ABOUT

Wella Professionals need their ‘Global Creative Artists’ – their industry-leading brand ambassadors – to be more effective communicators, for themselves and for Wella. These days, the most effective, accessible channel for building brand credibility and enhancing brand perception, personal or otherwise, is Social Media.

So Wella asked us to create a “truly different exclusive, inspiring and creative” experience – something they would “never usually get in their home markets” - that would help these artists become more effective ambassadors, for themselves and for Wella.

Wella’s artists are highly creative, influential people who have built their careers on expressing their creativity through hair. Our goal for Symposium 2015 was to turn their existing skills and output, and apply it in the most effective manner possible: turning the diffused light of their current activity into highly effective, laser-like focus.

Our challenge was to design an experience that inspired, educated and entertained an international audience of mixed Social abilities. We had to create an engaging, relevant experience that was valuable to all.

We started by defining the experience arc and principle: we made a conscious decision to alternate between theory and hands-on, giving these kinaesthetic learners a chance to try it out for themselves, and so turn information into knowledge. Following Kahneman’s Peak/End theory (which says the final part of any experience defines the memory of it), we designed each day to end with an inspirational high-point.

At the centre of the experience, we created an interactive installation that we called the Social Creative Narrative (SCN). Throughout the workshop, each artist returned to their SCN time and time again, to update, edit and curate the most focused version of themselves.

To complete the SCN, our artists wrote their creative mission for the year ahead, signed their name and added it to the SCN. Each one was captured on camera, and a polaroid was given to each artist, to go in a space in the final page of their workbooks.

The experience itself was designed to lead by example, creating Social content throughout. We worked alongside Wella’s Social agency, capturing the best content, quotes and photographs and turning them into beautiful social media assets in minutes. In addition, we interviewed and vox-popped the artists, turning their experience into social assets for use now and later in the year.

Results

A qualitative study by Proximity BBDO showed a marked improvement in at least 8 of the 14 artists’ Social output. The results included:

Christophe Nicolas-Biot

• Increased Facebook posting frequency from 1 per week (pre-symposium) to 2-3 per week (post-symposium)
• Increased average Facebook like range from 10-20 (pre-symposium) to 30-50 (post-symposium)

Dmitry Vinokurov

• Increased Facebook posting frequency from 1 per month (pre-symposium) to 1 per week (post-symposium)
• Increased average Facebook like range from 0-40 (pre-symposium) to 16-200 (post-symposium)


Petra Brockmann and Thomas Brockmann Knoedler

• Increased Facebook post frequency from 1 per week (pre-symposium) to 4 per week (post-symposium)
• Increased average Facebook like range from 3-5 (pre-symposium) to 15-20 (post symposium)
• Increased Instagram post frequency from less than 1 per week (pre-symposium) to 2-4 per week (post-symposium)
• Increased brand hashtag usage from non-Wella hashtags (pre-symposium) to most frequent hashtags used: #WellaHair #WellaColor #WellaLife #beauty (post-symposium)


Results from the post-event evaluation questionnaire also showed:

• 100% felt it was a worthwhile experience
• 83% felt they learnt a lot, 100% of people felt they had learnt something
• 83% of activities scored at least 4/5, and 100% of activities scored at least 3.5/5.