Use 10 words or fewer to describe the company hosting the event. NOTE: If entering work for clients, obtain their permission prior to entering.

Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, Atmosphere Hybrid 2022 Conference

Where and when did the event take place?

March 27th to April 1st, 2022 at the Venetian, Las Vegas.

On-demand virtual content is open until Dec 31st, 2022.

Who attended this event and what was their relationship to the client company?

The in-person event was attended by Aruba customers, prospective customers, partners, media, and employees primarily from the Americas. The virtual event was attended by Aruba customers, prospective customers, partners, media, and employees in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Pacific Islands, and Japan.

Describe the event in three to four paragraphs. Provide context for the rest of the information.

Aruba hosts an annual technology conference, Atmosphere, for customers, partners, prospective customers, prospective partners, and employees. Typically, Atmosphere is a solely in-person conference with executive and guest keynote speakers, partner sessions, breakout sessions, hands-on demonstrations, an exhibit hall, networking, technical expert meetups and more. For Atmosphere 2022, Aruba decided to conduct the event in a hybrid format to best meet their audience’s needs in the changing global climate. With improved travel and gathering guidelines in 2022, Aruba expanded to a hybrid event, offering in-person activities for the Americas and an immersive virtual platform for global attendees. While the opportunity to be back in-person again was exciting for many attendees, Aruba wanted to be as inclusive as possible to their audience and found it important to offer a virtual event experience as well.

The in-person event was hosted at the Venetian in Las Vegas from March 27 to April 1, 2022. The event included session content tailored to Aruba’s key customers, prospects, partners and VIPs in a variety of formats from intimate and engaging to large and show-stopping. The in-person conference included full day sessions with evening events such as a customer appreciation party. Attendees had the opportunity to interact with the virtual audience via live feed chats, and the speakers addressed both audiences, creating an interactive experience for all.

Aruba employed additional tactics to create an engaging experience to include their virtual attendees in the live event. The virtual event kicked off on March 29, 2022 with live streamed keynotes and breakouts that were later shared on-demand. Keynotes were broadcast across the globe in 3 local time zones, ensuring that the virtual attendees could engage with key executives during live Q&A sessions. Audiences outside the Americas also had opportunities to gather for smaller, in-person watch party events in their respective countries.

Describe the company-wide objective or CEO directive that prompted the event. For example, was the company trying to grow its business or increase revenue? Had the company experienced a slump in customer loyalty? Had a new competitor entered the market? Also discuss any overall, specific challenges that needed to be addressed, and if this project is the latest iteration of a previous event, how are this year’s objectives different from those of previous years?

The objective of the hybrid event was to produce a live and digital experience that engaged both audiences with immersive content, compelling presentations, and exciting interactive components. Aruba was prepared to welcome its first in-person audience since the pandemic after two years of strictly virtual events. Their goal was to seamlessly blend both in-person and virtual events into one cohesive event.

Heading into another year affected by the pandemic, Aruba faced several challenges. They found that their audience had various needs; some had Zoom fatigue and jumped at the opportunity to be in person again, while others weren’t comfortable with the idea of large group gatherings. With the big success of the 2021 virtual event, Aruba felt confident that their audience would benefit from the virtual event platform again. In-person attendees had the convenience of rewatching presentations on the digital platform, and virtual attendees benefited from the convenience of flexible viewing locations and times, plus informative resources and interactive opportunities.

Additionally, Aruba faced the challenge of hosting an in-person event amidst new covid variants and the unpredictable nature of the pandemic. To keep attendees safe, Aruba offered an onsite covid testing clinic and digital symptom trackers. Attendees wore pins that indicated their comfort level with person to person contact. Food and beverages were offered with limited contact by employing tactics such as using individually packaged snacks and serving attendees at stations versus self-serve buffets.

