CrowdComms sat down with Glasshouse Fragrances’ Education & Training Manager, Angie Mercer, to talk about what made the virtual launch a huge success.
The Client: Glasshouse Fragrances
Creators of exquisite and transformative scents, Glasshouse Fragrances started in 2006 and has grown to become a leading fragrance brand in Australia. Their extensive product range includes candles and diffusers, eau de parfum, body and bath, plus limited editions such as the Christmas collection.
The Event: Launch of a New Eau du Parfum
Originally planned as an in-person event, the launch would introduce a brand-new eau du parfum to Glasshouse retailers and resellers. The launch would also include the unveiling of 14ml fragrances in full-sized bottles, plus a fragrance masterclass to outline key notes, tones and overall scent experience. However, as Angie explains, the global pandemic forced a change of plan,
“We wanted the in-person event to be a glamorous fragrance launch evening where people could mingle, drink Champagne and of course smell the fragrances. But obviously with COVID things changed, and we moved it to an online event with CrowdComms.”
The Event Aim: Overcoming the Sensory Barrier
While providing an effective way to ensure the launch could still go-ahead, moving the event online created an immediate challenge: how could launch attendees experience the fragrances, especially a scent that was brand-new?
In response, Angie created a smart experiential solution to connect attendees with each fragrance,
“We sent out little packs containing samples of all 8 fragrances out in advance. The packs included spray cards so that people could follow the launch online and complete the masterclass in the comfort of their own home.”
Key Takeaways:
Think about smart ways to connect online event attendees to the physical event experience
These can often be novel experiences that will help attendees engage with the event content
The Content: A Flexible Mix
Not only did Angie create a clever solution to blend the scent experience with the virtual broadcast, she also discovered that CrowdComm’s ability to deliver a seamless mix of live and recorded content had plenty of additional benefits,
“I was able to pre-record the event which meant I could include our New York based CEO and founder, Nicole Eckels. Usually, the time difference means if I want to run a live masterclass in Australia in the evening, that’s 4am for Nicole – obviously I can’t have her at an event at that hour! I was therefore able to record footage in the morning with Nicole, myself and beauty journalist, Gemma Watts. Our video editors then edited the content so we could have Nicole talking about the perfumer or the bottle designer at our event.”
In addition to Nicole’s presence, Angie was able to boost the brand messaging via powerful visuals and effective in-event messaging,
“Although attendees couldn’t physically hold the bottles at the training event, we were able to include incredible footage and brand assets, including beautiful CGI footage of the bottle.
As a trainer, my priority is obviously the training message. So, when I’m talking about the fragrance, the key notes, the perfumer, and the key words we use, I was able to add those wordings as captions to put into the video in post-edit. That created a really strong training message in a tight and polished and edited video before we streamed it at 6pm on the evening of the event.”
Key takeaways:
Utilise pre-recorded content to solve logistical challenges or boost visual and audio messaging
Underline key detail with on-screen captioning
The Attendees: Engagement and Experience
A need to understand attendee engagement at a micro level means analytics are incredibly important to Angie. Drawing on CrowdComms’ extensive event platform data meant Angie could quickly assess whether the launch was a success,
“The attendance was fantastic, we had great output. People registered really quickly after receiving the invitations and we received lots of people turning up, both on the evening that we live streamed, and when they watched it on demand post-event. The feedback has also been fantastic. We received between 4.5 and 5 out of 5 rating for each of the questions that we asked in our feedback form. People seemed to really love it.”
In addition to the great attendee feedback and engagement, Angie was delighted that the launch was able to extend its reach beyond the limits of an in-person event,
“We were able to bring together people who lived regionally, people who may not have been able to travel into the city for a training event, or people who had family or other commitments. We could reach all those people in the comfort of their home. We were also able to bring together people in different time zones.”
Key takeaways:
Ensure your virtual platform has comprehensive analytics to assess pre, during and post-event metrics
Maximise the reach of your virtual or hybrid event to connect with more attendees than is possible at an in-person event
The Future: Virtual, hybrid or in-person events?
With pandemic related lockdowns slowly lifting across Australia, event planners like Angie are considering what their event schedules will look like once live and in-person events are back in the frame. The success of the virtual fragrance launch means Angie considers online events to be an important element of the Glasshouse event training strategy,
“We’ll definitely look to include an online strategy like this as part of our ongoing training offering, because it allows us to reach a large number of people across a wide area that is more than I can physically get to when I do in-person training. It gives us another option to include people who find it easier to logon at home, rather than coming into the city and physically attending in-person. So, in the future I definitely see there being a combination of both in-person, traditional training as well as online event training.”
Key takeaway:
A mix of virtual, hybrid and in-person events provide flexible attendance options and a variety of engagement experience
The CrowdComms Experience: Delivering the Right Solution
For a custom event like the Glasshouse fragrance launch, it’s critical that CrowdComms can respond positively to the type of specific solution and service requests Angie made,
“Working with CrowdComms was fantastic. We’ve done a couple of events now and I’ve given them different scenarios each time. They’ve always been able to adapt the platform my needs when I’m asking for things like, I want to pre-record content then stream it back live on a certain evening, or, I want to have very specific analytics about who watched exactly what modules and how long they watched those modules for, or, I want to find out which particular fragrance they want to receive as their gift – so where can we put that in the platform? CrowdComms always give me exactly what I need and they’re so supportive the whole way through.
CrowdComms’ platform is built to ensure our clients’ brand takes centrestage at any event. This was particularly important for Angie and her team,
“A big thing for us is the aesthetics of the platform. Being a fragrance brand it’s very important to us and it’s one of the key reasons that we didn’t simply want to do a Zoom webinar. We really want our branding to be front and centre. We want the whole platform that people are seeing to look incredible and to showcase our brand. CrowdComms do such a fantastic job of that. Everything is skinned, everything looks amazing. We’ve done it across two of our different brands now and each one has looked incredible.”
Key takeaways:
CrowdComms’ virtual event platform and service team flexibility means we can accommodate your specific event delivery requests
Your event branding is critical to making a strong connection with event attendees. It’s why the CrowdComms platform has a range of custom design options to ensure the virtual livestream looks like a true extension of your event brand.
