BEA Awards: The four best events in history? Content generation wins

First five years: Heineken

More than an event, we are talking about an action of content generation, which may seem more seen today, when Youtube is full of pranks of this type. But it was certainly visionary in 2009. The merits, according to the jury?

• Creativity rather than production. There was certainly production in this event but it is the idea that gets all the credit.

• It also highlighted the emotion: the joy of these fans upon discovering that they would not miss the game, an even greater emotion when this joy comes after a huge disappointment. A situation with which, whether you are a soccer fan or not, anyone can identify. This “twist”, this unexpected change does a lot to the success of the action.

• It’s also a perfect example of experience over product: Heineken is not a beer, it’s what accompanies your best moments, and the action is absolutely focused on the experience.

• In the end, the ROI of this action was extraordinary.

Second year: Samsung Staring Contest

Watch the video, this action is hilarious. To demonstrate the functionality of the new Samsung S4 that can follow the user’s gaze, they set up a totem in Zurich station, with a simple contest: look at the screen for an hour and you get the phone. It’s hard enough to get it… but they set up a series of distractions around it to make it difficult. This resulted in extremely funny and viral images. The merits?

• Its dimension of challenge, of contest, which creates a lot of hook, expectation, emotion.

• We are also talking about pure creativity, production being almost nil here. The idea rules.

• The power of humor, which does a lot for virality and, as the panel members commented, is a fabulous resource at events.

• At this time, this idea of bringing the digital into the physical realm was very pioneering. The cell phone asserted itself as the channel of communication with reality. An idea that has been fully affirmed since then: actions that stage what the mobile means in our real lives have multiplied.

• A demonstration, perfect implementation of a specific functionality. The event demonstrates what the product brings to the table.

• Also an extraordinary return.

• Finally, this was the principle of the economy of attention, something that was perfectly applied here (perhaps in a slightly dystopian way…).

Third period: Rijkmuseum

This other Grand Prize can be seen as an event… or not so much, but it’s clever: the 10 millionth visitor to the RiskMuseum in Amsterdam won the privilege of being able to have “a night in the museum”, a night sleeping among his favorite works. A unique, memorable and highly viral experience (which if you ask us, is not an event, but the jury considered it as one…). The merits?

• A very simple idea, a huge media impact?

• Also with a very limited production cost.

• An action based on emotion, on the joy of a fan of culture when he realizes that he is going to experience something extraordinary.

• A way to remember the value of the museum, the fact that being able to see these masterpieces has enormous value. Beyond the virality, the core of the action is that this museum is a blast.

Fourth anniversary: opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics

No discreet or absent production here. This opening was a madness of creativity, of scenography, which brings us several lessons. The merits?

• The possibility of reinventing even what seems to be the most restricted. An Olympic opening ceremony takes place in a stadium, period. Or does it? No: everything can be questioned and reinvented.

• The possibility of daring and taking risks. A lot of people said it was crazy to do this ceremony in a river, for logistical and security reasons. But it was done.

• The mixture of disciplines, of arts, of cultures, celebrates the variety of human creation. An event can combine cabaret, pop, classical music and much more, demonstrating the cultural heritage of a country.

• The ability of an event to impact and even raise the pride of an entire country. Beatrix Mourer of Magic Garden recalled the extent to which all of France was united in its pride in this moment of madness and the extent to which it reinforced the image of Paris as a creative city.

• The fact of taking advantage of public spaces: it is good that the city and its cultural assets are the best setting for events.

• A large-scale collaborative exercise, including five major event agencies getting involved in this project.

Conclusions? Creativity rules a lot: three of the four actions are pure creativity, thus achieving an extraordinary return. But this choice raised some doubts in the corridors: three of these actions can be seen as content generation actions purely aimed at virality, not so much at people’s experience. These actions with actors would be the same, the objective is not so much to make people live an experience. Moreover, for our sector, which is made of creativity, but also of production, multiplying actions that avoid production is perhaps a dangerous path. In any case (whether they are events or not), they are four extraordinary actions with great creativity, huge impacts, emotion and using resources that work (the challenge, the surprise, the pride, the fact of turning the established around, the humor…). This is already to be saluted.