Unraveling the Red Thread: How to design creative, impactful experiences

When we think about creative for the experiential and events industry, many might imagine the POW. The WOW. The flashing lights. The “ooohs” and the “ahhhs.” But what some might not know is that a lot of thought, research, strategy, brainstorming and curating went into that powerful broadway-style opener for a large user conference. Creative needs to be grounded in purpose, it needs to have meaning, and it needs to map back to the company’s objectives, or you might not see a positive ROI when all is said and done. And that’s where the red thread comes in…

Join InVision’s power team, Molly Hodge, Executive Creative Director; Creative Director, Michelle Bartosiewicz; and Evan Strange, Strategy Director, as they discuss the meaning behind the red thread and why interweaving strategy and creative is critical to designing and executing impactful experiences that move your audiences to action.

What You'll Learn: 

– The creative process behind designing experiences 
– Leading with strategy builds a strong strategic foundation for creative
– Case study examples of successful red thread pull-throughs

Transcript

Michelle Bartosiewicz (00:10):

Welcome to InVision's podcast, the Xcast, where we help brands navigate audience engagement in times of change. Creative people are dream weavers. We tell stories, brand stories, product stories, and most of all, people's stories. It's our job to inspire, excite, and move audiences to action. We weave together our client's stories with words, with images and experiences to create a colorful, imaginative tapestry of ideas. And to tie it all together, we use the almighty red thread. Welcome to Unraveling the Red Thread.

Molly Hodge (00:51):

Hi, I'm Molly Hodge. I'm an executive creative director with InVision Communications.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (00:56):

And I'm Michelle Bartosiewicz, creative director also at InVision Communications. So Molly, you've been an award-winning creative director in the events-

Molly Hodge (01:05):

Award-winning.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (01:06):

Yes. Multi award-winning and Drum Award finalist.

Molly Hodge (01:11):

Drum Award finalist.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (01:12):

Correct.

Molly Hodge (01:12):

I know, it's very exciting.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (01:14):

Yes. You've been an award-winning creative director in the event space for a long time. So, how do you describe what you do to people who don't know what a creative director does?

Molly Hodge (01:27):

That's a great question, Michelle.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (01:28):

I know.

Molly Hodge (01:29):

Well, it's funny because my background is in event production, but I did both. I would always kind of write a proposal or come up with an idea and then I would actually go and produce it. And now, I'm only on the creative side, although I understand how things can be brought to life, which I think is a huge benefit. But with my role is that I take insights from strategy and from clients and from creative briefs, and I turn it into an experience that is for an audience. All I think about is that overall audience experience. So, what happens when they first hear about a program? What happens when they arrive on site? What is the welcome experience like? What does it look like? What does it smell like? What does it feel like?

(02:19):

Because I want them to be moved to action, just like what you said before is that I really concentrate on every single type of audience member and what we want their journey to be. And so, we design a program and programs that lead that audience to the action and overall outcome that our clients want to see. So, I think that I do a lot of writing, I create a lot of decks, I lead a lot of brainstorms, I do a lot of pitches, and I love living in that world. I think about the audience pretty much every single day, and I think about how we can make things really interesting and cool and really surprise and delight them along the way.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (03:03):

I agree. I think one of my favorite aspects about being a creative director is you have this crazy idea that you come up with at a table with pieces of cake and candy, and you've been in there for a couple hours and you're just building up-

Molly Hodge (03:22):

What if?

Michelle Bartosiewicz (03:22):

Yeah, exactly. And then a couple months go by, a lot of hard work. You grind it out and you bring it to life, but then you see the audience's reaction to your crazy idea.

Molly Hodge (03:35):

Yeah. It's so rewarding.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (03:36):

It is so rewarding. And you are there, Molly, and know that I absolutely freaking broke down in tears because I saw people's face as they saw something that we built together and-

Molly Hodge (03:47):

It came out of our crazy brains. But it was, again, based in strategy, based in the culture of the company that we were working with, based on that audience. And we felt so strongly about a number of these different things. We died on the sword. We're like, "You need to have this at your event because this is what it means." I'm getting emotional thinking about it, but you're right. The audience walked in and we were like, [inaudible 00:04:12]. It was really magical.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (04:16):

And that's why we do it again and again and again and suffer for these creative, crazy ideas, because of that moment and that feeling. Let's talk about creativity just for a minute. We know that great ideas don't just appear out of thin air. You don't push a button and boom, cool (censored) appears.

Molly Hodge (04:36):

Yeah.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (04:38):

We know that. We need to be inspired and to be effective, creative needs to be grounded in purpose. So Molly, would you give our listeners a sort of behind the curtain tour of what our creative process involves besides cake and wine and whatever else inspires us?

