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Reed Midem x Moments Lab Case Study: Adapting During Health Crisis
By
Moments Lab Content Team
October 19, 2020
Reed MIDEM is part of Reed Exhibitions, one of the world’s leading international event organization entities, working in the diverse sectors of: Music, Television, Esports, Retail Real Estate, Real Estate and Prop Tech. The company’s main mission is fostering business relations between clients, helping them attain unique business objectives on a global scale. Based in France, Reed MIDEM oversees 20 events per year, with more than 72,000 participants and 30,000 participating companies.
Along with a majority of other European countries, France experienced its first covid-linked confinement in March 2020, with the events industry taking an immediate hit. For reference, from a total GDP perspective, the international events industry is the 13th largest global economy, representing more than 26 million professionals and 2.5 trillion (USD) in direct and indirect spending, according to the Events Industry Council.
In response to the epidemic, Reed MIDEM took the health and safety of its clients, partners and teams into account as a top priority. With on-site event organization part of their DNA, the company was tasked with creating a comprehensive plan to address the global pandemic in relation to their pre-programmed events lineup, providing new solutions to manage the unprecedented situation.
The first major Reed MIDEM event impacted during confinement was MIPIM 2020, which was originally scheduled for March 10-13 in Cannes, France. Due to the unfavorable circumstances, it was decided to postpone the event for September 2020 and move its location to Paris, along with offering a year-round MIPIM Connect online experience. The same can be said for some of their other well-known trade shows such as MIPCOM2020 and MIP Cancun 2020, both of which have moved to an entirely online experience offering agendas of targeted, pre-scheduled meetings and full online conference programs.
As a client of Moments Lab (ex Newsbridge), Reed MIDEM carried out an exemplary response to the health crisis over the past several months. Since then, we have had the pleasure of speaking with the organization’s Head of Video Production Jean Larmoyer and Publishing Director Martin Screpel to learn more about their first-rate response efforts. Specifically, we wanted to know how their production teams were able to successfully adapt and evolve during confinement, and how they addressed and continue to address the complex difficulties that the epidemic has since posed on day-to-day business operations and upcoming objectives.
Since the beginning of confinement, Reed MIDEM has faced event obstacles related to coronavirus related concerns, with a majority eventually moving to the digital events space. According to Screpel, this period has led to “radical changes” within the organization, not just in terms of what they work on, but also major evolutions in terms of how they work.
The first major change that the team experienced was the obvious shift to remote working, with a majority of the team still working from home post-confinement. Then, with the uptick in virtual events, there has been much more remote production and digital content assembly.
Having adopted Moments Lab in 2019, Reed MIDEM originally signed on for AI powered media asset management services, but as soon as the health crisis hit in the Spring of 2020, the team had an innovative break and decided to leverage additional features.
During this time, different trade shows required different organization. When migrating to the world of virtual events, there was a large amount of content to work with. For example, some of Reed MIDEM’s events went with a webinar series spanning 6 months to 1 year, whereas others migrated to a 100% virtual experience, or simply postponed their onsite event. All of which required various levels of production deliverables.
As part of their strategy to carry out successful virtual events, working with all associated media assets, Reed MIDEM used various Moments Lab functionalities such as speech-to-text, translating, subtitling, third-party platform collaboration and live clipping to easily share content on social media and attract potential attendees for digital events. After uploading their content, recordings and webinars to the platform they were able to work with their material in an agile way, knowing that production turnaround times would be tight.
“We are still discovering the various possibilities and features of the Moments Lab platform- we’re only half-way there. We are excited to dig deeper into additional functionalities.”
-Jean Larmoyer, Head of Video Production
Reed MIDEM has been pleased with the transformation that Moments Lab has helped foster over the past years, especially the past couple months. The same can be said with the high level of customer support that they received during this period, with quick response times and helpful interactions.
“We have extremely specific needs depending on our various trade shows. Working with Moments Lab's customer success team is great- we know that they’re there for us.”
-Martin Screpel, Publishing Director at Reed MIDEM
For Reed MIDEM, Moments Lab’s subtitling functionality played a large role in the successful production of virtual event material. When events start gaining traction in September 2020, the team plans on further tapping into the platform’s Live Streaming functionality for onsite events.
“Moments Lab has always been our swiss army knife.”
-Martin Screpel, Publishing Director at Reed MIDEM
Although the team is now eliminating additional costs by working on content themselves, they are also aware of the need for platform training.
“Everyone has different abilities and talents. We have to remember that, so training is important. The idea of additional possibilities within the platform is interesting and definitely an opportunity.”
-Jean Larmoyer, Head of Video Production at Reed MIDEM
During this particular period with obvious constraints, Reed MIDEM has successfully adapted during the health crisis, and is operating as expected.
“I think the next step, it’s that there will be a rise in the demand for these tools that we are using. I say tools plural because Moments Lab is one of several new tools that we are mastering. The same tools which allow us to do many new things autonomously. With the health crisis production is taking on a different nature, with different objectives- not necessarily using the same means of production as before. For us Moments Lab it is truly indispensable now, it is practical, smart and flexible!”
-Jean Larmoyer, Head of Video Production at Reed MIDEM
Reed MIDEM sees physical and virtual events as a 360° experience allowing delegates at a physical show to interact online with clients who may not be able to attend. Post-pandemic events will be increasingly hybrid.
Over the past months, management is confident that the experience has served as a catalyst in successfully accelerating the company’s transformation towards a more hybrid events organization entity, finding a balance between the two while still emphasizing the importance of onsite events and face-to-face interaction.
“Events have and will always have an important physical aspect, but virtual/hybrid events are definitely here to stay.”
-Martin Screpel, Publishing Director at Reed MIDEM
Needless to say, along with this innovative shift in event organization also comes a completely different business model as applied to long-term objectives. Although monetizing digital events is more difficult than traditional on-site event organization, the team sees it as a logical shift towards a progressive business transformation, meeting the unique and changing needs of their clients.
In 2020 and against the backdrop of the global pandemic, Reed MIDEM has fast-tracked its digital capabilities and its ability to deliver premium content to clients. This includes the use of video, where using Moments Lab video platform makes content quickly accessible and shareable with clients.
“Working with Moments Lab is proving an efficient, modern and cost-effective solution for our video requirements.’’
-Martin Screpel, Publishing Director at Reed MIDEM
