On tour with Tap Dogs

In August 2005 I was invited on tour with Tap Dogs - the industrial tap dancing troop best known for their performance in a BBC ident. This is what happened when they were booked to perform at the Spanish premiere of Real the movie at Madrid's Bernabeu stadium.


9am
Waking up in the Spanish capital city, Madrid, I head down for breakfast to meet the reason I’m here – six talented tap dancers from Backrow Events that will be performing their unique brand of industrial tap tonight at the Bernabeu stadium, home of Real Madrid football club. Dean Magri, Aaron Sweetman, Nicky Yeoman, Jason Lewis, Chris Ernest are Tap Dogs. The sixth dancer is Australian Dein Perry, the creator and lead choreographer of a tap troop that has been performing in theatres worldwide for the past 10 years.

9.30am
Perry’s rare outing with the troop, managed by Backrow joint managing director Garry McQuinn, is testament to the importance of tonight’s booking. He has flown from Australia to perform with Tap Dogs at the premiere of Real the movie, in front of a star-studded audience. McQuinn believes that a good show will open up a new corporate market in Spain for the guys: “We embarked on corporate work 18 months ago and can choose from a pool of around 20 dancers that perform all over the world. This will be the highest profile piece of bespoke corporate work we’ve done to date and the guys selected are excited to be working with the act’s original choreographer.”

10am
The first rehearsal is due but on arriving at the stadium, the stadium authorities declare that the lads aren’t allowed to use the dressing rooms to work on the choreography for tonight’s show. Whilst an alternative is sought, Perry lines up the Tap Dogs along the technical area between the dugouts and the pitch and hands them each a football whilst explaining which elements of the theatre show they’ll be including in tonight’s act. The Tap Dogs theatre show comprises a basketball sequence and Perry decides to adapt the routine and add a new intricate move. Sweetman throws the footballs from one end of the line to Ernest at the other end before they’re bounced back along the line from one Tap Dog to another as each dancer continues tapping.

11am
Whilst Tap Dogs continue practicing with the footballs, on the other side of the pitch there’s a problem with the stage being constructed in front of a cinema-sized screen for tonight’s performance. The stage floor isn’t flat and the scaffold stairs that Tap Dogs will use in their act have been fixed far too close to trigger pads at the front of the stage that each make a different noise when struck with a tap boot. Backrow’s lighting designer is struggling to direct the Spanish contractors to move the scaffold to the back of the stage and flatten the floor.

11.15am
Tap Dogs are taken to a treatment room in the stadium so they can rehearse. Lewis, 18, is the youngest of the dancers and this is his debut performance. According to McQuinn: “Dein came to me three months ago and said that he’d found a promising young tap dancer from his dance class in Australia. It’s important to bring through young talent so we took him on tour around Australia, taught him the routines and threw him into a couple of shows in Brisbane but this is his first major performance and he’s so full of confidence.”
Perry works the boys through their routines and the sound of boots tapping on wooden floorboards echoes around the treatment room. Tonight’s show includes six solos so Perry discusses which Tap Dog will take on which of the act’s character roles. “I’m not very funky,” says Ernest as he strips off his shirt in the soaring heat of the treatment room. “Let’s get Jason to be the funky one.”

12.10pm
On the other side of the pitch, the Spanish contractors have finally laid the wood to ensure the stage is flat but the scaffold staircase is still to be moved. Tap Dogs complete the rehearsal and head back to the hotel to continue practicing the football routine that has yet to work without someone dropping a ball. There’s still one vital ingredient to tonight’s act that’s missing as well – four pairs of Wellington boots required for a routine that sees Perry, Magri, Ernest and Yeoman sit on the scaffold steps and tap with their feet in a water tray to splash water towards the audience. McQuinn and I are going shopping.

12.45pm
In the car McQuinn chats to Perry on his mobile. Perry is still adding bit parts to the performance and needs a red and yellow card plus a referee’s whistle, which he’ll use to direct his troops.
“Dein is one of the most prominent tap choreographers in the world and has reinvented the dance genre for a contemporary audience,” McQuinn says proudly. “The football routine is a high-risk element that looks wonderful when it comes off but will look bloody awful if someone drops the ball tonight.”

