Marketing Excellence Awards 2020 - Celebrating Women in a Time

MARKETING EXCELLENCE

AWARDS 2020

Excellence in Event Marketing (Virtual) CelebratingWomen in a Time of Crisis & Adversity

PROBLEM In March 2019, The American Club Singapore organized The Club’s inaugural International Women’s Day Celebration in par tnership with the American Association of Singapore, American Women’s Association and Canadian Association of Singapore. The event was a remarkable success. Our ballroom was filled to capacity and the energy was electric. The success of the event led us to resolve to hold the event again in March 2020. However, with the pandemic situation, we were forced to put our live event on hold. Behind the scenes, we worked together with our par tners to find the right time and the right way to launch another event honoring women. By the summer, COVID-19 had changed life completely for people all over the world. So much of the news coverage of 2020 had been heavy and gloomy, but we knew that there had also been so many stories of personal triumph, and we wanted to provide a powerful platform for these stories to be shared, and for the community to share their experiences in these difficult times too. We felt the need was more urgent than ever to provide this platform for women to connect with each other and suppor t each other. From the success of our 2019 International Women’s Day celebration at The Club, we knew that stories of inspiring women resonate deeply with the audience. Whether they are stories of success or struggles, they are shared stories that ultimately connect us.

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PROBLEM

Places like The American Club Singapore exist because people want to make deep and lasting connections. We realized that that didn’t have to stop simply because our doors were closed. Our business has always been about connecting people, and we saw both a purpose and an oppor tunity in taking that online. After much consideration, we decided jointly to hold ‘Celebrating Women in a Time of Crisis and Adversity’ online on August 31, 2020. Our team had two primary goals. Firstly, we wanted to provide a platform where women could share the challenges they’d faced during the pandemic and reflect upon the hardships together. Second, we hoped to open an oppor tunity to bring our community together for much-needed intellectual stimulation and nourishment over universal issues. It was impor tant to us to give this event the pomp and circumstance it deserved, so our biggest challenge was making the vir tual ‘Celebrating Women in a Time of Crisis and Adversity’ feel as big and as live as possible. In addition, with so many esteemed guests with such busy schedules, coordinating a time that was convenient and manageable for everyone proved to be difficult. It was also a major shift for our team to organize and promote an event solely online.We had to make that shift rather quickly.

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SOLUTION Our core insight with ‘Celebrating Women in a Time of Crisis and Adversity’ was the need for a safe space for the community to share compelling stories and to celebrate one another. As a business, it is easy to think only about the difficulties we have faced this year, but 2020 has been challenging and transformative for people all around the world as well. In addition, it has also been difficult to find outlets for sharing experiences.That alone can be isolating.We hoped that, by providing a space for people to share, we could reduce that sense of isolation and help our community feel that they are not alone. In order to maximize our reach to various audiences, we par tnered with sister organizations, including the American Chamber of Commerce in Singapore, The Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Singapore, American Association of Singapore and Canadian Association of Singapore. Through our shared resources, we were able to build a powerful campaign that reached deep into the corners of each of our networks. Together, we utilized our collective social media platforms, broadcast channels, email blasts, websites, and local media outreach to maximize our audience reach.

Event e-mailer

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SOLUTION

To generate excitement for the event, we featured a musical performance by The Pitches - an all-girls choir from the Singapore American School. Not only did the performance add more of a live feel to the event, but the performance also gave us an oppor tunity to share and celebrate the talents of the next generation of women. As the event drew closer, we launched a three-day countdown to the event through email blasts, broadcast channels and social media platforms. In addition to driving a late surge in registrations, it also built up enthusiasm for the event amongst attendees. By the time the event arrived, people were excited and ready to listen and share. Also impor tant to us was our post-event publicity. Once again we used our collective social media platforms and email lists to thank attendees, and to share video highlights of the event. This helped us ‘lock in’ positive memories of the event and build affinity towards our future online events. In addition, it has also been difficult to find outlets for sharing experiences. That alone can be isolating. We hoped that, by providing a space for people to share, we could reduce that sense of isolation and help our community feel that they are not alone. We also wanted to make sure that the event had the feel of a live event, as many times vir tual meetings can feel very disconnected.

We decided to kick off ‘Celebrating Women in a Time of Crisis and Adversity’ with a performance by all-girls choir, The Pitches from the Singapore American School, which added a hear twarming touch to our event. In order to maximize our reach to various audiences, we par tnered with sister organizations, including the American Chamber of Commerce in Singapore, The Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Singapore, American Association of Singapore and Canadian Association of Singapore.

