Our brief for this creative exercise was clear and concise: increase the attendance of the 2009 African network conference, especially for creative and managerial EXCO. More fundamentally, package and celebrate the agency’s success in the fiscal year 2008/2009, bearing the holistic nature of a conference experience in mind.

In one word, our task was challenging. However, a single insight guided our thinking and led to our creative solution. A single insight that was in itself quite simple: the African network is an incredibly proud network. Thus, in order to celebrate the group’s success in a uniquely proud way, we chose to package the conference in a uniquely African way. A way that weaved fundamental African icons each into one another to create a wallpaper treatment that illustrated the agency’s success as both proudly African and organic. A treatment that was then applied to all conference touchpoints.

Compared to 2008 attendance figures, the 2009 conference attracted 35% more delegates, both within the agency and amongst blue-chip clients. Moreover, the rate of response increased by 70% with delegates confirming their attendance within the first few days of our digital invites being sent.