Experiential Marketing Boom: Make Your Events More Impactful

[00:00:00] Tessa Burg: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Leader Generation brought to you by Mod Op. I’m your host, Tessa Burg, and today I am joined by Liz Holden. She is Mod Op’s EVP of Experiential and Events. We’re really excited about this conversation because experiential events is experiencing a dramatic boom that is projected to only continue in 2025, boomed by none other than the need to get together physically and the ability for technology and AI to personalize and make the experience more rich for attendees. Liz, thanks so much for joining us today.

[00:00:40] Liz Holden: Absolutely. So happy to be here.

[00:00:43] Tessa Burg: So you’re relatively new to the Mod Op family, and this podcast is for our clients, and I don’t know if a lot of our clients know, but Mod Op is one of the fastest and largest, or fastest growing and largest independent agencies in the country. And we recently acquired the agency that you led , and we were so excited.

[00:01:04] Tessa Burg: Like, it had been in the works for a year, thinking about, like, who’s going to be this right fit that’s going to help us really best of market services to events and experiential. So tell us a little bit about yourself, uh, where, where your agency started and your new role now at Mod Op.

[00:01:23] Liz Holden: Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I, um, have been working in events in some way, shape or form for pretty much, My entire career. Um, and a lot of different types of events. Um, everything from, you know, music festivals and large scale, uh, endurance based athletic fundraisers to huge galas to private events to experiential marketing and, um, most recently with image media and Corporate strategically driven business events.

[00:01:53] Liz Holden: Um, and so it’s been really interesting through that trajectory to see how technology has both evolved during that time and also, you know, really change the way that we experience not just events, but the industries that those are existing within. Um, and, you know, I, in particular, think back to my very first job out of college.

[00:02:14] Liz Holden: Um, was in the music industry and I’m going to date myself here because it was at the dawn of Napster and everybody was in a tizzy and you know, Tower Records had just closed and the music industry was dead and no one was ever gonna make music again and it was gonna be a disaster and um, it was a really interesting time to kind of be in that space um, and obviously now we look back and see that was 100 percent not true and in fact the music industry has flourished and everybody has their Spotify account and it’s really um, I think What we’re seeing now with AI is like another interesting kind of turning point in a very similar way and it’s, it’s really exciting to be exploring, like, what are the ways that that can come into play to elevate not just the events that we’re producing, but also driving the businesses that we’re serving.

[00:03:10] Tessa Burg: I love that comparison because had to have been a scary time. I mean, I will say I was on the other end where I was just like Napster super user. I’m like, this is amazing.

[00:03:19] Liz Holden: Oh, we all were! We, 100%! I mean, we were.

[00:03:24] Tessa Burg: It’s funny when you’re only in the consumer seat, you have zero sort of visibility into the disruption is having an industry. But even now, when we’re in the industry of marketing, that’s AI, we have to take ourselves out and put ourselves. The attendee in the customer consumer seat to really appreciate the what’s possible and, and what, what’s going to be next for marketing in general, but especially, so there’s a, I mean, I told you before we got on the call, I was just doing some research to try and quantify like where this growth and events is coming from and it’s really significant. I tested three different tools to get this research, but according to Bizaboo’s report pulled by Perplexity, the number of events grew by 52 percent in 2024, and large organizations of 1000 to 2499 employees hosted an average of 11 events, which was 112 percent increase. We also saw a lot more brands starting to show up physically in spaces doing activations were not necessarily tied to just selling a product and that this phenomenon.

[00:04:44] Tessa Burg: I mean, just like a hockey stick and people wanting to host events. What. What business objectives were driving this growth? And it’s not just, you know, 2023 to 2024. This trend started actually in the pandemic. People started experimenting with virtual and it just kept going. And now with pandemic restrictions lifted, you know, they must’ve been finding successes.

[00:05:12] Tessa Burg: So tell us a little bit about what’s been driving this growth.