1.30pm
The search for waterproof wellies, or ‘gumboots’ as Australian McQuinn calls them, is not going well. Our local driver Alberto takes us to a department store complex but the only boots to be found are two pairs in a fishing department. McQuinn is worried: “They can do the water sequence in tap boots but it’ll ruin the shoes and doesn’t create the same amount of splash.” We head to another sports store a 15-minute drive away.

2pm
The gumboots are found at the sports store and McQuinn buys five pairs. Alberto translates a Spanish women’s comment whilst we stand in the queue at the checkout. “It’s 27-degrees outside. Do you know something about the weather that I don’t?” she jokes.

4pm
Tap Dogs return to the Bernabeu to rehearse on stage but the power has failed in the stadium. Whilst the problem is rectified, Garry is going ballistic at the Spanish contractors to move the scaffold but his swearing falls on deaf ears. It’s only when he threatens to do it himself that they leap into action. With stadium power back on, the boys can rehearse.

6pm
It’s two hours into the final rehearsal and Perry is working the guys hard to perfect the routines. The intricate football sequence is still not coming together however and Perry and McQuinn discuss having people on the sides of the stage to throw on new balls should somebody drop the ball during the show.

7pm
The rehearsal is over and the success of the football sequence is now in the hands of the Gods. Tap Dogs artiste liaison Pippa Rayner-Cook has sourced the red and yellow cards and even persuaded a policeman to part with his whistle. The guys head back to the hotel and stretch out the last three hours of rehearsals from their aching limbs.

7.30pm
Over dinner Perry reflects on the day: “There’s been numerous logistical problems but we as dancers can’t let them concern us and we just need to focus on the routines,” he says. “I’m a bit worried about the football sequence but it’s like the lion and the master. If the lion doesn’t do want the master wants, then the audience will get behind the lion tamer and when the lion finally performs, it gets a much bigger cheer from the crowd. The audience will want us to get it right.”

9pm
Back at the stadium, Tap Dogs change into Real Madrid training tops and lumberjack sleeveless shirts as each dancer focuses on his role and not dropping the ball.

9.30pm
Outside the stadium guests arrive and go through the motions of the red carpet, which for tonight is lined with assistant referees waving their flags as the celebrities pass. Gallacticos David Beckham and Raul are the last to arrive and Tap Dogs head to the stage.

10pm
Tap Dogs perform the initial routines to perfection and the crowd starts to respond to this pre-film entertainment. The football sequence is drawing near and all who have spent the day with the dancers and know what’s coming cross their fingers that no one drops that ball.

10.15pm
The footballs are out and Tap Dogs work through the routine normally done with basketballs. Sweetman starts the high-risk element of the choreography by throwing the ball down the line to Ernest, who catches it and bounces it back along the line as another ball is thrown over. Rayner-Cook, McQuinn and Brett hold their breaths. The cheer that goes up as the routine is carried out to perfection spreads throughout the crowd. Tap Dogs have wowed the Spanish and Beckham. It’s a shame that the film didn’t do the same.

Look back at 2007Le Tour de France comes to London

When people question London’s ability to stage a successful Olympics in 2012, one date will now form the case for the defence and send the doubters on their bikes. On 7 July 2007, two years to the day since the terrorist atrocities on the capital’s transport system, around three million people from all over the world swarmed into the city for a weekend of events that included the Live Earth concert, the Wimbledon tennis finals and the Tower of London Music Festival. At its epicentre was the world’s biggest annual sporting event and without a doubt the biggest sporting test for the capital in advance of 2012.

Staging the Tour de France’s Grand Départ cost in the region of £6.8m, with the Mayor predicting a return on that investment of around £115m in additional tourism. It comprised a 7.9km prologue time trial that took place around Westminster, Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace on the Saturday and determined the first wearer of the race leader’s yellow jersey. The following day, the 189 cyclists departed for the first stage proper – a 126-mile route through Greenwich and into Kent.