Molly Hodge (04:57):

Yeah. So, I can't just look at a blank wall and come up with ideas. I need to have some ammunition just for inspiration. And so I really do lean on our strategy department and strategic partners to help us understand where the company is going, who are the audiences, what are these different audience personas? Also understanding the space that we're in. We understand the budgets as well and kind of like what are our guardrails before we start that brainstorm process. We're also really reliant, and this is something that is super important to me on a very cohesive, creative brief. And this can be created by the clients, this can be created by us, and we give it to the clients and they say, "Yes, that's right."

(05:51):

This can be created by a strategist and handed to us or in conjunction with, because I don't think it's fair to tell somebody to create something like, "Make something cool. Involve balloons or unicorns," or whatever, that doesn't do anything for me or for you. Michelle's nodding. As a creative director, we really do need to have those insights before we can start working because if nothing maps back to that, then there's no reason to do it.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (06:22):

Right. There has to be meaning. There has to be meaning.

Molly Hodge (06:24):

And that's where that idea of the red thread comes through like, what is that, that sort of is underneath everything, every touchpoint that we create? And it's super important to us.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (06:36):

It's essential to us. And if we didn't have a strong foundation and you're just doing creative (censored) for creativity's sake, it's pointless. And you're wasting your client's dollars and you're wasting people's time. This is a perfect segue now to introduce our very special guest star to today's podcast, InVision strategist, Mr. Evan Strange. Welcome to the podcast, Evan.

Evan Strange (07:02):

Oh, man. What an intro, thanks for having me.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (07:08):

Evan, so you've heard us sort of chit chat about why, as creative directors, strategy is really important to us in order to form ideas that matter, ideas that really will connect with audiences and move them to action. Would you talk about a little bit from your perspective, why strategy and creative need to work very much hand in hand together when creating concepts and campaigns?

Evan Strange (07:37):

Yes, certainly. And obviously, I'm a huge fan of this topic and you both have heard me say this a ton, but I think our teams know that our clients and really all of us live in this world full of data, full of insight and just massive amounts of information, and that can be hard to navigate. And it's my job as a strategist to really act as a clarifier in this kind of sea full of data and keep a laser focus on the why at all times. And you'll hear me say the why ad nauseam, because it's that important. And the why is our audience, it's their needs, insights that we uncover during research and so much more. But that why is what I believe helps form the basis of the fibers of the red thread, if you will. And I'd also add that so many people say that they lead with strategy, but when we say we lead with strategy at InVision, it really is that simple.

(08:34):

And it's that everything we do has a purpose, it's on purpose and it's grounded in a real strategic foundation. From the stories we tell, to the drinks served at a party, to the seating that we choose, and everything in between, the experiences that we create really should be intentional. And that is how we create something that truly makes an impact. So, I guess to answer your question and wrap it up, if I'm doing my job right, I'm setting my creative counterparts up for success by giving them that strategic foundation or those sparks and those fibers to really start weaving that red thread throughout an entire experience.

Molly Hodge (09:13):

I love how you said that.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (09:13):

I know.

Molly Hodge (09:18):

That was really good. I was thinking too, and I wrote this down that you work on the why, Michelle and I work on the what coming out of the why, and then our production counterparts, experience delivery group does the how. How are we going to make this happen? What materials? What kind of lighting? Et cetera, which I think is interesting.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (09:37):

Well, to the end though too, it's like creativity doesn't exist in a vacuum. Like I said earlier, you don't push a button and an idea magically appears, it has to be formed. And it's like the fiber of the red thread again that gets pulled through this thing that we all together weave and create this cool experience. If we're doing our jobs right, it's a cool experience that matters to people, gets them thinking or doing something that our clients want and need them to do. So Molly-

Molly Hodge (10:14):

Yes.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (10:15):

... would you talk a little bit about the creative brief process and what it looks like, and how creative team would take that and use it to come up with concepts?

Molly Hodge (10:27):

Yeah. It is really, really simple. We don't ask a lot, but we do want to know again, what do we want the audience to think they'll do? What is the single most compelling idea? Why are we doing this? What is the purpose to this initiative or this program or this video or this fabricated structure or this mobile tour? Whatever the end deliverable is. And we really ask very thoughtful questions because we want to get to the point of it. I think it's important for our clients to be aligned as well. So this is sort of that north star, like you read it, we're all aligned, we got it. Yes, hopefully all their stakeholders are behind it and that is something that inspires us.

