Project Overview

The FreemanXP Trend Lab is an innovation incubator that examines trends, creates ideas and contributes to a better tomorrow. It also acts as a marketing program and tool kit that enables conversations with clients around the very trends that will impact their future and can help drive their business.

By pairing the two (the “trends” and the “lab”), we are able to both show our awareness of market trends driving change and how clients must re-engineer their brand experiences as a result.

The incubator format encourages clients to share key challenges they face, then our specialists match those challenges to trends that we see in the market today and make recommendations how they can use these to their fullest advantage.

Project Commissioner

Freeman UK

Project Creator

FreemanXP

Project Brief

The brief was to formally launch the new Freeman UK to the eventspace market at International Confex, London Olympia 2015. Confex was leveraged as the meetings industry event show for Freeman UK to showcase their offering in an ever expanding market. The main objective was to create a Point of View and a Point of Difference that separated Freeman UK from its competition as the clear choice in live events and exhibitions.

The task included an integrated advertising, pr and marketing campaign that led up to the event. A digital portal was also created as well as the booth itself which was to provide a iconic presence at the show. It was vital that the event connected existing clients and new prospects to an opportunity that not only supported their event needs but delivered new business insights and solutions.

FreemanXP is the integrated marketing and brand experience agency for Freeman.

Project Innovation/Need

There are many agencies that broadcast and identify trends, however we found that there was a desperate need to make the link on how all of these wonderful trends actually made a difference to our clients (and future clients). By focusing on their business needs we were able to apply trends that were actually relevant to the changing times and challenges they faced. It gave the trends instant relevance and grounded them in the clients world.

Brands have realized that brand experience is a critical part of their overall marketing campaigns driving brand affinity, loyalty and advocacy. Brands know that that creating positive brand experiences both live and online creates significant earned media through digital, social and word of mouth communications. The Trend Lab is a place designed to address these challenges and more.

User Experience

The Trend Lab was designed to give prospective clients a glimpse into the way the FreemanXP agency thinks and applies new trends to their particular business problems. The user experience embodied our philosophy by creating an immersive storyworld that showcased our methodology though engaging interactions and hands-on activities.

Trend cubes were designed to create a brand artifact for each trend. We found by creating physical objects people felt more connected when discussing and exploring the trends. Tangible props create a fun and lively atmosphere. We also had trend cards, a roll of butchers paper and colored markers for everyone to illustrate ideas, thoughts and actions. These were then turned into giveaways that captured each session.

The debut of the Trend Lab at Confex created a huge stir at the show and showcased the best of Freeman and FreemanXP and how they work together. We were the highest trending exhibitor on Twitter and successfully launched our offer to the UK and EMEA audience.

Sustainability

Everything was locally sourced and built in the UK reducing our carbon footprint. At every opportunity we utilized recycled materials as well as recycling anything we could after the show. For example we utilized ‘RE-Board’ which is a 100% recyclable product that is cardboard based for all of our Trend Lab props. Our fabrication facility runs the latest state-of-the-art manufacturing and printing equipment in order to keep or carbon footprint as low as possible.

Freeman is one of the suppliers for the “Greenbuild International Conference & Expo” the world’s largest conference and exposition dedicated to green building, and it’s the place where over 30,000 attendees and 1,000 exhibitors from the green building industry.

Other highlights include: Trade Show Executive magazine’s Innovation Award: Recycling of over 55 million square feet of used aisle carpet since June 2006. Platinum sponsor of the Green Meetings Industry Council.