Finally, Aruba strived to mitigate the increasing Zoom fatigue for their virtual audience. They ensured these attendees felt welcomed to the live event by broadcasting the keynote speeches according to each time zone and held their attention with strong gamification and live chatting opportunities. Additionally, Aruba hosted several small in-person events for special global teams in their respective countries.

Describe the measurable, numeric objectives, such as leads, sales, attendance, press mentions, or ROI.

Aruba focused on driving attendance, satisfaction with session content and audience interaction to measure the success of their hybrid event. The event team set some goals of around 7,000+ global registrations and 5,000+ global attendees. Aruba encouraged attendees to respond to surveys after the sessions and aimed to average a 4/5 rating for presenters and content.

Aruba utilized a global marketing and public relations strategy to achieve their attendance goals. The team created an event website, email campaigns, social media channels, social media posts and blog posts to target markets around the world. These audience acquisition tactics were tracked in Aruba’s Marketing Automation tool, Eloqua. Aruba also used Eloqua to register and track sign-ups for the event.

To encourage more audience interaction, attendee engagement and personalized session content were top priorities for both in-person and virtual audience members. In-person attendees could customize their agenda based on their job function and interests. For example, the IT Executive C-level audience attended special strategic sessions to engage with fellow executives, whereas the general Airhead customer audience attended more technical product demos and breakouts. Aruba’s virtual audience was enticed to return to the platform multiple times and stay on the site for longer periods of time with a variety of engagement tactics. There were many opportunities for virtual audience interaction and engagement including gamification, a social feed, a customizable product builder, an interactive innovation zone with demos, polls, surveys, Q&A, and a chat space.

Describe the event in detail from beginning to end. While the overall summary (above) provides a snapshot, the solution description goes into details of the experience. So fully explain the pre-event promotion, the entire attendee experience during the event, and what occurs following the event.

Welcoming their first in-person attendees since 2019, Aruba delivered an exciting, safe, flexible, and personalized experience for every kind of attendee. Atmosphere 2022 was an engaging hybrid experience for all.

In-person attendees were greeted by welcoming and helpful registration staff. Each attendee wore a color-coded lanyard that corresponded with their Aruba affiliation. This included attendees in each industry segment and audience group such as enterprise, commercial, federal, customers, partners, employees, press, analysts, and sponsors. They received a detailed program which gave an overview of the week’s activities, as well as a map and other necessary information.

Attendees filled out a daily health questionnaire in the mobile app to screen for covid symptoms and were provided with an onsite testing clinic to ensure everyone’s safety. As a part of their welcome package, attendees indicated their person-to-person contact comfort level with a color-coded pin on their lanyard. They also leveraged the mobile app for an interactive wayfinding map to guide them through the event.

Based on their Aruba affiliation, attendees customized their schedule with presentations, special sessions, receptions, training, labs, and demonstrations that fit their interests and needs. All attendees were invited to the Keynote presentations, which featured the highly anticipated speakers Phil Mottram, General Manager of Aruba and HPE Intelligent Edge, Antonio Neeri, Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and David Hughes, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Aruba, as well as a Q&A with executives over lunch. The keynote guest speaker was John Chambers, former CEO of Cisco. Speakers addressed both the live and virtual audiences and encouraged attendees to participate in the live chat feed.

Additionally, Aruba delivered expertly designed breakout sessions, incorporating overarching themes, called “journeys” for 30 featured sessions. All 90+ breakouts were categorized by “tracks” which were product and solution focused topics, such as network management and security. These breakout sessions were tailored to the interests of their largest customer base called “Airheads”. Airheads were also able to engage with Aruba in the Airheads online community (where these attendees could chat before and after Atmosphere) and at an onsite Airheads lounge where they could collaborate and network.

One of the most popular aspects of Atmosphere was the Innovation Zone, which was laid out in tradeshow style and featured booths from partners and sponsors, Aruba product demos, and opportunities to network with one another. On day one, attendees were treated to a welcome reception within the Innovation Zone, featuring delicious appetizers and craft beverages. Other ancillary events were spread throughout the weekend. With press dinners, the extravagant appreciation party and award ceremonies, attendees were wowed by the upbeat, exciting activities.