Opening ceremony
Before each stage the tour ‘caravan’ (200 sponsors’ vehicles dispensing free gifts) drove the length of each route. Hyde Park was transformed into a ‘people’s village’ – a free event with interactive cycling displays – and every day a bicycle ballet took place outside the National Theatre. At Excel London in docklands, around 2,500 press and media registered at a hi-tech 8,000sqm media centre and in Trafalgar Square, an opening ceremony kicked off the extravaganza on 6 July.
Transport for London (TfL), the Mayor of London and the London Development Agency had been planning this weekend for four years. In August 2006, following a tender involving around 100 companies, TfL engaged agency Innovision to help turn its plans into reality. The team was lead by managing director Will Glendinning, who helped to plan the event meticulously with TfL, ASO (Amaury Sport Organisation, the Tour’s owners), the Metropolitan Police, Westminster Council, the Royal Parks, the Greater London Authority, Kent County Council, Canterbury City Council and more than 250 other stakeholders for more than a year.
Glendinning says: “From the outset, I was confident we had the talent and experience in our team to deliver a truly memorable event. However, I really wanted the event to recapture the public’s excitement and imagination of what a unique location London is and the potential available in the city. To stage an event of this scale, all our contractors needed to realise how much discussion and paperwork would be involved and logistically we pulled off one of the biggest road closure schemes London has seen for a long while.”
Substantial road closures and diversions to bus routes enabled 6,000 staff, crew and personnel to build the route infrastructure, which included 19 big screen viewing areas. At Excel London the world’s media were gathering and the cycling teams were milling around the surrounding hotels.
Excel’s services director Steve Melrose helped to oversee a five-day build of the media centre that comprised around 500 work stations, 100 analogue phone lines, two 8Mb broadband connections, 20 ISDN lines and three press conference rooms that around 500 media people a day passed through during the weekend. He says: “As a venue we’re used to dealing with international show requirements so it wasn’t a problem. At first, however, we were dealing with BT as our telecommunication provider, but very late in the day it changed and we had to deal direct with France Telecom. That was really the only slight issue we had to react to and quickly.”

Security plan
TfL had even bigger concerns. As a key player in bringing the Tour to the capital, it had cancelled engineering work on the Tube in central London and provided an extra 11,000 parking spaces for bikes. But it was the second anniversary of the terrorist attacks on London and a week earlier a car bombing had been foiled near Piccadilly Circus. On the Central Line, a derailed underground train sat blocking Mile End’s westbound platform.
According to TfL’s head of special projects, Mick Hickford, the infrastructure was ready to cope with anything. “Regarding the Central Line derailment, we laid on additional bus services but in fact the line was reopened by Saturday morning,” he says. “An additional security plan for London’s transport was put in place but the area that held the prologue is the most secure in the country anyhow as the cyclists were passing the House of Commons, Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street. London’s public transport moves on average more than one million people a day so we were confident it would withstand all the activity in London, but it was extremely good practice for 2012 and we have learnt a huge amount.”

Well-wishers
Throughout the planning of the Grand Départ, Innovision was contracted by TfL to coordinate and deliver the creative and technical aspects of the event while TfL oversaw the planning, marketing and PR aspects. Hickford admits that part of the marketing campaign was an attempt to prolong European visits while also promoting the benefits of cycling. “I think two million people in central London over the weekend, plus huge public interest, has shown there is a great audience for cycling in London,” he says. “And I’m sure that such a great weekend for both sport and music ensured that visitors either stayed longer or left with a fantastic impression of London’s ability to host major events.”
On Sunday 8 July, 21 teams of nine riders left the Mall at 10.25am, crossed bridges and paraded past the London Eye and St Paul’s Cathedral before heading for Greenwich via Tower Bridge. The race officially started opposite the Maritime Museum at 11am as the cyclists set off for Canterbury. From there, well-wishers and doping scandals followed them through Belgium and Spain.
After 21 stages and 2,206 miles, the world’s most gruelling sporting challenge reached its climax in Paris on 29 July – but whatever impressions it left overall, there’s no doubt that London’s handling of the opening days was a triumph that will stay in people’s memories for at least the next five years.

Profiling business leaders

One of my journalistic strengths is interviewing key personalities from the world's of business and entertainment. Here's a recent profile published by Event magazine of Graham Kemp - the newly appointed chairman of RPM.

