Notts creative agency’s festival in a box twist on Zoom meetings is an instant hit

Added by Love Business East Midlands | 13 November 2020

UPDATED: 13 November 2020

A Nottinghamshire-based creative agency, Born Agency, has created a new festival in a box that has proved an instant hit with firms looking to liven up meetings and sales conferences held on Zoom.

Inspired by Glastonbury Festival, the EFest idea has been trialled by one of the Ollerton-based company’s clients, Ecophon, for more than 40 of its internal sales team – and Born Agency has now secured another order to roll it out to 100 of the Basingstoke-based company’s external contacts and key customers across the UK.

Creatives Shaun Cole and Ben Trafford were originally tasked with coming up with an innovative way to help Ecophon to create an online event to engage its staff, given that it couldn’t hold its annual internal sales conference in person – where it would usually launch new products and unveil innovations in existing ranges.

The idea of a delivery crammed full of all the things that festival-goers need ticked all the right boxes for the UK arm of Ecophon – a global company that develops, manufactures and markets acoustic panels, baffles and ceiling systems that contribute to a good working environment by enhancing people’s wellbeing and performance. It will be sharing the results of the campaign with the company’s European head office in Sweden. If it continues to be a success, the idea could be rolled out across Europe and beyond.

Born Agency co-founder Shaun Cole said that since the start of the pandemic, businesses have shifted to online meeting platforms, and, although they’ve been a godsend, there is a lot of Zoom fatigue.

“Online meeting fatigue has been compounded by the fact that many conferences and exhibits have been cancelled as a result of Covid-19, and it’s been a real challenge for businesses like Ecophon to engage staff and customers when they are all working from home,” said Shaun.

“We knew that Ecophon would have to use virtual meeting platforms to host its sales conference, but we decided to make it much more of an experience – and that’s where the inspiration from Glastonbury came in.”

In the run-up to EFest, new product teaser films, save-the-date requests and countdown emails were sent to staff. Festival tickets were also posted out to build the sense of anticipation.

Then, 24 hours before the event, each member of the Ecophon sales team received their own festival in a box, which was to be opened in unison at 10am on the day of the event.

The box contained a screen in the lid that played an introductory short film, a festival-style t-shirt, a lanyard, a wristband, a running order of the day with QR codes for all the ‘stage’ areas, water and a power pack for a smartphone.

During the day, Ecophon hosted different events on different Zoom stages to showcase new and improved products. Between each act, there were breakouts featuring music quizzes and short films to keep the crowd energised.

After the conference, Ecophon arranged for each member of the sales team to order festival food and drink, which were delivered to their homes.

Fellow Born Agency co-founder Ben Trafford said all the feedback from Ecophon has been really positive, and he is delighted this is potentially being rolled out further afield.

“As a creative agency, we were thrilled that Ecophon let us pick up the idea and run with it, and we had the freedom to think outside the box to encapsulate everything about a festival and create a festival in a box.”

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