The Brief:
Zut Media are a filming and production company that work with one client for their annual conference every year. This year they decided that they wanted to do something different and Zut Media found us through Google.
The theme of the event was ‘Kidnapping the Boss’. Zut Media were going to film a brief video for the start of the event showing that the top boss from the end clients company had been kidnapped and taken off in the back of a van! They wanted a series of challenges to do in order to get the boss back filling a whole day. This event wasn’t to be serious and business based, it was to have fun and congratulate the team for a successful year.
The Solution:
For this event, we decided that a Spy School theme would be most suitable due to the content of the questions and challenges. The end client also wanted to include some additional challenges into the day such as cocktail making, penalty shootouts, driving simulators and mock interviews. We decided that we needed to make an edited version of the Spy School theme not only to incorporate the additional challenges but also to remove the element of catching the spy as their aim was to get their boss back! To add a bit more creativity and humour to the event we suggested Zut Media film some ‘hostage’ videos so the teams could see that the Boss was being held, hostage. These videos were incorporated into some of the hotspots so the teams had to answer some questions around these videos. Zut Media also branded the app with a ‘Police’ skin.
After the initial enquiry and a few phone calls later a meeting was arranged in Chester to show Zut Media how our events work with the GPS and the Tablets. It was at this meeting that we had a brainstorm to see what we could and couldn’t include in the event, how the theme would all be brought together and what the end outcome would look like. After the meeting it was a case of putting some examples together of the skinning of the app and working to put all the activities, challenges and videos together. The event staff travelled to Manchester the night before the event to meet with Zut Media and put together all materials that the teams would need throughout the day.
The Results:
On the day of the event we had 10 teams of 8 participants which were all named after various different detectives (e.g. Starsky & Hutch, Miss Marple, Bond). Each team was given a timetable for their additional activities to avoid all teams turning up at one place at the same time. For the briefing, the event staff dressed up as police and ushered all participants into a briefing room in the hotel they were staying at to show a video breaking the news that their boss had been kidnapped (which got a few cheers!) From here they were given the event brief on how the tablets work and how their day would run. At the end of the afternoon when all teams had completed their challenges and returned to the hotel, the photos from the day were shown, results were announced and a ‘swat team’ safely delivered the Boss back to his staff!
