TRO wins over 30 awards in the past 3 years

Our awards include:
>> Most effective use of budget
>> Best ROI
>> Best new product launch
>> Best one day event
>> Best business / industrial event
>> Best use of venue’s facilities
>> Best practice
>> Best use of logistics
>> Event management company of the year

Corporate Events will weather the economic storm: Conference Report

The corporate events industry is surviving the economic downturn with more resilience than many other sectors in the marketing mix. So said Eventia Board Director and Treasurer Rob Allen at the Eventia summer conference held on 6-7 July.

Summing-up a day and a half’s conference sessions, Allen, who is Chief Executive of experiential agency TRO, warned delegates to expect more bad news from the market place over the coming 12-18 months, but to work on their own ‘super-proposition’ - that could embrace virtual events, social media and demonstrating added value to procurement purchasers - to help weather the turbulent times ahead.

He reminded the audience of 215 events industry professionals that corporate clients were having as tough a time as agencies and suppliers, and stressed that other areas of marketing were suffering to an even greater degree.

“The events industry is not getting the kicking that advertising is” he said. “Projects are being thrown back: rather than going to Dubai, events are taking place in Dublin. But this gives us an opportunity to have discussions at a much more senior level within our client companies.”

Allen added that it wasn’t the case that only the large agencies would win pitches for conferences, product launches and internal communications events in the current climate. He said that discussions with corporate buyers from a wide range of industry sectors had revealed that many were keeping 25% of their business opportunities open to agile, nimble and innovative agencies, regardless of their size.

The Summer Eventia conference was held in Brighton and attracted a line-up of speakers that included independent behavioural economist Roger Martin-Fagg; brand protector Rob Shimmin and futurist speaker Rohit Talwar – as well as business leaders from the events industry itself. The fully interactive event was facilitated by Neil Jones, Director, Crystal Interactive.

Experiential Agency TRO changes the rules for launch of Chevrolet's new Cruze

The retail launch of the new Chevrolet Cruze took place at Millbrook Proving Ground on 7 July.

The event, designed by experiential agency TRO, combined business and marketing updates training sessions with ride and drive activity for two consecutive audiences: 130 retailers and 40 Chevrolet head office staff.

TRO applied one of the car’s key marketing messages – that of changing the rules – to the planning of the day’s programme. The rules were changed from the start at Millbrook, with delegates being put directly into the Cruzes on arrival, where they drove down to the venue whilst listening to the event’s opening address via an in-car CD - rather than the standard business meeting address in plenary.

Les Turton, Chevrolet’s Marketing Director said: “TRO have really embraced the Chevrolet Cruze ‘changing the rules’ theme and applied it creatively throughout the event concept. All delegates had an experience to remember.”

During the event’s business meeting, attendees got to select and vote on the presentations they wanted to hear from a range of offered options.

Lunch began by celebrating the Great British staples of Fish and Chips, All Day Breakfast and Toad-in-the-Hole, but went on to break all sensory rules with a dessert that appeared to be Prawn Cocktail, but was in fact lychees and raspberry sauce.

TRO was responsible for all design, creative and production work for the launch. In 2008 General Motors consolidated all of their experiential and live event activity with TRO, and the agency is currently working on a number of other initiatives including the launch of the next generation Astra later in the year