 |
Company: SAP AG
Event: Sapphire Now
Objectives: Demonstrate SAP AG is a leading-edge company. Increase the number of attendees inclined to buy its products.
Strategy: Change customer perception by adding an enhanced virtual version that provides the same content (including education sessions) as the live version of Sapphire Now. Use social media to foster community.
Tactics: Create a souped-up online component with social-media capabilities. Supply 24/7 access to event content for live and virtual attendees. Shorten educational sessions to suit modern attention spans. Recruit social-media ambassadors to create community.
Results: Convinced 78.5 percent of attendees that SAP is an innovative company. Drew 183 percent more attendees in 2010 than 2009. Persuaded 42 percent more attendees than 2009 to increase their likelihood of purchasing SAP products.
Creative Agencies: SAP AG, www.sap.com; Bright Street Studios; LMB Werbeagentur GmbH, www.lmb-gmbh.de; Code-DeCode; Red Thread Productions, www.redthreadproductions.com; Woo Art International Inc.,
www.wooart.com
Production Agencies: SAP AG,
www. sap.com; Eventrix AG, www.eventrix.ch; FMP Media Solutions Inc., www.fmpmedia.com; Freeman, www.freemanco.com; I4D Event Services Inc., i4devents.com; Lewis Pulse Inc., www.lewispulse.com; United Network Development (UND), www.u-n-d.net; Vcopious LLC, www.vcopious.com; VML Inc., www.vml.com
Budget: $10 million |
|
 n 2009, the future looked as bleak for SAP AG as an episode of "The Walking Dead." The recession's relentless scythe had finally reached the Walldorf, Germany-based maker of accounting, human-resources, and manufacturing software for businesses: The multinational company's revenues had slumped 8 percent from the year before, and total attendance at its 2009 user conference, Sapphire, slouched to 10,000 in-person attendees and another 8,000 logging into a watered-down version online. It was a tumble of nearly 18 percent from 2008, when Sapphire hosted 12,000 physical and 10,000 online attendees.
Ever since its first annual users' conference in 1989 - dubbed, with gem-like wit, Sapphire - SAP has used its events not just to thank users and introduce new products, but as a kind of Galapagan island on which to evolve and refine its products based on customer feedback. While just 180 people showed up for that inaugural event 22 years ago, the assemblage had climbed to more than 20,000 customers, partners, and IT personnel by the mid-2000s.
But by 2009, the mojo was gone. SAP was struggling with shrinking sales, tapering attendance at Sapphire, and the waning belief that the company's products could solve a business's problems. Surveys conducted during and after the Sapphire event in the last few years told SAP that clients wanted trailblazing technology not just in its products, but in its events as well. Other grumblings from clients and the press suggested SAP was, if not deaf to customers' desires, at least hard of hearing. "We had a sense that even with the virtual component of Sapphire, the event was missing the boat," says Scott Schenker, SAP's vice president of global events. "Social media was turning we-talk-you-listen messaging on its head. We had to adapt."
In the months to come, SAP adapted. In fact, it did so at a pace that would have made Darwin's head spin. Yet even with an ace team of 13 production and creative agencies supporting the company, it was the New York-based SAP marketing team's own planning and ingenuity that won it the top prize in EXHIBITOR Magazine's Corporate Event Awards competition, the 2011 Judges' Choice Award.
Changing it Up
But before Sapphire could even take the first step to that Super Bowl status, it received an unexpected boost. In February, just three months before Sapphire 2010 was scheduled to take place, SAP didn't renew CEO Leo Apotheker's contract. Out went the old boss; in came the new boss - or bosses, to be precise: The new co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hageman Snabe signaled that SAP would embark on a strategic, client-centric transformation in response to customers' demands for a more responsive company that was leading the technology pack.
Because the company felt Sapphire was so vital to its image and, as luck would have it, just a few weeks away, the event would be the main stage for SAP to showcase its born-again focus on the customer. "We saw the future of Sapphire being like the TED conference, where presentations last 17, maybe 18 minutes, attendees send out and digest information in 140-character Twitter bursts, and data is available 24/7," Schenker says.
