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. . . to explore all of the creative ways to use invitations to drum up interest for your next event.
When 2,700 people around the world opened their invitations to the Wynn Las Vegas Resort & Country Club's grand opening in the spring of 2005, they didn't view a traditional embossed invitation. Instead their eyes were treated to a 12-1/2 - by 15-inch keepsake box, lined with exterior folds evocative of the facade of the $2.8 billion resort, and an interior lined in a floral paisley reproduction of the resort's whimsical carpet pattern. Inside the box, the invitation's portfolio cover featured a deeply embossed sculptural reproduction of the custom-made molding that adorns the ceiling of the casino. The invitation itself was framed inside a metallic gold-leaf, 12-color reproduction of the casino's hand-painted wallpaper.
Rest assured, this invite didn't get thrown in the trash. The over-the-top invitation was a team effort by Creative Intelligence Inc., based in Los Angeles, and headed up by Marc Friedland, founder and creative director. Friedland believes that a knock-your-socks-off invitation can be a "huge marketing tool' for a party or other event.
"The right invitation gets people really involved in the event even before it starts,' he says.
With this in mind, Successful Promotions went in search of the most outrageously creative invitations on the market, along with the strategies to make them effective. What did we find? An invitation doesn't have to be mundane: It can come in a bottle, have musical accompaniment, or even be planted. Read on for some great tips for turning an invite into something much bigger.
Tip #1
Match the Invite to the Brand
When the Wynn Resort was preparing for its opening, Friedland said his goal was to "create the best way to bring a piece of the resort to people across the globe.' His 20-member team spent seven months researching, designing, refining, testing and producing the invitations, which were meant to give prospective attendees a taste of what to expect at the resort.
Friedland uses the same approach for any event, whether it be a corporate product launch or a celebrity powwow. "Any event starts with proper branding to make it come alive,' he says.
John Banta, director of special events for the American Ballet Theatre, based in New York City, agrees. Banta has judged awards competitions revolving around invitations for BizBash.com, a Web site for corporate party planners. His favorite entry to date: An invitation to an event put on by Converse Shoes that was laced up with real shoelaces. He also recalls an invite to a meeting with a Renaissance theme that was fashioned into a scroll.
Banta's own organization was involved in an opening of the Saks Fifth Avenue holiday window, in which ballerinas presented The Nutcracker. Tying in with the event's snowflake theme, the invitation for the event was a snowflake ornament in a box. "Recipients could open it, read about the event and then keep the snowflake as a memento or ornament,' he says. More recently, his team created an invite for its Family Day fund-raiser event that included ballerina paper dolls with various outfits. Again, the idea was that the recipients could use the invitation, not just read it.
Tip #2
Make It Interactive
If you're sending an invitation to a large group - convention delegates, for example - it may be more difficult to connect with prospective attendees. But the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority has found a successful way to structure such invites: "We make our invitations interactive,' says Valarie Segarra, sales executive for the authority's East Coast corporate division. Every year, the organization hosts a large party in Chicago in conjunction with The Motivation Show, an event for incentive professionals.
At the actual show, the authority utilizes a 10,000-square-foot booth area with about 150 different partners from Las Vegas hotels, restaurants, golf courses and other attractions. To connect with attendees and build interest for the party, Segarra says, the authority first sends a direct mail piece to key prospects, inviting them to visit the organization's booth at the show. "They're told that if they visit our booth during the first two days, we'll exchange that invitation for an exclusive invitation to our big customer appreciation event,' Segarra says.
And what an event it is - usually attracting about 700 convention-goers. For last year's over-the-top bash, which was held in a trendy warehouse-style nightclub, attendees who stopped by the booth with their direct mail pieces were given their official party "credential' - a metal-like military dog tag that said "Welcome to Las Vegas' and featured the participant's photo (taken at the booth). The dog tag served as the official invitation to the party.
The authority has provided many interactive activities in order to connect with delegates before an event. Two years ago, Segarra says, attendees received an invitation with a password and clues that would eventually lead them to the authority's booth area. There they received their formal invitation for the party, with a very industrial theme, playing off the movie title, Mission Impossible.