The recently appointed chairman of the RPM Group is the proud owner of nine acres of Surrey. Married to a qualified garden designer, Graham Kemp, his wife and five children have spent the last three years developing an old farmhouse into a family estate. The project seemed an ambitious one until he confesses that he has in fact rebuilt every home he has ever lived in, including the residency he occupied in Chicago for just three years during his nine-year tenure as global CEO of The Marketing Store Worldwide.
“It’s a bit of a disease,” he admits. “I’m not interested in being a property developer, I just enjoy refurbishing properties and the fun we have throughout the process.”
Kemp is the first chairman RPM Group has ever appointed since the agency, which specializes in experiential, field marketing, staffing and branding city centers, was founded in 1993.
He brings to the role, more than 20 years experience in the marketing communications industry. And since his appointment in August he has already launched an ‘Open Road’ initiative comprising 15 measurable objectives shared out across department heads for the next three years.
Contrary to the ‘Changing Rooms’ nature of his home interiors interest however, Kemp has not joined RPM to rebuild the company from the ground up. In his words: “I am here to mentor their next levels of management and coach better performance whilst providing fresh thinking, invention and inspiration.”
Initially the chairman’s position is a non-executive role, which puts pay to the observation that Kemp has most likely been brought in to prepare the group for a sale. “Currently I don’t own equity in RPM so it would be of no benefit to me,” he states. “The RPM directors are too ambitious to build the business to consider a sale. My experience tells me that you should always have it as a thought at the back of your mind when implementing strategy but preparing RPM for possible suitors is not part of my agenda.”
RPM managing director Hugh Robertson met his new chairman whilst on the board of the Marketing Communication Consultants Association, which Kemp has chaired since 2005. Kemp says he was impressed by Robertson’s professionalism and the RPM culture of genuinely caring about its people whilst actively encouraging them to express themselves. Robertson must have been impressed with Kemp’s track record for company growth.
In 1986, Kemp launched marketing promotions agency The Marketing Store and established its position within the retail sector. Within a month of starting the business, it won a promotion across 1,000 Argyll Group Presto stores (forerunner to Safeway) that equated to 80% of The Marketing Store’s first year projected turnover. Due to the nature of the supermarket retail industry at the time, Kemp’s contacts were often acquired, merged and dispersed across different retail companies. They would then turn back to him to run their in-store promotions and re-brand outlets that had been bought and needed transforming into names such as Gateway (forerunner to Somerfield). “The landscape was constantly changing and we always seemed to be on the right side of the fence whenever a merger occurred,” recalls Kemp. “The result was that we quadrupled the business in the first three years and went from three employees to a £4.5m business employing 30.”
At its peak, The Marketing Store had offices in Birmingham, Scotland and Leeds and employed 180 staff making it one of the top three promotional marketing firms in the UK. When a sale came, it was in March 1998 to MB Sales, a division of US company, the Havi Group. Kemp says: “The two companies were pulled together and called The Marketing Store Worldwide. I signed up for three years and ended up serving nine as global CEO, opening eight offices in countries such as Brazil, Australia, Canada and France and trebling the size of the operation.”
Kemp admits that staying longer in roles than he first intended is another of his personality traits and one that currently sees him serving on three boards within a music marketing rights company, a content provision publisher and an Irish marketing firm. His three-year plan for RPM therefore looks set to be only the beginning. And with an intent to become a fully-fledged share holding, equity-holding director, it may be that the long-term future for the RPM Group will also be of his hand.

Kemp on…
RPM’s portfolio of work. For me, the Sky Festival in Manchester stands out as a magnificent piece of work due to its sheer scale and logistics. The One Love campaign for Umbro is another incredible idea that shows the power of connecting to a global passion such as football.

Acquisitions as part of the RPM strategy. I think acquisitions should be looked at so I wouldn’t rule out that possibility. We are not on an acquisition trial but if they strategically help to build the business in the most effective way then they will be considered.

The marketing landscape. Where television advertising is loosing share, experiential and digital are gaining and they will grow closer together. The shift is away from efficiency (television, print, mass communication) and towards effectiveness. The most effective ways of marketing are no longer bound up in efficient methodologies. I don’t predict the demise of television advertising, I just see it being used in different ways and combined with more effective means.

The Great Experiential Debate

On 14 November, I chaired a lively debate held at The Hospital private member’s club in Covent Garden. Heads of experiential agencies and brand marketers came together to hear three marketing specialists give their take on how experiential is perceived by the wider marketing mix.