Thus, the events team crafted a strategy straight out of "Extreme Makeover." First up for renovation was the event's name. It would be renamed Sapphire Now, implying a new beginning with an aura of urgency. Next, demonstrating SAP's worldwide reach, the event would be held on the same days in Frankfurt, Germany, not far from its corporate headquarters, and in Orlando, FL, near one of its U.S. locations. And SAP would employ a gamut of social-media tools, from Twitter and Facebook to YouTube and a microsite.
SAP also updated all of the conference session content, expanded the number of offerings, and shortened the classes' run time. And to extend its reach as far and wide as possible, SAP would add more cowbell to the virtual version of the event, making it a place where online attendees stood on equal footing with the in-person ones.
 The goals were as ambitious as the event's changes were dramatic. SAP wanted to achieve a combined live and virtual attendance of 50,000, surpass its 2009 lead total by 40 percent, and score a 35-percent increase in the number of attendees who would be more inclined to purchase SAP products as a result of attending Sapphire.
Six months before Sapphire Now opened, the company had begun a marketing blitz for the event. Starting in December 2009, SAP issued the first of nine separate rounds of e-mails to previous attendees and the 100,000-member Americas' SAP Users' Group (ASUG), among other current and potential customers. The sales team, meanwhile, pushed the event during customer meetings and through personalized invitations to clients. Later, SAP kicked off its efforts on Facebook and Twitter in early February 2010. SAP sagely used the forums to field questions about sessions, keynote presentations, logistics, and more.
While those who attended in person had to pay from $1,550 to $1,950, online attendees paid nothing. They could enjoy the majority of the content such as keynotes, sessions, microforums, and other campus presentations, while just a few offerings (including product demos) were not available virtually. It was a steroid shot in SAP's strategy that would hugely increase the event's reach.
Broadcast News
When attendees walked into the Orange County Convention Center and Messe Frankfurt on May 17, 2010, for the three-day Sapphire Now, they entered a setting comprising 300 exhibitors, 200 interactive demo stations, campus-like areas for educational sessions, and broadcast centers that looked like CNN headquarters on election night.
Dominating the floor in each location was a 2,400-square-foot broadcast center staffed by 44 full-time workers, including experienced news anchors. Transmitting in high-definition video to a trio of 18-by-60-foot screens positioned outside the broadcast centers, the respective anchors in Deutschland and the Sunshine State opened up each day with "Good Morning Frankfurt" or "Good Morning Orlando," highlighting that day's sessions, speakers, demos, and entertainment, accompanied by random scenes live or prerecorded from the show floor.
Keynote speeches by Virgin Group Ltd. CEO Sir Richard Branson in Frankfurt, or former vice president Al Gore and ex-secretary of state Colin Powell in Orlando, helped turn the centers' screens into must-see TV. Scattered throughout the day in both locations were 30-minute-long news-magazine-type shows, with guest journalists, SAP experts, IT analysts, economic forecasts, and roundtable discussions. SAP also beamed the broadcast to satellite events in a number of cities, including: Buenos Aires, Argentina; Bogotá, Colombia; and Tokyo, cultivating the sense of a truly global company.
 The real draw, however, was at eye level below the broadcast centers' screens. There, a 20-by-10-foot LCD interactive touchscreen offered guests a taste of what's known as "ambient findability," the ability to locate anyone or anything from anywhere at any time. Attendees could walk up to the screen and, with just a touch, expand any of the window-like segments of data that filled the electronic space, from real-time polls to event info, product demos, Twitter feeds, and much more. The sheer wow factor impressed Corporate Event Awards judges. "If I walk into this event and see this, I would feel like 'Whoa, SAP is a company I want to be associated with,'" said one judge.
