George P Johnson Experiential Marketing - Brand Experience of the Year

Company: George P Johnson Experiential Marketing, Auburn Hills, MI
Company Description: GPJ is the world's top event and experiential marketing agency. Every day, we create immersive experiences for brands with consumers at the center. Everything we do is designed to create and enhance brand devotion.
Nomination Category: Marketing Campaign Categories - Specialty
Nomination Sub Category: Brand Experience of the Year - Business-to-Business

Nomination Title: Cisco IMPACT FY21

Specify the date on which this campaign or program was launched: Monday, August 24th - Thursday, August 27th, 2020

Cisco IMPACT is the annual sales kick-off that has Cisco sellers and employees from 100 countries gathering together at the beginning of the fiscal year to celebrate the prior year’s achievements and receive updates on key corporate strategies and priorities for the new year. It is an immersive environment of training and networking that enables sellers to meet/exceed their personal sales goals for the upcoming year, where all the elements magnify Cisco’s impact on their customers' around the world.

In 2020, Cisco was faced with the challenge of pivoting the live delivery of seller enablement & marketing messaging to a digital experience that retained all the hallmarks of an engaging physical event. The result was a specifically designed digital experience and custom-built platform that hosted 20,000 global attendees in three different geo waves.

To ensure Cisco’s global messaging would resonate with each attendee, the platform was designed around an experience narrative that paired with their global priorities and sentiments. The narrative started with an analysis of the previous year’s audience and their behavioral trends. The audience data allowed us to distill the experience down into essential components and create engagement personas based on those traits and behaviors. This helped Cisco better understand how to effectively pivot in-person experiences to digital and still provide the same level of training, networking and education that attendees have come to expect. The end result was a completely custom-built platform that was designed specifically to provide attendees with a perfectly tailored individual end-to-end experience.

While 2020 wasn’t a normal iteration of the annual IMPACT program, Cisco was able to successfully adapt their in-person gathering into a fully digital, coveted experience. Despite the unexpected shift to digital and an impossibly short runway, the switch to digital provided its own set of original opportunities that allowed the program to deliver on its overall strategic objectives that increased seller effectiveness and drove meaningful seller engagement.

With those objectives in mind, the Cisco IMPACT experience design started with a deep-dive into how our attendees consumed content, engaged with the program, and networked with other sellers. These resulting Audience Personas and Attendee Journeys helped us better understand how to effectively pivot into a digital engagement while providing the same level of training, networking and education that attendees have come to expect. The end result was a completely custom-built platform that was designed to specifically provide attendees a perfectly tailored, unique end to end experience.

Each component of the digital platform was fully integrated to provide a seamless learning, networking and celebratory experience. The program rolled out over four days, allowing each GEO region to have a two-day “live” digital experience in their time zone. From exciting live Keynotes and simu-live sessions with Subject Matter Expert support Q&A, to a multitude of on-demand content such as interactive scrolling stories, easy to follow Demos and MasterClass-style videos - Cisco offered diverse learning and engagement opportunities to ensure all attendees had content they could engage with that meshed with their learning style.

One key ingredient behind the live Cisco IMPACT experience has always been the hands-on learning experience of The Hub. The physical showfloor of The Hub is where sellers fine-tune their knowledge, skills and tools they need to succeed. The challenge in 2020 was bringing that hands-on environment to the digital space while keeping the content fresh and captivating to stave off digital fatigue. To achieve that, Cisco offered multiple unique formats which ensured all attendees had engaging content that meshed with their learning style and was specifically designed to keep our IMPACT audience energized through the day in their remote offices. The result was a uniquely Cisco approach to the experience. Attendees came to realize the benefit of a digital-first program that maximized their experience and engagements with more content/sessions than they have been able to access in the past. The greater virtual access to tools and resources directly translated into an increased confidence in Cisco.

Annually, Cisco assesses the success of IMPACT against multiple key measurable objectives and sentiments. This year, results indicated that Cisco was able to successfully digitally deliver on the sales content and engagement. Over 90% of attendees indicated that they walked away from the program understanding Cisco’s strategy, objectives and priorities for the future and 85% walked away with a better understanding of Cisco's customer challenges. Additionally, seller effectiveness (experience improved ability to grow, accelerate, win business) and seller engagement (instilled pride/loyalty to Cisco) scores were hitting the mark at 80% on average.

We welcome you to review the Cisco Case Study video attached with our submission. We have also included motion images and pictures to showcase theirDynamic Cisco IMPACT Home Page,Global Keynotes, Session streaming in other regions,IMPACT For Good Annual Corporate Social Responsibility Program, and examples of gamification of engagement through a token system.