The Theme’s the Thing

As they arrived for the national sales meeting, each Toshiba American Business Solutions (TABS) dealer received a thick welcome packet – but this was no ordinary business meeting kit. On the spine the letters jumped out: FIELD OF DREAMS. The front cover screamed, “If you build it, they will come.” And it depicted a scorecard where TABS is clobbering the competition seven to zip (and to add insult, the box score indicates the competition has made two errors).

Welcome to a themed sales meeting, where 500 participants are instantly immersed in a metaphor about baseball – but also about enhanced selling. “Our dealers are all-stars, and we want to wow them,” says Anthony Codianni, director of training and dealer development for TABS.

“You have to be creative. You cannot just stand up and say, ‘Here are our new models.’ A meeting has to be experiential, and we want our people to anticipate our next meeting – to look forward to attending. So we are constantly raising our bar,” says Codianni. But the one constant with the dealer meetings Codianni puts on – and these are slick affairs – is that they are themed, usually around a Hollywood blockbuster (Field of Dreams to Wall Street). And invariably the meeting will deliver experiences that will stick in the heads of TABS dealers. “We’ve even brought them to the Top Gun flight school at Miramar,” says Codianni, who indicates it took him “about a year” to line up that visit. “We’re the only sales group that has ever met there.” But, he goes on, the work involved in crafting a stand-out, special meeting is worth it: “We’re giving our dealers an experience of Toshiba. Themes are a major tool for us. Our dealers often are talking about our meeting a few years later.”

Chew on that: if increased sales is the ultimate metric for judging how a meeting has succeeded, a softer but still potent yardstick is if it is memorable. When people say, “Were you at The Survivor meeting in Vegas” – and that meeting was in 2002 – this is the meeting equivalent of a homerun.

Nowadays, themed meetings are fast proliferating, and that’s a big change in the 2004 meetings landscape. For several years, meeting planners report, themed events were few and far between, probably because budgets were down and, points out meeting planner David Bloyd, “themes add a layer of expense” (for everything from fancy set decorations through paying for rights to use copyrighted music and scripts in a commercial setting). Another factor was that a solemn sobriety shaped meetings in the 2001–2003 time span, as companies tried to balance the need to hold events against a backdrop of terrorism, war and economic upheavals. But stay tuned, because amidst the optimism of 2004, “themed meetings are coming back in popularity,” says Rhonda Brewer, vice president, Maritz Travel Company.

Heidi Murray, director of convention services at the Omni Mandalay Hotel in Irving, TX, seconds that opinion: “Theme meetings went away after 9-11, but we suddenly are seeing more of them again.”

Exactly what’s reviving interest in themed meetings? “Themes add a layer of expense, but when they are done right they can increase participant buy-in and thereby increase the value of the meeting,” says Linda Ilsley, a meeting planner with Sterling Events. Themes, done right, grab participants viscerally and forcefully and pull them into a company’s messaging – messaging that the theme is intended to make highly memorable.

What’s in? What’s out? And do recognize that themed meetings carry a degree of risk in that every sales executive has a sharp memory of an elaborate, glitzy event that flopped loudly and painfully. Even a brief mention – “Let’s not do another M*A*S*H meeting” – sometimes is enough to provoke laughter from attendees who remember an experience that seemed a ludicrous, laughable waste of money. A bad conventional meeting usually is simply boring. But a bad themed meeting can be so much worse. This is understandable, however, because there’s also a brighter upside: themed meetings done well stay in peoples’ memories for many, many years.

But good news is that “sales groups, particularly, get into themes,” says Kay Barker, co-founder of event planning firm MBK Associates. More introverted crowds – marketing analysts, HR experts – sometimes stumble when they are asked to slip into publicly pretending that they are experiencing a real-life version of The Matrix or Survivor. Not to worry with sales execs, says Barker, because they readily plunge into the theatricality. “Sales groups are good audiences for well-selected themes.”

Such as? A key question in putting on a themed meeting is do you go for pure originality – a new, custom script and concept – or do you take an existing concept and tailor it to your specific needs and circumstances? Don’t be too quick to voice strong support for one side or the other, because highly successful meetings can be created from either point of view. Read on for for-instances.

Reload This

Case in point of taking a well-known theme and putting it to use: Polaroid’s “Matrix Reloaded” event in January 2004, a sales meeting put on for 200 and planned by Massachusetts event organizer Cramer. Once a cornerstone brand emblematic of American technological ingenuity, Polaroid had hit hard times in recent years – it filed for bankruptcy in 2001 – but with a new CEO, new marketing vision, and new financial support, the company’s early 2004 meeting was planned as a kickoff into a bright, new future. “We picked ‘Reloaded’ because it had meaning on many levels,” says Alex Frisbie, a Cramer vice president. Of course “you reload your camera,” says Frisbie, but in some respects the company too wanted to be perceived by its sales force as “reloaded.”