Get Smart
Part of SAP's reimagining of its content strategy included the educational component. In 2009, attendees would have gone to 13 separate areas called "villages" for sessions lasting an hour. Like the educational sessions at most any event, the template for them was professor/student, with the given expert speaking to guests. Instead, in 2010, attendees in Frankfurt and Orlando entered any of four sections called "campuses," each with distinct presentation, discussion, and lounge spaces. While SAP had updated the curriculum to reflect new IT concerns such as sustainability issues and cloud computing, most sessions were condensed to appeal to modern attention spans and focus on key benefits rather than process and detail. Attendees in Orlando had a choice of nearly 500 content sessions (about 350 for those in Frankfurt). These sessions were offered in several formats, including 45-minute discussion panels, 30-minute keynotes; 20-minute presentations, and 30-minute microforums where up to 12 people could choose a topic to discuss.
Having observed attendees at previous Sapphires with a keen eye, SAP noticed how informal groups often coalesced around speakers after a session ended. It was during those moments, SAP felt, when info-hungry attendees tried to keep the session going, that bonds were truly Gorilla Glued between guests and speakers - and, by association, SAP. Now building in a way to augment this organic occurrence, SAP constructed several rooms in each campus where, following the 20-minute talks, the speakers and attendees could convene to keep the conversational ball rolling.
Impressive in its variety and elaborate in its flexibility, the pedagogy here wasn't that far removed from the days of the little red schoolhouse. But SAP graduated its educational sessions from "Little House on the Prairie" to "The Jetsons" with 10 touchscreen kiosks positioned near meeting rooms. Here, guests could download videos of sessions they may have missed. Or, if their interest in a product was piqued by a session, they could search for it on the kiosk, which could then direct them to "Knowledge Tables" and demo areas in the exhibition area, where experts were on hand to answer their in-depth queries. Guests could also surf the mobile-optimized Sapphire Now microsite (www.SapphireNow.com) and catch any session or activity they missed.
Virtually Successful
SAP had known for years that it needed to publicly demonstrate it was in the avant-garde, not among the also-rans of the IT industry. Seeing the digital handwriting on the wall in 2008, SAP added a virtual component to Sapphire. It was a shrewd, ahead-of-the-curve move that could only jumpstart attendance. While the 2008 and 2009 online efforts were baby steps in the right direction, virtual events still possess a less-than taint about them. To transform Sapphire into the coolest cyberworld since "Tron," SAP turned to Vcopious LLC a Conshohocken, PA-based software developer of virtual environments. "We were going to give attendees something they hadn't experienced before," says Ken Hayward, Vcopious' CEO.
What the company crafted was an environment as friendly, easy, and indispensable as an iPhone loaded with your favorite apps. Once attendees registered for the event, they accessed the online scheduler at the event's virtual site, and then picked their courses from one of four main tracks, such as civil engineering or aerospace. Once they loaded up on, say, "Reduce Access Risk and Lower Costs with SAP Business Objects Access Control" or "Value-Driven Apps Management: Production Support to Generate Business Value," they could also add entertainment, including live-streamed concerts. Then, the system stored the schedule in virtual attendees' Microsoft Outlook program. Once the event opened, Outlook notified them when their classes were about to begin or a speaker was about to address the crowd. All they had to do, then, was click on the link and a live video feed from that session or activity opened up on screen. What's more, all the various sessions from Orlando and Frankfurt - about 1,200 total - were recorded and stored on the Sapphire Now virtual site for almost a year.
Just as you used to scope out the kids in the lecture hall around you in college, Vcopious' virtual environment let attendees see the names of all the others attending each particular class. If you were looking for someone specific, however, you could search all online attendees for specific names, fields (e.g., database administration, perhaps, or software design), or even those hailing from a certain geographic area. Clicking on links in that individual's profile would whisk you to his or her LinkedIn or Facebook page.
 If you wanted to ask the session speaker a question, all you had to do was click a link, and the query would be sent to an on-the-ground moderator who would hand it to the presenter. Attendees online could rate each presentation and save ones they enjoyed to a personal playlist they could watch again later or e-mail to other guests. When they were done with a session, they could electronically mosey over to the virtual show floor, where about 90 percent of live exhibitors were represented via virtual exhibits. Here, visitors could access product info and ask questions. SAP also supplied a live helpline, in case guests experienced technical problems during their virtual-event visits.
