What You Can Learn From: Cisco

For Cisco, the launch of TelePresence, a new conferencing and business networking technology, would be arguably one of the most important rollouts in company history. So it needed an event that would motivate customers to experience the solution first-hand, demonstrate its ability to transform business processes and maximize coverage by media and analysts.

The company created a multi-location happening, kicking off in Bedfont Lakes, UK, where attendees connected with participants in New York City for various sessions. As the day progressed, customers in New York connected with San Jose, Cisco’s world HQ, before those SJ participants linked up with Hong Kong. (For event staff in New York and San Jose, it was an almost continuous 16-hour event.)

Cisco built excitement in part by making it an exclusive opportunity: Only four people participated in each session. Invites were emailed from senior executives in each host office (ceo John Chambers for the San Jose event, for example), and participants enrolled on a custom registration site.

After a welcome and a demo session, product experts gave detailed explanations of the technology, and fielded questions. Each attendee received a video iPod preloaded with videos and podcasts related to TelePresence and other Cisco communications solutions. Not only was attendance strong among customers, media and analysts—with almost no attrition—but guests rated the event a 4.72 on a five-point scale, and 78 percent said they were more inclined to purchase after the event.