Quickly expressing a value proposition at industry events

Problem

Event messaging is tricky, especially booth materials that need to attract attention in a loud, hectic, well-attended conference. 

How can you design videos that engage passersby but don’t upstage the people and products on the floor? How can you tell a story that conveys an important value proposition but is short enough to loop, and clear enough to be able to jump in jump in anywhere and understand the message? And how can you make printed messages brief and portable, so people can “get it” quickly and take it with them?

Gartner asked us to do all of that, to design an expandable suite of communications tools — initially videos and infographics — that clarify and visualize the value propositions for Gartner’s CloudScore and AppScore capabilities.

Action

The AppScore service enables organizations to have visibility into their entire application portfolio: which are performing? Which are redundant? Which provide competitive advantages? Which are risks? AppScore then helps you transform to a more deliberate architecture.

CloudScore helps organizations avoid or recover from a messy migration to the cloud. The service provides a 360º application suitability assessment, a financial review, technical recommendations, and more, guiding your inevitable migration to the cloud.

The initial tools we designed debuted at Gartner’s Symposium/ITxpo 2017 conference, and rolled out in marketing communications throughout 2018. Since then, the apps have matured and been rebranded as Gartner finesses its solutions.

Result

Our solution included a simple, on-brand illustration style that allowed us to use modular visuals in straightforward, “slide-based” animations with no voiceover or sound effects. Thi solution is perfect for events because people need to be able to consume these in a loud, crowded event space.

This approach results in a minimalist video — but one of the benefits is that these kinds of video projects can be completed more quickly than traditional voiceover animations.

And each video was also turned into into derivative one-page infographics that enable Gartner to better articulate its offering to a broad group of stakeholders and potential customers in other kinds of sales situations.