Mike Mathieson, chief executive of Cake, which began life focused on the PR side of marketing, Tove Okunniwa, managing partner of MEC Access, formerly MEC Sponsorship and Anna Watkins, director of branded content firm Hubbub presented to a room full of delegates, all armed with IML interactive handsets and ready to text opinions and questions provoked by what they were about to hear. After the three presentations, the questions and comments were organised during a short break in proceedings. When delegates had returned to their seats the texts formed the basis for the discussion. Here are some of the highlights from each speaker followed by soundbites from the debate.

Cake, chief executive Mike Mathieson
“I view this industry in terms of its seat at the table of an early 20th Century dinner party. The client sits at the head of the table and on each side are his advertising agency and his media agency. Then down the table sits the other marketing services agencies including experiential. After dinner, the client turns to the media and advertising agency and says: “Shall we go for port and cigars in the other room and leave the girls to chat?” My mission has always been to manoeuvre myself up that table. Through the demise of advertising agency control, those dinner seats are all now up for grabs. The old model of the live events industry saw silos around the discipline, each with their defined role to play. With the onset of experiential, disciplines such as field marketing and roadshow marketing can propel themselves into this new world. The danger is that the term experiential becomes meaningless. So I’ve decided to set the rules of what is experiential. First, it has to be creative and not just follow the advertising campaign. It then has to be attractive and create real brand conversation. Third, it should be immersive as consumers are becoming harder to reach so immersing them in the brand and its values is key. It should also be content rich and finally be accompanied by both amplification and measurement. Not everyone may go but everyone should know about a good piece of activity. When we nail down the justification of experiential marketing, only then will we move up the table.”

MEC Access, managing partner, Tove Okunniwa
“Our sponsorship offer is split between consultancy and strategy. Where it overlaps with experiential is in the implementation and leverage. There is a need for a deeper engagement with client campaigns and it’s the good innovative ideas that are driving the content. Sponsorship is no longer about properties charging for logo stamping. Now it’s all about activation and making the investment work harder by leveraging greater value from that sponsorship. Activation is being taken to a new level as the technology improves and marketers are tapping into the passion of the audience but the sponsorship arena has the same problems as the experiential sector – we need to crack the measurement and evaluation. We are part of a media agency and yet we can’t stack up sponsorship ROI with media ROI. Maybe both experiential and sponsorship could work together on this.”

Hubbub, managing director Anna Watkins
The future of branded conversations is to create enough noise and at Hubbub we mix live with other forms of branded content. Interruptive marketing is about delivering unwanted messages that often get ignored by media savvy consumers. Branded content is about drawing the consumer in and giving them an offer that they actively chose to engage with. This may be in the form of an event but it’s also digital content, mobile content and brand content. The average consumer is now bombarded by more than 4,000 messages a day. We have a bored, bamboozled consumer who is getting busier and needs to be engaged with more exciting offers. It is an exciting time for us all but the marketing roles are no longer defined so who will gain the ear of the client?
My four territories where whoever raises their game will prosper are: Insight – anyone can come up with a plan but not everyone can do the strategic long-term marketing objectives. The integrated planning has been wrestled away from the ad agency and now needs to come from us. Ideas – creativity and innovation will win through. The ideas need to reflect the integrated nature of the landscape. Integration – If you only specialise in one area, it needs to have amplification. Only then can you justify the investment and explode the idea across other channels. Accountability – We need to collaborate together to find a series of accepted measurement models. There are analysts such as Hall and Partners that have produced a branded content evaluation model and we need to use models such as this to justify brand investment.

Discussion Soundbites
Julian Mack, Sony Ericsson: “Experiential is a horrible word. Most people can’t even pronounce it. I challenge the industry to come up with a new piece of terminology.”

Hugh Robertson, RPM: “The term experiential has become a bit of a dumping ground and lacks clarity. I think clients are savvy enough to understand what each of us do without the need for one term.”

Simon Lethbridge, Jack Morton Worldwide: “It is necessary to have a big word to describe what we do, especially when competing against advertising terminology. Experiential is a big word.”

Tim Bourne, Exposure: “The client should be looking at creating networks of agencies that specialise in brand engagement across all forms. As agencies we are converging so how will we collaborate to all our advantage?”

Anna Watkins, Hubbub: “Recent work for P&G was won pitching against the media agency, the PR agency and the advertising agency. Briefs are being handed out to a wider remit of agencies and we are competing against each other.”

