Photo by: Cristiano Betta

Smart brands are tackling Meetups to get targeted audience and generate buzz.

I already talked about using Meetups to target your audience and create relevant experiences. Last night Smirnoff provided me a case study and possibly a good review.

The London Bloggers Meetup is one of the most vibrant Meetups of the city. Andy Bargery manages it in an exceptional way.

A great mix of professionals, creative people and hobbyists gather monthly to exchange opinions about their passion.

Several brands have taken advantage of such great mix in the last months, to name a few Berocca and Stella Artois.

Last night Smirnoff displayed a great way to engage on a very personal level.

Apart from free drinks , which are obviously more than welcome, they introduced cocktail classes. The bartender customized the drink according to your blog and your persona.

The location was amazing and the PR agency did extremely well.

Smirnoff was very gentle and did not push the night or show a “do this/do that attitude”. The atmosphere and level of engagement raised to the roof.

Some bullet points for you to enjoy:

- Engage on a personal level
- Free drinks are cool but make me learn something
- Spoil me as an intelligent person and according to who I am
- Be gentle, don’t push the night
- Use Meetups to target opinion leaders, organizers are eager to get sponsors.

Vote: 8,5

Harvest Twestival was held on the 25th of September for the joy of 220 Twitter people. Here is a short review of the event.

Planning

You could definitely tell that the event was mostly planned via Twitter. I remember logging in on the official website 10 days before the event and there was only two sponsors there. As the event came closer and the community started to be interested, at least 6 more sponsors jumped on board. Impressive.

People

My question before the event was how do you actually make sure that there is a good mix of people attending the event? Will there be 14yrs old kids mixed with Social Media experts in their 50s?

This was the single aspect that impressed me the most. The mix was perfect, I could run into good business contacts, as well as in friends or funny people. The twitter community did definitely defined itself at the event as very energetic, full of great ideas and very sociable. Remarkable.

Location & Logistics

Location was the Doon, a trendy Trafalgar square club. @amandita managed everything smoothly. Free drinks were poured efficiently (maybe too efficiently in my case) and the premises served the purpose. Although some peeps were complaining about the music being to loud, there were areas in the back dedicated to talking with no noise whatsoever.

I think that the logistics really reflected the twitter environment. The “everyone section” where noise is obviously there, but also the “you and your friends” area where things are calmer and deeper talks take place. I suggest this formula for those willing to organize one. Successful.

Treats

Another plus was definitely the raffle (with money donated to charity) and really relevant prizes. Moo was on board and that is very cool if you like to be social. Yummy.

What I did not like

Nothing much, but obviously integrating twitter on a screen with live twits was a must and possibly we’ll see that at next editions. Details count.

Vote:8

P.S. If you don’t use twitter and do not have a clue of what I am talking about, start using it right now, improve your business and internet relationships and feel free to follow me.

Other reviews of the event (thanks Pudding relation for the list):

Pudding Relations
TechCrunch UK
Current TV
Diffusion PR
Huddle
Londonist
Sizemore
Benjamin Ellis
Social PRobiotic
One Size Fits One
Jazamatazz
Richard
This Is Now
Fake Plastic Noodles
The A to E
Toodlepip
Girl About Web

ad:tech London was not a great experience. One of the few things that worked for me was discovering Google exhibition space and merchandise. Completely spot on. Loved it.

Why did I love it? Let’s see.

Great area to experience the product. Consultants willing to help, private rooms for discussion.

While entering the Google University (a great name for a powerful concept), my Google bag was waiting there for me.

Presentation was great. The two presenters were professional, never boring and truly engaging. Google divided the sessions according to attendees’ confidence with the product and it resulted to be a great way to skim the audience, raising the relevance.

But let’s get to the bag of wonders.

You will definitely notice the relevance of the content of the bag. Apart from the brochures (I’d prefer a USB stick next time), I loved the notepad, the sticky notes and the pen. Without mentioning the Oyster Card holder. But also water and candies. Playful enough.

I have nothing against women dressed as porno-nurses, men in centurion costumes, masseuses and make up artists, CSI women detectives, Geishas, roulettes and black jack, which populated other stands. Nonetheless, a small voice inside of me is telling me that all of the above is like approaching me like an idiot, a person who needs the treat before the trick. So what’s the trick is my question?

What I loved about Google is that they approached me as an intelligent person, they shared knowledge, of course about their product, but still I gained something and it is not for my eyes or my shoulders but rather for my intelligence. This is a great way to engage, hats off!

If you are a regular, you should know by now I am not a fan of tradeshows. I am just back from ad:tech and the experience reinforced my feeling. Here is why.

This post starts a new category in the blog, reviews. I feel like it’s time to reward those who do well as well as share bad experiences for everyone to learn. Of course it is my sole opinion, but blogs are about this. I am sure this will remain between me and you anyway!

Queue

It’s ok to queue for an event, it means that a lot of people are attending. This becomes a bit of a pain in the neck when you have to do it under the rain (what? Rain in London? How come?). This gets even worse when the line of pre-registered people is half a mile long. But wait there is more. If you wanted to register on the spot you got to wait one fifth of the time. Wow what a great way to reward those who actually bothered to go on your website! Insulting…

Twitter

I started to twit about the event this morning. It was cool I found a lot people within my followers going to the event. Events in Twitter are marked by the # tag. I was twitting about going to #adtech or #ad:tech but the system did not recognize it (i.e. #adtech did not become a link). Update: Actually events are marked with # tag but do not become link. They become link when searched in twitter search.  Anyway they did not have any @adtech acccount, from where to send twits. That means that nobody registered a twitter account. I am not saying it is a must for every event, but what the hell! It is ad:TECH not ad:NEWSPAPER or ad:OLDMEDIA. I was expecting a live screen with twits about the event (great idea to implement at your next event) Update: to do that use Twittercamp. Web 1.0 …

Networking

I went there to network and meet interesting contacts. I did not care about stands and so forth. We can agree that most of us attend events just for what happens at buffets or for the interaction with peers, possibly to improve our business. I wasn’t actually looking for being exposed to sales people of products that, if in the business, you already know. Unfocused…

Credit to Orange for having a networking space, with free coffee, free beers, free lunch, tables and chairs.

The Environment and Sustainability

Miserable. I am very disappointed about this. The amount of paper used to give out useless leaflets which most of the time went directly to MIXED WASTE bins was ridiculous. Come on! There are tons of solutions out there to send your information via bluetooth or on a USB stick.

I was not provided an event guide upon registration, I would have loved to get that emailed this morning, instead of bothering about bringing that home (where I can recycle it). You cannot allow that if you are an event manager. You need to work out solutions for this issue. I remember attending a tradeshow for event planners a couple of month ago. 65% of companies exhibiting were about being sustainable. Shortsighted…

One good thing

The only service I liked was getting slides of attended sessions via email after your badge was scanned.

Vote: 4