[00:05:14] Liz Holden: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, so it’s interesting that you mentioned the pandemic because I do think that is actually Was such a crucible of a moment for our industry, and I had a pretty unique perspective. Actually, I joined image media in March of 2020, like, as the events industry was like, you know, so I have a, apparently I have a pattern for my storage. Um, anyhow, it was a really interesting moment, um, in that image media, in addition to having that focus on B2B and corporate events, um, has a really strong, uh, kind of background also in video and broadcasts, interactive technologies. So it was, like, I said at the time, I was like, you know, this is, I either have the best timing or the worst timing and only time will tell.

[00:06:09] Liz Holden: And it turned out to be the best timing. And, um, you know, we were really uniquely positioned to rise to that moment and create a lot of really interesting dynamic type of online experiences for our clients. That were helping them achieve real business objectives during that time. And actually what you saw with events in that pandemic is, you know, a lot of the private events fell away, a lot of the, the fun stuff, you know, um, but what persisted and what actually grew and what we saw was the business events, like the business still needed to get done.

[00:06:46] Liz Holden: You had people scattered all over needing to still drive business forward and connect and communicate and all the things that events are meant to do, which is create alignment, inform, inspire, change the way your people are thinking, what they’re doing, how they’re feeling. Um, and kind of creating that moment to bring people together.

[00:07:09] Liz Holden: So certainly during the pandemic that was enabled by technology and all the really interest of the boom that was necessitated in some of those event technologies and you just saw this explosion and like rapid acceleration of some of those technologies and and more importantly like an adoption of it and a realization of like the value of that.

[00:07:32] Liz Holden: Also it’s interesting you say that You know, the, the statistics are showing the increase in events. Part of me wonders if that’s also a factor of increased measurement. Because measurement has always been a real challenge in events. Um, it’s intangible, it’s in person. And before technology was woven into events in the way that it is so much more now, there wasn’t necessarily, like, no one was counting, you know?

[00:07:59] Liz Holden: Once you took everybody online, and you put them in these platforms, and you’re counting the data, and you’re measuring it, like, it’s a lot. So it’s a lot easier to track that and you’re seeing like there aren’t events that happen without that element for the most part now, right? Um, so yeah, it was a really time of tremendous growth and we saw that happening in the virtual space.

[00:08:20] Liz Holden: And then as we started coming out of the pandemic, what you saw is many workforces were still distributed, you really needed to, like, the, the, the culture of organizations had changed, right? And you needed to be bringing people back together. There was this, like, tremendous hunger for people to be, like, back in the room, back in that, like, visceral in person interaction.

[00:08:44] Liz Holden: Um, and so it came back with, like, a vengence. And there were elements of, and we, we talked about this a lot during the transition period of like, let’s not throw the baby out with bathwater because there were a lot of things. Strategies and techniques and technologies that were developed during the pandemic that are still like super relevant and useful.

[00:09:01] Liz Holden: And we can carry that forward into this live and hybrid. Kind of world that we’re in now.

[00:09:08] Tessa Burg: Yeah. And that’s why you and I are becoming best friends in parallel our agency during the pandemic built a platform to help facilitate distributed training and sales. And it’s interesting our platform, which now we call the enterprise transformation platform not die, but in fact has now gone on to have a life of its own the need to provide a service where people can get a more personalized experience from a past event after before and after the event is still there. And it was funny cause I hadn’t made that connection at the time, but. It’s that simple truth of you’re sitting at a corporate event, a leader is presenting, the information is usually awesome and inspirational, but you’re like taking notes rapidly. And then when you get to the office, you’re busy again. And what, know, one element of, uh, the platform allows you to do is ask questions, see what else is out there, pull some slides really quickly. It’s really bringing the events. the value of the events to pre and post measurement, like I’ve always enjoy showing clients the impact that it’s having on their staff and those continuous feedback loops that can inform the next event and what I’ve seen, I don’t know if you’ve seen this too, but then it starts, uh, leading to more webinars, like leading for two more virtual ways. To engage to keep the conversation going in manners that don’t require as much time or travel. Have you, is that something that I’ve seen clients like take advantage of as they begin to operationalize and really act on the data.

[00:10:57] Liz Holden: Yeah, absolutely. And I think we’re at kind of the nascent stages of that really coming to life in a, in a real way. Um, I would say second to the holy grail of measurement and ROI in events, the second holy grail has been that like the stickiness, the ongoing engagement, like how do you keep that learning and engagement happening?