Atmosphere’s virtual experience made it possible for online attendees to also take part in the event. The virtual platform was laid out with a Netflix-style look and approach. Like Netflix, the virtual event platform was personalized and there was ample content on-demand. Based on audience research, the Aruba team found that audiences prefer live virtual event content. To address this desire, Aruba streamed the keynote and breakout sessions live. The live sessions were recorded and shared for on-demand viewing later as well. They also incorporated a simple search bar and denoted which sessions were must watch, featured and new so that viewers could easily find sessions, including the latest, featured sessions.

In addition, Aruba created several other interactive destinations within the platform including an arubacade gamification zone, innovation zone, lounges, training and certifications, live technical support sessions, an Aruba store and more.

Aruba teamed up with several technology partners to create Atmosphere Digital 2022. The most influential technology partnership was with The CXApp, the vendor that provided the technology behind the Atmosphere Digital virtual platform and mobile application. Aruba worked with The CXApp previously on their Atmosphere Digital 2020 and 2021 events and on the mobile applications for their in-person events.

Aruba identified The CXApp as the ideal virtual event platform provider because they were able to create a fully customized digital event platform. This full customization allowed Aruba to showcase their brand look and feel while also accomplishing their virtual event goals. Aruba aimed to make the experience simple, high-quality, personalized, and user-friendly. The virtual event platform interface was designed in a streamlined manner with easy to find navigation buttons for specific types of content and a reliable search engine. The platforms’ notifications and calendar invites, that were embedded for download, made it even easier for attendees to keep track of their favorite featured or live sessions. The video players in the platform were able to host high-quality live and on-demand content. To stream the live presentations, The CXApp integrated their platform with Zoom’s video player. The CXApp’s virtual event platform was personalized in that it served up content recommendations based on attendees’ browsing history and allowed attendees to favorite sessions and build an agenda.

Another key requirement from Aruba was to incorporate interactive elements into the virtual platform. The CXApp was able to integrate various audience engagement tactics including real-time surveys, polls, chat, moderated Q&A, gamification, resource center, social media activity stream and more. These were integrated intuitively throughout the platforms’ video players and home pages. Gamification vendor, NextBee, created the gamification page to encourage attendees to compete with each other by completing key actions on planned journeys. The gamification zone featured a leaderboard that tracked the points that attendees gathered for watching featured videos and completing challenges such as trivia, puzzles, and other games.

The CXApp’s virtual event platform was also industry-leading because their desktop platform was already integrated with their mobile application and mobile event experience. The CXApp’s all-in-one events website and mobile application allowed users to easily access all the Aruba events they have attended in one place. Attendees were also able to experience the same features, history data and real-time updates on any device. All the while, Aruba was able to capture informative audience insights and metrics based on attendee’s behavior in the platform.

Aruba also partnered with Kaon Interactive and leveraged their technology to create a 3D, virtual innovation zone. Kaon Interactive specializes in bringing content to life by making it more interactive and engaging and they did just that in their approach to the Atmosphere Digital Innovation Zone. Upon entering the Innovation Zone, attendees zoom into a 3D cityscape and are guided around an interactive map with different destinations. The innovation zone featured destinations that showcase new technology products from Aruba and from event sponsors, demos, videos and resources for each major industry vertical. Within the Airheads lounge, attendees could uncover surprises if they went on a virtual scavenger hunt.

Technology played a huge role in the success of the Atmosphere Digital 2022 event campaign. The CXApp’s customized platform was easy to use and incorporated many interactive elements that kept attendees engaged longer and coming back frequently. The polls allowed live presenters to gauge audience interest on topics and kept attendees connected to the content. The ability to chat live helped attendees’ network with their peers and Aruba representatives in real-time. The moderated, online Q&A allowed attendees to ask executives, guest speakers and other presenters questions as if they were attending in-person. The social media activity stream was a fun element to get audience members to interact with the virtual experience and to share with their network. The survey results and attendee insights from The CXApp allowed Aruba to get actionable data about the event and to tailor their approach based on the feedback. This enabled the team to deliver better, more relevant content and to emphasize the topics that attendees cared about most. The platform notifications created more of a buzz and resulted in higher attendance for the live, featured sessions.

