Monday 8th December
Tom Eatenton, founder, Kru Live
What is the forecast for 2015?
The outlook is undoubtedly positive for 2015. We have numerous projects that are repeating next year and many are upsizing those carried out in 2014. There is a strong focus on activity around the Rugby World Cup and some exciting brands with new experiential campaigns that are going to be entering the arena too.
What emerging trends are you seeing, which will be beneficial to our sector in the next 12 months?
We are seeing more emphasis being placed by our peers on the importance of timely payments and a very high level of communication, support and training of managers and field teams – we aim to remain as innovators in this area. Technology is always evolving and the use of field-based apps and data capture technology remains a strong part of measurement and reporting to ensure that value is being achieved from this type of activity.
How does the industry need to develop?
Advance planning remains a important area that brands and creative agencies should focus on – naturally the further out that key decisions are made, the more time and focus there is on the fine tuning that distinguishes a great activity from an okay activity. There is a clear impact on results for those clients that plan well in advance against those that are still in development right up to the minute they launch.
Those brands and agencies that engage their partners very early in the process always have a smoother delivery, better consumer feedback and social media chatter and quantitative and measurable results to draw from post-event.
What has been a Kru Live highlight in 2014 and why?
We have delivered work as far as New York for Greggs, as well as projects in Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Manila for Keds to name a few. Another campaign of note was the UK launch of Google Glass – we trained a large team of brand ambassadors across a number of days with highly technical knowledge of this new product and the greatest accolade for me was the brand director’s feedback. He said: “I cannot tell the difference between the Kru Live team and the Google team.” Truly great praise.