[00:11:20] Liz Holden: Um, out in the, out in the real world, which is where you need it to be having the impact, right? And so, you know, historically the tools for that have been more like, you know, there’ll be a summary and a kind of a flow down packet that goes out and there’s some, maybe some recaps and a video or the, the PowerPoint decks are sent along, but …

[00:11:39] Tessa Burg: Yeah.

[00:11:39] Liz Holden: It’s, it’s too, the, the administrative and mental load of processing that for someone once they get back into their like everyday life, it’s like for most people.

[00:11:50] Liz Holden: Not realistic. It’s not actionable. So when we’re thinking about this, what I’m super excited about with the ETP. And I know we’re working really closely together. Our teams to kind of further evolve and refine that is like, how do you take that friction out of the experience in the actual event? So that there’s no barrier to engagement.

[00:12:10] Liz Holden: You’re making it as easy as humanly possible. You’re letting guests actually be there in the moment, focused on the content, the people, the conversations. And all of that, the note taking, and the where am I going, and what am I doing, and who should I talk to, and am I just gonna, like, randomly bump into the right person at the cocktail party and have the right conversation?

[00:12:31] Liz Holden: All of that can be enabled with some of these AI technologies that then packages that up, makes those insights actionable, and helps you, carries it for you back into your day to day life. And again, kind of just removes that friction and makes it, it’s the same way we think about all AI, right? It’s the automation of repetitive tasks.

[00:12:55] Liz Holden: So how do you take away all of that junk so you can focus on the higher value? Thinking and conversations and doing and connecting, which is really what events are all about.

[00:13:06] Tessa Burg: Yeah. I agree. I think it was like, you have an assistant right with you and you can kind of keep it in your pocket. So people know that you forgot where you’re supposed to go next or who the crap is this person I’m talking to. Um, yeah.

[00:13:21] Liz Holden: It’s no different than what we’re already doing in our, I mean, who isn’t talking to Siri or Alexa day in and day out, right? Like, we’re already doing it. We don’t think about it because it’s now so just, like, endemic to how we live our daily lives, but you’re not, we’re on the cusp of seeing that come to life within the context of events, and it’s something I know, you know, That was a big driver for us.

[00:13:46] Liz Holden: It’s like the excitement of being able to be a part of shaping that and driving it forward.

[00:13:50] Tessa Burg: Yeah, and there’s a lot of other really cool technology that’s emerging, that’s coming in to making that event, even. More sticky that we can connect to and I just wanted to, uh, give some airtime to that because I, I think events now are also much more enjoyable because they are more interactive. It’s not just go in, sit down.

[00:14:17] Tessa Burg: Like there’s a real cool factor with things with AR, AR and VR, um, wearable devices. You know, I think hologram technology seemed like super weird. And now that it’s accessible and can be. Yeah, it’s very cool. So tell me about what are some of, you know, outside of AI. What are some of the other technologies happening in that event space that are driving more engagement and more of that, really, rhe entertainment factor at the event.

[00:14:52] Liz Holden: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, I think first of all, one like guiding principles. For me and for us at Image Media, it has always been like you don’t want to have technology just for the sake of technology. Like it shouldn’t be a party trick. Like it should be something that is purposeful, that is enhancing the guest experience, that has like a purpose for being there.

[00:15:20] Liz Holden: So always still we’re going back to before we had any technology. And we’re starting from the place of like, what is it we’re trying to accomplish with this event? What is the experience we want the guests to be having? What do we want them to walk away doing, thinking, feeling? And then you build that technology and that environment and that experience around that, and you kind of put all those pieces together.

[00:15:41] Liz Holden: Um, so when we think about that, um, and how that drives engagement, I think there are a lot of technologies that are either removing friction again from the experience. So you think about there’s a lot of like super interesting, even Silly, again, I take the example of like these things already in our lives, right?

[00:16:03] Liz Holden: So you can, everybody has their AR tags, right? You’re probably putting in your luggage or your kid. So those, that same technology, motion tracking, can be used in a lot of super interesting ways, either from the attendee perspective of, you know, they’re walking through a space and there’s AR overlays coming into play that are able to kind of take them deeper into whatever that learning environment is and whatever they’re experiencing.