A key to any themed event is immediately immersing the participants into the theme, and Polaroid did this by opening with a three and one-half minute video where vice president of sales Bob Gregerson goes to consult “the oracle,” who was portrayed by a much beloved Polaroid security guard. (“He was nervous but he did a great job,” says Frisbie about the security guard, who as a long-term employee helped to convey a sense of continuity, a memory of the greatness that was Polaroid.)

The VP wants the oracle to reveal the secrets that will unlock future successes, and after hemming and hawing, the truth is revealed: “Bob, you had it within you all along,” the oracle finally tells the VP. But before that moment, in mid-video, in a technical tour de force, the real Gregerson walked on stage and solicited a show of support from his sales team. Then in a raucous closing scene, the group Outkast’s “Hey Ya” blared out – and included in the lyrics is a mention of Polaroid, a quick way to establish that Polaroid remains trendy, hip.

Add in the futuristic imagery implied by the Matrix movie franchise, and the consistent message handed out to participants was “This is still a forward-looking company that is winning wide notice for its futuristic approach to photography in particular and sales in general.”

A clear goal was to pump up the sales force – to invigorate them with feelings that working for Polaroid is a smart career choice – and at every juncture, by creative use of Matrix elements (set decorations, allusions to the movie, and so forth) the implicit tie-in of Polaroid with a monstrously successful film was made stronger.

Bottom line: While Matrix-themed meetings probably have been maxed out by now, for a company such as Polaroid that wanted to make a forceful presentation of a new image, a new corporate attitude, the “Matrix: Reloaded” theme hit exactly the right notes, says Frisbie.

Something New

You were hoping for something more resolutely original? That’s what California meeting planner Lori Cahill’s client requested for its recent national sales meeting for around 1,000 reps. A handheld computer company (Cahill’s contract requires confidentiality and so she won’t reveal the name), this business had been increasing both sales and market share even in the depths of the recession. But as the economy lifted, it wanted to get out a message Cahill calls “daunting.” The meeting’s theme: Expect More, Deliver More, and the bottom-line take-away for reps was that customers now expected more and the only way to keep them was to deliver more.

Hardly a joyous message – but Cahill cleverly concocted a meeting around “adventure themes,” she says. In the center of the stage as reps filed in, there was a treasure chest, a mystery box sitting in sand and with light coming out of it. “Everybody saw something different,” she relates. Some saw this motif as an echo of The Matrix, others of Pirates of the Caribbean, old-timers might have remembered the Indiana Jones films. Any were fine because, in moment after moment, the company hammered home the notion that to win in 2004, reps have to be resourceful and risk-taking.

But the themes came together in a five-minute film where the senior VP of sales, dressed in an Indiana Jones-type costume, meets with a soothsayer (an oracle perhaps) who gives him a map that reveals how to find a treasure – and up until then, the film was in a sepia tone. Then, as it came to a close, it shifted into full color and, suddenly, the screen was filled with images of reps, VARs, and other channel partners. “The message was clear, we cannot do it without you,” says Cahill.

Themes continued into evening activities. For one dinner, the set was straight from Indiana Jones, with lots of Egyptian elements. For another dinner, it was Pirate Night, with free-flowing rum punch. For the last night, there was Club Reality, a nightclub décor where participants acted out “World Idol,” a karaoke-type singing contest.

Add it up and, in every moment of this three and one-half day meeting, sales reps were reminded that there are rewards and treasures to be had, but the competitive world is packed with dangers and only the bold will prosper – only they will successfully deliver the higher standards customers now demand.

A danger with any theme is that, over the course of several days, it can grow stale – but Cahill’s approach sidesteps that worry by interweaving bits borrowed from a medley of popular culture staples. And each element helped support the overarching theme that this is a time, not to rest on past triumphs, but for grabbing new treasures.

Still More out There

Want to dig deeper into possible themes? Meeting planners midway into 2004 are exuding creativity as they work to deliver events that are both fresh and memorable, and while the “anything goes” philosophy of 1999 is just history, meetings are beginning to come together with genuine thematic pizzazz. Here’s a sampling of ideas that top event organizers say are delivering the goods to today’s more cynical and skeptical audiences.

Tailor it to the town. A message conveyed by many meeting organizers is that, sometimes, the destination is the key that unlocks the perfect theme for a meeting. “Different themes suit different destinations,” says Paula Green, assistant director of conference services at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth in Montreal. She offers a case in point: “Our John and Yoko suite has inspired many hippie-themed meetings.” Turns out the couple held a “bed-in” to promote peace in suite 1742 from May 26 to June 2, 1969, and on June 1 they broadcast a song John had just written to a global audience. That song was “Give Peace a Chance,” and right there the hotel won a spot in pop history. Nowadays, says Green, business audiences are rediscovering this past with hippie-themed receptions and meetings – where the thematic take-away revolves around risk-taking and seeing the world through different eyes (a lesson reinforced simply by being in the biggest French-speaking city outside of France).