The CXApp technology also made an impact by reaching attendees where they were and when they wanted to engage. The technology encouraged attendees to interact with the event experience on their own timeframe and on their preferred device. The high-quality live and on-demand video content and the presentation files in the resource center allowed attendees to engage longer and to revisit the session content or download presentation pdfs on their own schedule. It was also beneficial for in-person attendees to refer back to after the live event’s conclusion. The consistency between the mobile, web and desktop experiences was very convenient for attendees. This type of omni-channel virtual event solution will make future Aruba events seamless for years to come.

NextBee and Kaon Interactive’s technology also made a difference in improving audience engagement. The gamification elements encouraged more participation in the platform and with the content by fostering friendly competition among attendees. Attendees were encouraged to buy the latest product offerings from Aruba, buy Aruba branded swag, engage with sponsoring companies, and get help from technical support.

If your entry is an annual event, describe what makes this particular iteration uniquely successful or innovative compared to previous years.

The biggest difference and improvement year over year was the hybrid format of the event. The in-person attendees received a higher quality and longer engagement with the Aruba brand. The customers and partners who attended in-person, spent more time learning about Aruba’s products, technology and advancements as well as engaging with Aruba experts and employees. This created more brand advocates and resulted in more business for the company compared to the previously years’ solely virtual events.

However, by continuing to offer a virtual event element, Aruba was able to maintain and expand their audience by catering to the their attendees’ varying comfort levels of joining virtual versus in-person events. The virtual event also served the global audience particularly well because the covid restrictions globally did not allow for large-scale, in person events.

Provide numeric, measurable results that correspond to the objectives, such as: leads gathered ROI sales made as a direct result of the event actual vs. projected attendance face time with customers media impressions (clearly document your measurement techniques) media mentions post-event survey results Google Analytics metrics (e.g., total clicks, conversions, time spent at each activity, etc.)

Aruba outperformed their registration, attendance, session satisfaction and marketing goals. Aruba was thrilled with the turnout, ringing in 8,336 total registrations and 7,825 total attendees. They outperformed their registration and attendance goals by 56.5% and 19%.

Aruba also found success in their session satisfaction and audience participation. They exceeded their session survey rating goals by 17% for presenters and 18% for content, averaging 4.67/5 and 4.71/5 respectively.

They can now prepare for Atmosphere 2023, which is expected to be their largest event yet thanks to their success in 2022.

List the creative and production agencies and include the following for each: contact person, mailing address, phone number, website, and email address. Include a one-sentence explanation of what each company supplied for the event. Also list the company that provided the photography.

RockIt Events served as the event management and a creative agency, GJS Media served as the production company, The CXApp served as the virtual event platform and mobile app agency, and Kaon Interactive served as the 3D Innovation zone provider.

· RockIt Events, Heather Hite, heather@rockitevents.net, (831) 216-7831, 5353 Scotts Valley Dr STE E, Scotts Valley, CA 95066, https://www.rockitevents.net/

· GJS Media, Gareth Snook, gareth@gjsmedia.com, (831) 801-2007, 4904 Pathfinder Ave, Oak Park, CA 91377, https://www.gjsmedia.com/

· The CXApp, Leon Papkoff, leon.papkoff@thecxapp.com, (408) 313-1000, 309 Ray St. Pleasanton, CA 94566, https://thecxapp.com/

· Kaon Interactive, Ken Abrahamson, kabrahamsen@kaon.com, (978) 823-0111, 3 Mill & Main Place, Suite 200, Maynard, MA 01754, https://www.kaon.com/