[00:16:33] Liz Holden: Um, those same RFID tags are tags, right? can go in a speaker’s pocket, for example, on stage, and you can have motion track cameras that are autonomous, that are able to track that movement, and that has all sorts of implications, both from like a cost effectiveness standpoint, but also from a production value standpoint, and more importantly, from like the speaker comfort level, like they can move more naturally, they can walk around, they don’t have to worry about being in the right place, they don’t have to sit there for all of the special blocking and whatever, it’s all Happening autonomously, and those are little things that do make a difference in the way that presentation comes across.

[00:17:14] Liz Holden: Um, you know, we’re looking a lot at these immersive technologies as well. So there’s, you know, spatial LEDs and it’s super interesting. It’s like, If you think about what would it be like to be in a 3D holographic environment, but you don’t need the goggles and you don’t need the things and you can be in that AR environment and immersed in it.

[00:17:33] Liz Holden: Naturally, I’m moving around and seeing that around you with others and experiencing it together also is super interesting. And you’re seeing that stop in a lot, actually, in the world of. So you see on music tours where they have the kind of budgets that can support the development of that kind of rely on the visual.

[00:17:54] Liz Holden: But when you think about taking that and applying those things that are happening on the world of culture, music, et cetera, to an event, you can bring those same technologies and use them again in service of a more. Strategic objective, right? You put a little more substance into it. Um, we also think about some of the sensory technologies that are out there.

[00:18:13] Liz Holden: So again, really thinking about kind of the whole environment and how people are experiencing that. There’s a lot of really cool, interesting things you can do with that. Um, you know, we’ve joked, joking, we haven’t done this yet, but I think we should. We’ve been like top succeeding, right? So like. You know, people fall asleep a little bit in that.

[00:18:30] Liz Holden: In some presentations it can get a little boring. So in the old days we used to turn the temperature way down in the ballroom to keep everybody awake, right? But what if there was like sensory input happening as part of the presentation and you’re feeling that and it’s, it’s helping you engage with the environment and information.

[00:18:45] Liz Holden: Um, and that you also see, I mean you see that like even at like Disney World, right? For, they’ve done it forever, they do it the best. Where you really, um. When you think about those more consumer facing experiences, where you’re trying to connect with brands and create an impression, like all of those are touch points and tools that we can be using that are super interesting.

[00:19:06] Tessa Burg: I think you said with AR and VR experiences like music and entertainment. Are really lean into that. I feel like they’re always leading, but where the technology is right now. And yes, it’s still an investment. Like B2B have a massive opportunity to really bring their more technical products to life in a different way.

[00:19:27] Tessa Burg: Like one of my favorite parts about working on B2B clients is hearing directly during the stakeholder calls with the engineers and hearing the origin story of how they got there.

[00:19:37] Liz Holden: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:19:39] Tessa Burg: Know, corporate events, maybe they could talk about IP, but it’s more, this allows you to get up close and personal to, you know, how different gears actually affect the heat within a big piece of machinery, introduce new technology, monitoring, where does that data go?

[00:19:58] Tessa Burg: How is it used? Like I think about like, you know, John Deere is basically a data company now, and all the amazing and cool applications that come out of that. And we have a number of manufacturing clients that make. All sorts of small but critical components and widgets. And it’s like, you can get right up in there. And if you are doing that with your sales team, and giving them that experience that’s like, totally unlike sitting there and doing a training, um, I just think that could be, you know, unreal. And,

[00:20:29] Liz Holden: Absoutely, and I mean, we’ve talked about it. We do a lot of work in the, you know, med tech space, for example, and even like, you know, how amazing would it be to have, you know, a live surgery that is being broadcast that has annotation overlaid. So you’re seeing exactly what I mean has so many implications, both from a training perspective for the actual surgeons themselves, for example, or the sales teams or a broader, you know, there’s just, it’s, it’s very, very cool.

[00:20:59] Liz Holden: It allows you to get in there and observe and interact with information in a way that is just so much deeper than what, even if you were there in person, you wouldn’t have that. Right.

