Thankful

As the end of 2021 comes into view, we are all celebrating what a year it has been. A year full of too many video meetings, too little real-world contact, too much uncertainty about, well, everything from the pandemic to the economy to the future of business. But, as we’ve reflected, we found many things that this unusual year has taught us, and many things that we’re thankful we’ve learned. We thought we’d share a few of them with you here.

First, as odd as it is to say, the pandemic gave us an opportunity to learn something more profoundly than we could have learned any other way. We need each other. We need stupid hallway conversations, crazy creative whiteboard sessions, passionate points of view, and rolling up our sleeves side-by-side to achieve our goal.  Of course, we all knew this before, but we’re thankful that the pandemic gave us an opportunity to understand it at our core. As humans, we need to be in the same room together, and that will never change.

Second, we learned to be nimble and flexible in ways that we may have not embraced before. Our business has traditionally been an in-the-real-world type of affair.  But, when the real world disappeared as an option for us, we were forced to stretch. To look at things in a new way.  The circumstances forced us to take virtual events seriously—to survive. We had to pore over details of virtual event platforms, truly understand the appetite for online content across a variety of audiences, and we had to go back to our roots as movie and video producers.  With our clients, we re-learned how to turn every presentation into a broadcast-quality program that is engaging to consume in real-time and on-demand, even when we’re unable to be in the same room.

Third, the pandemic caused us to re-think the meaning of “audience”.  Before, we were confident in our creative acumen––our ability to engage people in physical spaces and deliver compelling, memorable experiences that inspire.  We are now just as confident in our ability to reach in-person audiences and virtual audiences alike. Working with our clients, we’ve been able to extend the reach of our events across the globe and dramatically increase our audience size.  What’s more, the ROI of producing a virtual or hybrid event is increased by the ability to extend the content online. Some of our clients have reached exponentially more people in their virtual audience than they could in their real-world audience.

 Finally, we are thankful for our long-term and new client and partner relationships. We’re thankful to those who went on this journey of discovery with us through our changing world and business climate. We’ve been reminded how fortunate we are to have such a broad and diverse Trademark family. People who are willing to find ways to get it done, even in the craziest of conditions and circumstances. Risk-takers, creative thinkers, can doers. 

 From the looks of it, change is going to be the only constant in the coming year.  Nearly every client we work with is building plans with contingencies at every turn. Over 95% of our engagements in 2022 look to be hybrid or virtual.  We continue to discover new ways to collaborate, reach out and engage each other, and inspire new creative ideas. And, because of this, we’re incredibly thankful for the lessons the pandemic brought to us.   We may not be thankful for the pandemic, but we are thankful for the ways it has made us all better.

We are thankful for you.

The Trademark Team