Tourism Toronto used interactive activities at the Professional Convention Management Association's annual meeting in Philadelphia earlier this year to invite nearly 3,000 members to its January 2007 meeting in Toronto. "This is the first time in its 50-year history that the PCMA's annual meeting will be held outside the U.S., and we had to make a big splash to boost attendance,' says Charmaine Singh, vice president of meeting and convention sales. So her group presented an interactive, concert-like, live invitation at the 2006 meeting's closing called, "Come Together in T.O.' The presentation, which was the brainchild of CEO Bruce MacMillan, included a song with original lyrics, using The Beatles' "Come Together' music, slides of Toronto, lights, a wardrobe change (McMillan changed into a Toronto Maple Leaf jersey at one point), banter with the audience, concert
T-shirts and delegates dancing in the aisles. Future invites to January meeting will incorporate the themes introduced at the kickoff event.
Singh says they used this approach because a traditional invitation wouldn't capture the mood and ambiance of the meeting site. "We wanted to do something that people would remember and take notice of,' she says. "We absolutely accomplished this, as we received lots of extremely positive and enthusiastic feedback.'
Tip #3
Tickle the Senses
Good invitations "are a call to action driven by emotions, design and sensory experience,' says Friedland. One example: As part of the invitation to the June premiere of Love, the Beatles-themed Cirque du Soleil show at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, Creative Intelligence mailed out a simulated 45 rpm vinyl record, labeled "The Beatles LOVE,' which included information about the event.
Similarly, using the appeal of sound was one way Senator John McCain connected with delegates at the 2004 Republican convention in New York City. To drum up interest for an event McCain was hosting at the convention, the Arizona senator's team turned to Steve Paster, president/CEO of Alpine Creative Group in Manhattan. Paster's team cooked up an invitation that, on the outside, featured a picture of New York City. But when delegates opened it up, they were treated to a 20-second musical clip from "Dancing Queen,' by Abba, McCain's favorite group of the '70s and '80s. "Imagine their surprise,' Paster says. Besides being entertained, he added, prospective attendees learned something new about the senator, effectively "establishing a deeper connection with him.'
Paster is also a big fan of using color to entice in an invitation. He likes to match the colors, fabrics and textures of invitations to the seasons of the year. "Our summer invitations feature bright colors with vellum wrap-arounds,' he says. For fall and winter, he advises deeper colors and thicker paper, providing a more formal look. He also uses materials like foil around the holiday season.
Tip #4
Make It Personal
The more personalized an invitation, the better, says Friedland. For example, the invitations for the Wynn Resort opening came directly from Steve and Elaine Wynn, and were distributed worldwide in English, Japanese and Traditional and Simple Chinese. "Those languages were written directly on the invitations; they were not inserted translations,' Friedland says. "It's important to connect with customers and to do it in a graceful manner. This will influence how they feel about the event to come.'
Creative Expressions also provided highly personalized invites and gifts for Oprah Winfrey's Legends Weekend in May 2005, which celebrated the lives of 25 successful African-American women. While the invitations themselves included Oprah's printed signature, envelopes were hand-addressed by a calligrapher. The real personal touch, though, was an 80-page keepsake book given to each guest. The book included photos and biographies of each woman, with personal notes from Oprah about their influence upon her life.
Tip #5
Pay Attention to Packaging and Postage
When sending out an invite, Paster warns, don't pay heed just to the invitation itself - the envelope is important, too. "You want the invitation to look as good when invitees receive it as when it leaves your hands,' he says. "The envelopes must look special, because if invitations are not opened, then it's a waste.' To avoid this pitfall, he recommends a classy-colored envelope with a logo printed on it.
Banta recommends making the envelopes as unique as possible. One idea: "Choose envelopes in unusual shapes so recipients will notice them right away.' In addition, he recommends using professional calligraphers to address the invites, rather than traditional printing.
Postage is also important. Paster handcancels his invites - rather than letting them go through the postal meter, where they'll be stamped with bar codes. Just to be sure he likes the end result, Paster routinely mails himself an invitation before sending the whole mailing out, to see what type of shape it arrives in. And by all means, he advises, make sure you put the proper postage on each invitation. Once Paster mailed 250 invitations with what he believed was the proper postage. (He'd had the invites weighed at the post office beforehand.) Unfortunately, the postal clerk's scale was not calibrated properly, and every single item was returned for lack of postage. Running out of time, Paster was forced to pay more than $1,000 to send the invitations via FedEx. "From now on, I weigh things twice just to make sure,' he says.
A classy alternative to using traditional mail is to have the invitations hand-delivered, Paster says. For one event surrounding Fashion Week in New York City, Paster says he hired a limo driver and a courier to deliver invitations throughout Manhattan. "The limo is much more attention-getting than a courier on a bicycle,' he says.
Reprinted with permission of Successful Promotions, copyright 2006
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