[00:21:10] Tessa Burg: Right. And then when you pair that with the AI, you now can facilitate asking questions while that’s going on at the same time to their own personal assistant.

[00:21:20] Liz Holden: Exactly.

[00:21:21] Tessa Burg: We were saying before, you know, we think voice is highly underutilized. Like there’s an.

[00:21:26] Liz Holden: Absolutely. Yes.

[00:21:29] Tessa Burg: Have real conversations with the attendees in real time. And I think that sometimes when I go to event, I don’t talk to the speaker because I have to go to the next thing or because line for them with AI can, I can talk ish to the speaker. But what amazing feedback for the company to look at the questions that were asked for the speaker to look what was happening.

[00:21:56] Tessa Burg: And also it turns into something that can power your own ownable models that you can start to optimize your events against. And it becomes a, a very personal way for brands to continue to grow and differentiate from other brands, because no one brand to your point. When you go into the event, it’s all about that brand.

[00:22:16] Tessa Burg: It’s all about their objectives. You’re not just doing the same thing everywhere. I just feel like events and physical spaces and having that optimization and data all in one spot can just be so powerful to really elevate. You know, that entire brand experience in a really productive and growth oriented way.

[00:22:36] Liz Holden: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it’s interesting you mentioned that with, with voice and to be able to engage with the speaker, but even I was talking with a client yesterday about, you know, the surveys, but again, coming back to the Holy Grail of metrics and ROI, so big, you know, surveys are something that is used pretty universally, like most events have something they send out to attendees, you know, the response rate tends to be pretty low, like it’s, It’s again.

[00:23:01] Liz Holden: It’s the barrier. It’s like you’re back. It’s a thing. I have to log in and then I have to type and then I have to do the thing and I have to think about it and and people don’t do it, you know, or you get the people that do feel really, really strongly and maybe that skews the results a little bit.

[00:23:14] Liz Holden: You’re not getting a true sample of what the whole audience experience was, um, and so, you know, we were talking about like what Yeah. Yeah. Voice could be a really powerful tool there. Like, what if it’s something that’s activated as you walk out of the session and you can just speak your feedback right into the phone while it’s fresh in your head, while you’re in the moment, while you’re, you know, able to provide that feedback in a much more immediate way when you remove that barrier to that interaction and the transfer of information.

[00:23:46] Tessa Burg: Yeah, I. Think that the metrics and those ties are just so powerful. Oh man, Liz, we only have one more minute. So, this has been an awesome conversation. I feel like we have, we’re going to have to record another episode. So for listeners, there will be more because we still need to get into how consumer brands can make the most of these technologies and truly scale. Like physical events for themselves and get to get closer to their customers and personify and bring their brand to life. So we’re going to save that for another episode.

[00:24:20] Liz Holden: Absolutely.

[00:24:21] Tessa Burg: But for right now, if people want to get in touch with you, learn more about Mod Op’s experiential and events, uh, strategic business unit, where can they find you?

[00:24:31] Liz Holden: Yeah, absolutely. So LinkedIn is great. So Liz Holden. Liz A. Holden, I believe it is. And, uh, poor Liz Holden with no A is getting all sorts of strange messages.

[00:24:42] Tessa Burg: Oh, that’s funny. I love it.

[00:24:46] Liz Holden: She also runs marathons because I see her little stats and she’s much faster than me.

[00:24:52] Tessa Burg: Yeah. When my name is Tessa Frazier and there’s a Tessa Frazier who, um, did gymnastics and track and she was better at me than everything. I’m like, gosh, darn it.

[00:25:02] Liz Holden: Right? I know. I want to meet her someday.

[00:25:09] Tessa Burg: I want to thank you so much for being a guest today. We’re definitely going to talk to you again. This is a massive topic. And if you want to hear more episodes of Leader Generation, you can find them on Mod Op. com. That’s M O D O P. com. We’ll have the transcripts. There’s so much deep information this episode and you can hear from other thought leaders, uh, in and around the Mod Op community and until next time, thanks.

[00:25:35] Liz Holden: Thank you.