Singapore American School all-girls choir, The Pitches

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PRE-EVENT PUBLICITY EXECUTION

Organizing group

Speech by Acting General Manager, Patricia Au

Throwback video of 2019’s event

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PRE-EVENT PUBLICITY EXECUTION

Facebook post

Instagram post

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PRE-EVENT PUBLICITY EXECUTION

Weekly What’s On e-newsletter

Dedicated e-mailer

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DELIVERY ‘Celebrating Women in a Time of Crisis and Adversity’ was held on August 31 via Zoom. Right up until the star t of the event, we promoted it heavily on The Club’s Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, WhatsApp broadcast channel and dedicated e-mailers along with our sister organizations. Thanks to our combined effor ts, we were able to host a robust group of speakers at the event. Our panelist comprised three outstanding women: H.E. Lynn McDonald, High Commissioner of Canada to Singapore, H.E. Margriet Vonno, Ambassador of The Netherlands to Singapore and Brunei, and Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei, Chief Executive Officer of American Chamber of Commerce in Singapore. Singapore’s former Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, and former Ambassador to the United States of America Professor Tommy Koh moderated the event. The panel of speakers encouraged the audience with their own success stories, struggles, and strategies for success in the post-pandemic world. Before the panel began, the evening kicked off with a recital by The Pitches, an all-girls choir from the Singapore American School. While Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei shared that, when it comes to women’s par ticipation in the workforce, there is much to do, and with women making up half of the global population, the drive for change

The panel

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DELIVERY

is much needed, H.E. Lynn McDonald shared that the event was also an oppor tunity to celebrate the resilience and courage being shown in the face of adversity, and H. E. Margriet Vonno disclosed her battle with a critical illness in the midst of the pandemic. Thanks to the hard work and determination of The Club’s Member Engagement team, who had to learn how to use Zoom to host vir tual events on the fly, we were able to keep the event on schedule and free of technical errors. The result was a seamless experience for par ticipants, moderators, and the audience alike.

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PERFORMANCE ‘CelebratingWomen in aTime of Crisis andAdversity’ offered attendees a unique oppor tunity to see powerful, prestigious women open up and be vulnerable about their own personal experiences during difficult times. This allowed everyone to spend time interacting with some of their real-life stories from the COVID-19 crisis; a depar ture from the bigger stories of industry and politics that have previously dominated conversations. More than 160 par ticipants logged into the event. This not only exceeded our expectations, but it far surpassed attendance records for any online event. In addition, the majority of attendees stayed logged in for the entire event. What this says is that the evening was engaging, fulfilling, and satisfying for our attendees. Another measure of success was the success of capturing the feeling of a live event. We knew that a standard Zoom meeting would be boring for attendees, so we made sure to follow a set schedule and include the live performance from all-girls-choir,The Pitches. Not only did this generate excitement in the atmosphere, it also gave the cause of celebrating women the respect we felt it deserved.

But the final, and perhaps most impor tant measure of success is the sense of community and togetherness that was created during the event. This year has been a tremendous challenge for people everywhere. While measures like the Circuit Breaker were necessary to limit the spread of disease, it isolated us from our communities.This discussion gave attendees an oppor tunity to come together for the kind of stimulating and, at times, deeply emotional conversations that they had been missing. It is our strong belief that ‘Celebrating Women in a Time of Crisis and Adversity’ qualifies for the ‘Excellence in Event Marketing (Vir tual)’ Award because of the overall success of the event - both in terms of the number of par ticipants who attended and the quality of the event itself. In addition, the amount of coordination with our sister organizations is a perfect example of using collective resources to maximize one’s marketing reach. We are proud of this event and our ability to bring so many people together in a safe, nur turing space in which people could tell their stories, come together, and feel just a little less alone.

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PERFORMANCE

Attendees on Zoom

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SOME OF THE FEEDBACK RECEIVED FROM ATTENDEES INCLUDE:

‘Fantastic event ever yone! It felt like an intimate event, even though it was online. I look forward to the next one!’

‘What a wonderful and uplifting session! Thank you and congratulations on a successful event.’

‘What an inspiring session! Thank you ever yone else for organizing today’s conversation.’

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VIDEOS EXECUTION

Speech by President of Canadian Chamber of Commerce Singapore, David Wynne

Speech by Acting General Manager, Patricia Au

Opening video

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VIDEOS EXECUTION

Post-event highlights

Full event video

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THANKYOU

For more information, please contact: Elaine Chan Director of Marketing, Communications & Member Engagement The American Club Singapore 10 Claymore Hill | Singapore 229573 Email: elainec@amclub.org.sg DID: 6739-4358 | MOB: 8533 1063

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