The Elephants Out of the Room

Many of us were shaken out of our US-election news cycle by Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s announcement that moving forward, their circuses will no longer feature elephants. With the performing elephant as a key part of their brand and visual identity since 1871, the process used to reimagine how they will entertain families moving forward is fascinating.

Of course, I immediately made the leap to associations – each one has their own “Greatest Show on Earth” via annual conferences and the like, with its own version of the sacred elephants – certain sessions, speakers, the way the annual meeting is run, how the governance process is showcased. Every day we work with volunteers, venues and our client teams to figure out which “acts” to keep, and which ones to retire – and then, how to effectively market and sell those innovations to each organization’s stakeholders. A lot of what Feld Entertainment (owner of Ringling Bros) wrestled with seems familiar – moving from performances to story-telling, as one example – similar to the work that we do moving our client events from one-off experiences to year-round opportunities for engagement both face-to-face and via virtual means.

Some of the elephants that were retired? Reducing the span of the conference by 25% – resulting in an attendance increase of 57%. Integrating local market promotion into a national and global strategy – which helped push attendance past the 1000 mark. Bucking a staid marketing model long-held by the world’s largest business association, focusing event registration on last-minute registrants (entrepreneurs aren’t always the best planners) – yielding exponential increases in both current and prospective member interest and engagement.

As for Ringling Bros? They seem to have studied and applied some of the more successful crowd-pleasers out there – think more ice and aerial gymnastics, greater use of digital imagery, and as noted, no pachyderms. And the elephants? They, like many Americans, will enjoy a Florida-based retirement.

(Originally published by MCI USA on May 20, 2016 here: https://live.mci-group.com/2016/05/the-elephants-out-of-the-room/)