editor Nancy Mann Jackson is a freelance writer in Birmingham, Ala.

When to Hire a Production Company
Associations have a variety of reasons for looking to outside production companies for help with their meetings and events. According to Max Suzenaar, CEO of Minding Your Business Inc., most associations hire a production company when they want to:

• Create more value. For many associations, the annual meeting offers the greatest opportunity for enhancing the value of membership, and a production company may offer innovative ideas for creating those enhancements.
• Introduce something new. For instance, the American Marketing Association's brand-new event, Mplanet, launched in 2006 with help from an outside company.
• Benefit from an outside perspective. "Because we work with both associations and corporations, associations who work with us can get the benefit of new knowledge and interesting, cost-effective ways to ramp up the meeting experience and extend it with ongoing communication," Suzenaar said.

What to Look for in a Production Company
Before hiring a production partner, make sure you know what you're getting. Look for a firm that has:

• In-depth expertise. Check references, including talking with clients they may not have included on their reference list, said PCMA President and CEO Deborah Sexton.
• Understanding of your industry. "Associations are often committee-driven, with a different pace from corporations, so the production company should be comfortable working with that sort of leadership," said ProActive President Tony Lorenz.
• Chemistry. Find a firm that "gets" your objectives and your audience, and meshes well with your team, according to Patricia Goodrich, American Marketing Association's senior director of professional development. "This was the first time I've worked with a production company and it was a really good experience," she said. "I think that's because of the group we selected and how well we worked with them and they worked with us. From day one, they 'got' it; they keyed in on and focused on our 'strategicals,' what we were trying to accomplish and how they could help."