#MarketingEventsAwards 2021 highlight: HP Malaysia goes digital for its 'Creators of Tomorrow' event

Events as we know them changed the moment the pandemic hit. As compared with before, companies were now experiencing the challenge of planning a virtual or digital strategy when it came to events or product launches. HP Malaysia was no exception.

Faced with its annual product launch, HP Malaysia had to think out of the box to ensure that audiences would turn up, and that it could be as exciting as compared with a real one. 

Following the trend of going digital, HP Malaysia launched the “Creators of Tomorrow” annual event, which impressed the judges, winning gold for Best Digital Integration at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE’s Marketing Events Awards 2021.

Challenge

Annually, HP Malaysia launches its “Creators of Tomorrow” event, where the company is tasked to launch three hero products, targeting the regional markets, including Malaysia and Hong Kong. With this event, the company has three key objectives.

1. Amplifying brand awareness
By presenting an innovative and unique experience, the brand is positioned as cutting-edge and forward-thinking.

2. Maximising media coverage
Let the media experience the products first-hand, instead of the traditional spoon-feeding approach, to inspire genuine and positive comments and coverage.

3. Wow the audience
Present HP’s business partners and the media with an immersive digital event.

Whereas for its market challenges, HP identified them as preventing broadcast fatigue, enticing audiences to turn up, maintaining engagement, and creating excitement. 

Strategy 

With these challenges in mind, HP Malaysia came up with three key points in its creative strategy. The first step was to capture the audiences’ attention by having eye-catching visuals and themes.

In addition to having eye-catching visuals, the company also took into account the energy level of its audiences. According to HP Malaysia, effective tactics needed to be created to ensure the sign-up and turn-up rates were matched closely. 

The next step was to create engaging content to ensure the audiences would not be bored. The engagement was also strategised to be either a co-creation with the attendees or created with high shareability built-in.

Finally, HP Malaysia sought to use different engaging content pillars, allowing a different understanding of the product feature from a physical environment. 

Execution

“Creators of Tomorrow” positions the event as inspirational and aspirational to its target creator community. Through a combination of collaborative engagements and smart use of technology, HP Malaysia created a top-shelf digital integration which drove new product awareness, nurtured communities, and drove sales.

The journey began with a physical invite that was drop-shipped and sent to potential attendees boosting sign-up and acquisition. The company also included items that were relevant to its work-from-home audiences such as an air humidifier and masks. With this move, HP aimed to demonstrate to its audiences that it “cares to everyone’s tomorrow”. 

Whereas during the conference, the company led the audience through a journey of tactics to engage and contain its audience. First, there was a customised broadcast platform that included virtual stages, video content, experience zones, and chat functionality, encouraging networking and engagement with HP representatives.

Next, HP decided to launch its products for the event through the use of AR, allowing the attendees to experience the product unveiling in a new and interactive manner.

Additionally, four experience zones – SOHO, lifestyle, design studio, and gaming – were created. Each showcased featured products, curated videos, and content that outlined functionality and key product features.

HP also introduced the hashtags #HPCreatorsOfTomorrow and #HPMY to help build and sustain the community both during and after the event. In an attempt to further engage with the audience, HP invited singer Yuna to speak about the HP mentorship programme. 

Through the digital integration, HP was able to provide a new and exciting platform for its flagship event despite the COVID-19 restrictions. HP was also able to turn limitations into possibilities for both the brand and the audience by delivering lead generations and new product announcements while keeping both the presenters and audience safe.

The virtual event platform enabled a larger possible audience, provided networking capabilities, and gave the brand an exciting new stage to showcase its product narratives. The use of second-screen, chat, and virtual sets, kept the audience engaged in an age of Zoom meeting fatigue. 

Results

Overall, the event managed to garner positive responses, with more than four million impressions and more than 7,000 impressions. In addition, the company gathered more than 30 influencer posts on social media platforms such as Instagram.