With the cancellation of Mobile World Congress 2020 and the possibility of many other major industry events being postponed or canceled, it has left many sponsors and tech companies stranded with their investments feeling wasted. When this happens, there are some easy wins for companies to create buzz around the big announcements that are now being thwarted by the cancellation of events.
Virtual Conference
Many of the larger participants of MWC like Nokia and Sony will be having virtual conferences to unveil their new products. This is a low-cost or no-cost tactic to drive interest and press coverage. Tech companies can use this to achieve results they were hoping for at the industry event. This allows the content created around the event to still be used in an evergreen way while still getting the message out.
Grassroots Community Event
There’s an opportunity to take a captured audience that would have attended the event and create a community event. A grassroots event could create buzz around the idea of the original event at a smaller scale. It’s important to remember that we’re a connected society and anyone can be reached at any time - so how can you capitalize on that to drum up buzz?
Social Campaign
Most of these events have social media companies attend so how can tech companies leverage those platforms? There is already an engaged audience on owned social channels. Using the live features of social media can create a short-form content piece about the larger announcement. This can feed into the overall campaign of the launch but is a quick, efficient medium to get the messaging without expending more funds.
When industry events this large get canceled, sponsors need to be agile in their planning to create buzz for their product launch, new marketing campaign, feature reveal or their desired end result for participating in the show. It’s important to remember that when circumstances are out of your control, to be adaptive and nimble in the situation and create an environment of collaboration with your team to ensure a successful event. Agile is one of our core values at Kite Hill.
Feel free to reach out if you have an urgent need following the cancelation of MWC or would like to learn more!
- Margot Sikorski, Event Manager