Ian Irving, Sledge: “It is criminal that a brand’s activation investment is not the same as the initial sponsorship outlay.”

David Hornby, Visit London: “When it comes to measurement you have to have the feel good factor and the accountability together.”

Anna Watkins, Hubbub: “If you want to be at the top table you have to evaluate and stop being seen as the fluffy side of marketing.”

Ian Irving, Sledge: “How can you make an experience better year on year unless you discover the consumer’s thoughts and are able to prove the value of our marketing force?”

Julian Mack, Sony Ericsson: “If you don’t measure you will miss consumer insights and current consumer thinking.”

David Boreham, D3: “For agencies looking to offer a fully internal solution, do you think they are turning a full circle and becoming what they once rejected, a full-service agency? Collaboration with specialists is the way forward.”

See more photos by visiting the Event 100 Live sponsor's blog

Experiencing Canon

Canon chose to launch two camera models to 90 European trade journalists by taking them on safari to trial the products in the heat and dust of Kenya. I was asked along to write about the launch and how experience is the key to creating brand advocates. Two features were commissioned and published by Event magazine and Conference & Incentive Travel. I also reviewed the new 1DS Mark III which featured on Stuff.TV
Check out the review

Event magazine, Haymarket Media Group, November / December 2007
In the shadow of Mount Kenya in Laikipia, a private ranch dedicated to conservancy sprawls across the East African landscape. Borana Ranch, home to the Dyer family, boasts two luxury lodges. The smaller, Laragai House, sits on the top of an escarpment, with the 17,000-feet snow-capped peaks of Mount Kenya looming over the horizon and the natural habitats for scores of wildlife on Lewa Downs cascading off to the east.

For one week in mid-October, Abercrombie and Kent carpeted the grounds of Laragai House with a luxury-tented village, comprising around 200 tents, each with their own shower, beds and solar powered lighting. The inhabitants of 90 of these canvas homes were specialist photographic trade media who had flown to Kenya via London from 16 European countries courtesy of Canon Consumer Imaging. Their purpose was to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the EOS camera system and to test two recently launched models, the 40-D and the 1DS Mark III via a bespoke EOS Safari.

The remainder tents housed tent butlers, cooks, Canon technical staff, product specialists and four members of agency GSP, responsible for the logistics, management and orchestration of a week’s worth of safari game drives, helicopter rides, presentations, horse riding, visits to local schools and evening entertainment – all against a backdrop of breathtaking beauty.

According to the head of Canon Consumer Imaging Europe Mogens Jensen, the idea to run an event that would not only celebrate the anniversary of EOS but also give delegates their first real taste of what the cameras were capable of was conceived a year before. “We wanted a location that would show off the equipment,” he says. “Wildlife is fast moving and the 40-D fires 6.5 frames per second. Kenya has perfect lighting conditions, amazing landscapes and subjects that you just don’t find in a city. So many product launches are based purely on theory and presentations. We’ve built them into the program also but the most important thing for this audience is to let them discover for themselves what these products can do in the dust and the heat of a safari.”

GSP project manager Claire Walton was tasked with finding Borana Ranch and overcoming the countless logistics of transporting guests whilst ensuring they had a life changing experience. She says: “Canon wanted game with less than ten hours flight time and a similar time zone. Delegates were flying in from all over Europe for four days so we couldn’t deal with the threat of jet lag. Africa was the obvious choice and the two most suitable locations are Kenya or Tanzania. Kenya is less of a tourist trap and Virgin Atlantic has recently opened its new route to Nairobi so we were able to secure the seats from Heathrow. We then had the logistical nightmare of getting everyone to London from 16 countries but thanks to the expertise of Events By Appointment, our travel company, everyone arrived on time.”

GSP also had the problem of transporting the 3.5 tons of camera equipment earmarked for testing by the media. The camera bodies and lenses valued at £2bn Euros needed to clear customs in just two days and permits needed to be obtained so that delegates were free to film and take photographs anywhere in the region.

Canon classroom project
As plans for the event developed, the notion of conservation and corporate social responsibility moved swiftly up Canon’s priority list. Laikipia is remote enough not to suffer from the damaging impact of tourism on the local eco system whilst Borana ranch is so committed to conservation that all the revenue from the EOS Safari went directly back into animal welfare.
The amount of game that guests were likely to see on Borana couldn’t be guaranteed however since the region is neither a national park nor the Mara so prides of lions and herds of elephants are not found roaming in large numbers.