The Social Network
Two months before Sapphire Now debuted, SAP began developing what it called its "social ambassador program." The idea behind it was to turn SAP personnel loose on the floors of the respective events to conduct interviews, solicit opinions, shoot videos, tweet, and post to a company-created blog. After recruiting two groups of six company staffers each for the Orlando and Frankfurt locations - a diverse group of IT staff and middle management - SAP's event team put them through a kind of social-media boot camp. Starting three weeks before the event, SAP familiarized the ambassadors with recording on Flip cameras the company supplied, posting to the microsite's blog, uploading videos to YouTube and the microsite, using hashtags on Twitter, and more. Last, each of the six staffers in both locations was assigned to ask attendees about one particular product or topic such as SAP Business Suite or SAP EcoHub, or simply the role of innovation in SAP's software.
Hitting the show floor in Orlando and Frankfurt, the
ambassadors fanned out, toting their Flip cams, grabbing passersby to chat amicably about their experience
at Sapphire Now. Two or more times each day, they posted commentaries,
tweeted their on-the-spot thoughts about the event using the #SapphireNow Twitter hashtag, and uploaded videos to YouTube. Once ambassadors completed a conversation with an attendee, they handed the guest a card printed with the event's Twitter hashtag and the microsite's URL. The social ambassadors also issued the interviewees 3-by-5-inch release forms.
Approved in advance by SAP's lawyers, the forms didn't resort to intestinal-length legal statements, however, but simply plain English that asked the participants for their approval to use the interviews' content.
In addition to the ambassadors, SAP also enlisted the aid of about 12 individuals from its user-group community. Calling them "social reporters," SAP asked them to roam the floor in Orlando and Frankfurt, and report on whatever most interested them by posting to their own blogs, uploading videos to YouTube, and tweeting.
The results belied the reporters and ambassadors' amateur standing: several hundred blog posts; 152 videos posted on YouTube and its microsite that garnered 15,506 views; and tweets that an outside auditing firm SAP hired estimates may have reached, directly and through retweets,
a potential audience of 1.5 million.
Many Happy Returns
"A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits," Henry Ford once said. "They will be embarrassingly large." SAP wasn't blushing, but its ROO - its "profits," if you will, in this context - from Sapphire Now would have impressed even the dour icon of the automotive age. Ambitiously hoping for 50,000 real and virtual attendees from the Frankfurt and Orlando venues combined, SAP drew in 51,000, with about 19,000 physical and 32,000 virtual. The result was 2 percent above its goal, and almost 183 percent more guests than the 2009 event attracted.
While the company is a firm believer in practicing omerta when it comes to revealing hard numbers, it is willing to report on how much the 2010 event exceeded 2009's results. Take lead generation, for example. With a sales cycle that can range from a few months to a year, SAP wanted to make sure it realized 40 percent more leads than it did in 2009. If that goal sounded like hubris in the days before the event began, it appeared almost humble after it ended, as SAP realized a 76-percent gain in leads. Dissatisfied with 2009's net promoter score (the number of those who would likely recommend the company to a friend or colleague), SAP aimed for a 5-percent jump from that year; instead, it leaped 12 percent. With the specter of 2009's revenue decline haunting SAP like Marley's ghost on Christmas Eve, the company wanted 35 percent of attendees to depart Sapphire Now with a greater inclination to either buy in general, buy sooner than they expected, or just be willing to buy its products, period, than 2009. Lofty as the 35-percent figure was, it wasn't nearly as towering an achievement as the 42-percent increase it ultimately scored as a result of the event.
Perhaps SAP's greatest success was represented in a metric that impacts its immediate future less than its long-term viability. As previously noted, customers' perception of SAP following Sapphire 2009 was that the company and its products were behind the curve, in much the same way that BlackBerry smart phones and PlayBook tablets seem like outdated abacuses compared to Apple products. But when polled at the close of Sapphire Now, 78.5 percent of attendees said that "SAP is an innovative company" was a very or extremely accurate statement. No wonder one judge, in awarding SAP the Judges' Choice Award, called the event "almost too good to be true." Sapphires may range in color from blue to pink to violet, but for SAP,
Sapphire Now is golden. E
|