More broadly: a Hawaiian luau probably will flop in Boston; a Motown party will fizzle in Birmingham, AL; and a “Sex and the City” event won’t fly in Fargo. But set those events in Honolulu, Detroit and Manhattan, and this is a no-brainer fast track to meeting relevance. Let the destination help dictate the theme and you are halfway to success.

Reach for the unexpected. When attendees arrived at the Cheyenne Mountain Resort in Colorado Springs, probably most came with more than a few trepidations. In a session themed around Into Thin Air, there came a moment called “blame it on the altitude,” where every attendee was expected to reveal exactly three embarrassing personal moments that nobody in the room was likely to have ever guessed. “I blew a sale” wouldn’t cut it. “I blew that sale because I’d gained 15 pounds, and standing before the client I split my pants and was half-naked” – well, that would meet the standard. For one revelation. Come up with two more before expecting to be set free.

Does that have you hyperventilating? Around 200 meeting attendees were put through exactly that scenario, recalls the Cheyenne Mountain Resort’s events planning manager Renee Laurie. “This was a ‘getting to know you’ event,” says Laurie – and, for sure, participants got to know a lot they had never imagined.

Was this just torture – or was there a business purpose? Remember the theme. The event’s highlight was a speech by best-selling author Jon Krakauer, who told the audience how he had persevered in the face of terrible adversity and managed to summit Mt. Everest (on which adventure his book Into Thin Air is based). The poignant and palpable message for any sales group: No matter how bad it is, stick to the plan, keep your eyes on the goal, and probably you will get there – even if there are a few embarrassing stumbles along the way.

The broader point: force participants out of their comfort zones and positive results may follow. But do this carefully, sensitively – because when done clumsily, these kinds of meetings quickly win enshrinement among the world’s worst meetings.

Unlocking tomorrow. If there’s one key to a winning theme it’s that salespeople love competition – at least that’s the thought of Centra, a Massachusetts software company that themed its January national sales meeting for 200+ reps around “the keys to winning.” Presentations revolved around selling fundamentals, and a guiding Centra meeting philosophy is “we want to keep it simple, understandable,” says events director Ellen Slaby. How to keep the audience engaged as presenter after presenter offered up more keys for successful selling? Centra chose to make the abstract concrete – engaged, creative audience members won keys. “If you asked a good question you won a key. If you answered a question, you won a key. Every presenter had a pile of keys to distribute,” says Slaby.

What did the keys unlock? Cool gifts. “Winners could try to open certain locks and when the key worked, they won a gift item – a DVD player, a digital camera, the kinds of gifts they want,” says Slaby. Even better, of course, the winner also won bragging rights.

Centra, too, is bragging that for an outlay of under $3,000 in gifts, the company crafted a meeting theme that hit a home run. “We’ve surveyed the sales force, and they told us they very much liked the keys contest,” says Slaby.

More broadly: even inexpensive themes can work. Huge budgets aren’t a requirement for concocting a compelling themed meeting – particularly when a competition is central to the meeting. Top salespeople like competing, and savvy planners often build in at least some opportunities to engage sales reps in a toe-to-toe, mano a mano where winners walk away with goodies chosen to appeal to this specific sales group. What about the losers? They hopefully walk away with a determination to win next time.

How do you know when a theme is the right one for your group? Of course, keep alert to popular culture – what are the films, books and songs that your sales force identifies as trendy, important? Don’t just guess, however. “Survey your participants beforehand,” urges Kay Barker. “Find out the themes that excite them.”

By all means, use focus groups to explore the suitability of themes – but also keep in mind that when the meeting actually occurs six to 12 months later, today’s hot theme may seem an embarrassment. Reality TV shows have been particularly popular among meeting planners in recent years – but once a reality show fades from popularity, it is forgotten, period. Doing this right involves thinking ahead about changing tastes.

But don’t quit when the best theme is selected. “Start hyping this event months in advance,” suggests Barker. Use email, Web pages, and the other marketing tools to stoke heady anticipation for the meeting. Build up the theme and its relevance to the company’s current condition with a stream of targeted messages.

Do all that and, for sure, “this will be a meeting that succeeds,” says Barker. How could it not? You’ve taken the audience’s pulse, chosen a theme that revs their engines and methodically pumped them up in the months before the meeting. And then it’s show time – with a show this audience is certain to applaud.