GSP’s Walton had to fill a four-day itinerary with guaranteed photographic opportunities so added helicopter rides provided by Tropic Air around the glacier-clad peaks of Mount Kenya. On each flight guests were taken to 17,000 feet and then dropped-off in the surrounding alpine forests for a walking tour in search of macro photographic images of insects and plants.

With the helicopters increasing the event’s carbon footprint and with too many flights to offset, Canon was determined to again increase the cultural and community aspect of the trip. Walton was thus introduced to the locality’s educational needs which led to Canon agreeing to invest in three school rooms – two classrooms and a library. “On a reconnaissance mission in August, I visited the schools located locally to Borana and I was stunned by the conditions,” she says. “At one there were 52 children sitting on the floor of a grass hut. There was no point in us offering camera workshops or equipment since these schools had no electricity. What they desperately need is classroom space so we launched the Canon Classroom Project.”
Canon press and media events manager Melanie Dubois says: “Acting on the advice of the Dyer family we were able to determine what the local community needed the most. It’s not realistic to try and off-set an event of this magnitude so leaving the locality with a lasting legacy was our preferred option.”

By the time Canon and its guests arrived in Laikipia, each of the classroom projects were at various stages of development. As part of Walton’s planning for each the 16 country’s groups, GSP’s Laura Morrison ran trips to each school so that guests could turn their hand to portrait photography with the children as subjects. For Canon’s Jensen, this was a particular highlight. He says: “It was both an emotional and motivating experience to visit the schools. The children were so welcoming and had rehearsed a song to sing to us. We took a lot of shots and printed them out on portable printers to produce photos that could be donated to the school. For many of these children it was the first time they had ever seen themselves in a photograph and we were moved by their reactions. If you can combine the marketing objective of an event with a socially responsible purpose then it becomes so much more worthwhile. As a global market leader we pay so much money to hotels and venues across the world. Our strategy now is to try and redirect a proportion of that money into leaving a legacy on all future events.”

Professional photographers from the worlds of National Geographic, war-torn Serbia and conflicts around the globe spent each evening of the EOS Safari presenting their work to attendees. On the final night, guests were transported from their three nights in the African wilds and flown back to Nairobi in preparation for their flights home. “The transition from three nights in a campsite to a Hilton hotel room was difficult so it was important that guests saw something of contemporary Nairobi to show that Kenya has moved on from its status as a second world country,” Walton says. “We ran a photography competition throughout the week and announced the winners during a fashion show that showcased local designers. Only the night before, guests had dined on a spit roast lamb and witnessed a display by 40 authentic tribal dancers and here they were dining in a five-star hotel witnessing the other side of African culture. Even for an experienced agency like us this was a truly amazing event and I’m proud to have achieved my brief of staging a life-changing experience on behalf of Canon.”
See the coverage as it appeared in Event magazine

Today's Media - the landscape to be conquered

Wise words on current thinking within online and magazine publishing:

“If you’ve developed a site where your staff are providing more than 5% of the material then it’s not a site at all. It’s advertising. And it’s probably not sustainable.”
David Hepworth, editorial director, Development Hell.

“All this kind of market gardening activity needs to be tended seven days a week. You can’t turn off a community at five on a Friday and say hold that thought until Monday. You need staff, which are passionate and you also need to engage hard-core readers who wish to be part of the team. It’s hard, different work. It’s the diametric opposite of what publishers and advertisers are tempted to do – which is, no matter how you dress it up, spam.”
David Hepworth.

“One of the problems about the internet is that information is everywhere and editing is nowhere. So it ends up being dominated by he who shouts the loudest, which is generally Ron from Dagenham. There will always be a place for thought-through, planned and edited media and a magazine remains the best format for that.”
Richard Cook, Wallpaper Guides.

“Magazines continue to offer companionship, entertainment, escapism, and diversions both mindless and thought provoking. They furnish the home and hang around as long as the next spring clean or attic clearout. Until we do away with the material world entirely and upload our very beings on to the internet magazines will continue to have a place in our lives.”
Will Hodgkinson, Media Guardian.