It’s time to add the word “DIGICAL” – Digital + Physical to the conferences & events industry jargon. In the current era of COVID-19 and the unknown timeline for a safe & secured vaccine, the word ‘digical’ sums up where the industry is heading – marrying digital & physical attributes.
Aavii is a 17-year old conference planner & incentive travel planner which has crafted, designed, and executed events for some of the most admirable Fortune 500 companies. Some of our clients are not going to settle for a plain Zoom call and they are tired of bland webinars as these lack the virtual event experiences. Francis Cheong, The Muse & Group CEO of Aavii once mentioned “It is sometimes a mistake to get caught up on the technology aspect of virtual events”. Hence the need to connect the charms of virtual event experiences into a digital meeting i.e. to go “Digical”. Many platforms can fit a planner’s needs, but we believe what is more critical is the ability to change the audiences’ mindset so that the digital meeting feels like ‘an experience’ all by itself instead of a webinar.
Companies such as Canon Malaysia, Abbott Pharmaceuticals, Novo Nordisk and Manulife are some of the early adopters to the ‘digical’ concept and we are often asked - how do we keep digical participants engaged? First off, we recommend an entertaining yet engaging professional emcee. Much do we like to use an in-house talent; the results can be vehemently different. Next off, for a consumer marketing client, we brought in a singer with haunting voice as live-entertainment to keep the momentum, constant polling questions with live point-based interactive results were a huge hit among attendees. Just when you think there is nothing more, lucky draws and gifts are excellent attention grabber during a digical event and to top it all up, virtual best dressed contest with selfies are amongst the other unique fresh touches to keep our digical participants engaged and connected.
Going Digical is not a trend for us in Aavii, this is already a reality that we are experiencing.