(11:16):

Again, we're not going to come up with unicorns and balloons because it's fun and cool, we're going to come up with unicorns because there's something within the document or within the insights that Evan has told us that they want to see something fantastical that takes you out of your comfort zone or whatever, there would be a reason why. So, I'm a true believer in creative briefs and I think it's close to impossible to actually build anything without having that strategic foundation.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (11:49):

Sometimes you get lucky and it just happens, but not often.

Molly Hodge (11:54):

No.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (11:55):

It's very rare. And that creative brief is the genesis really of the red thread. So, it's founded in strategy and then all of the insights and thinking that we understand about clients, where they're going, what they want to do-

Molly Hodge (12:10):

What their messaging is.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (12:11):

... what their messaging is. And the messaging really is the red thread. It's a verbal red thread and it's a visual red thread. So, what does the experience look like? Even down to silly things like fonts, they all communicate something so everything has to function together, to be woven together thoughtfully. So, let's talk a bit about some of our past projects. And I know one of our all-time favorites is a program that we did with the theme of Roar. So without really... Do you remember that, Molly?

Molly Hodge (12:54):

Yes. I didn't think you were going to bring it up. I love it. Maybe it's in here. There it's, yeah. No, the strategy behind this, it was a program. It was-

Michelle Bartosiewicz (13:04):

For a technology client.

Molly Hodge (13:05):

... for a technology client. And the strategy and the insights were that the audience has a voice, the audience should be free to use their voice, they're powerful together, et cetera, blah, blah, blah. There was a lot of back and forth with it. So we came up with an overall theme of Roar and to bring that to life, everything had to do with the actual animals roaring. And we started the whole program with this custom designed, beautiful opener that had the song The Circle of Life, all of the Lion King and all of these incredible performers that then mashed into the song Roar by Katie Perry. And so that was this sort of big opening, uplifting moment.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (13:55):

So cool.

Molly Hodge (13:55):

And then we just had moments throughout the entire program. It was about a two hour, hour and a half long keynote that really just sort of brought that home. Like, "This is how you roar. This is why we roar." One person did his entire presentation about being stealth as a panther. Another person was all about... Anyway, another person brought in the idea of a wolf, who doesn't necessarily roar, but it's still like that having a big expressive voice and being very expressive. So it was a really, really memorable experience, it was a couple of years ago, but people still bring it up because it was so meaningful to the audience. They were completely blown away and just really felt very special about the whole thing.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (14:40):

That's a really great example of how a really thoughtful red thread when woven throughout, even pre-experience or pre-event communications, and you pull it all the way through and you pull it tight, it puts a big bow on everything and the messaging becomes crystal clear. People walk away with something meaningful at the end of the day.

Molly Hodge (15:06):

I would say it's one of the only general sessions that I've ever been a part of where at the end, everybody was on their feet. It completely knocked the socks off the audience. They were just like, [inaudible 00:15:18] and they just rose at the end and it was just this celebration and it was pretty special.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (15:26):

And it got that reaction because it was so strategically thought through, right? It's like if we hadn't had the strategy as a foundation to get to that place, the creative wouldn't shine as bright. And I'm curious about Evan, from a strategic point of view, when you see and experience grow and come to life, how satisfying is it for you as a strategist to see the messaging and that red thread really be crystal clear and powerful?

Evan Strange (16:04):

I love it, number one.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (16:04):

Of course, you do.

Evan Strange (16:09):

I think when that magic happens and everything is on brief and it's on strategy, it's not always an overt moment where you walk in and you see something printed and you're like, "That was in the brief. That's on strategy." It's something that you kind of feel throughout as you progress through the attendee journey and you just get this feeling of impact. And it's hard to really explain but we've all seen these types of experiences. And I think for those that aren't in this business every day, when you experience something, you go to an event and you're inspired to take action, I think those are experiences that followed their foundational strategy and that red thread throughout every piece of the journey.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (17:00):

Absolutely. I know that you were part of a program for another tech client of ours on their team's event, and I'm just curious what made that so successful from your perspective?

Evan Strange (17:14):

Well, I think it's another example of following that red thread based on something so simple. So the red thread and the strategic foundation for Team 2022, it's an Atlassian event, was this idea of unleashing the power of teams. And Atlassian was kind of the one brand that could help people do that for a variety of reasons. Now, the event itself was beautiful, that idea of movement and unleashing and power and potential, really bled throughout the entire experience. But obviously as the strategy nerd here, I love kind of the background foundational insights that we found when we were planning it. And what that really was is that we knew, even now, more than ever, people are spending the majority of their days collaborating with teammates across the globe. We're doing that now, right?

Michelle Bartosiewicz (18:07):

Yeah. Right this second,

Molly Hodge (18:11):

Right this minute.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (18:11):

That's right.

Evan Strange (18:11):

And everybody is working on a variety of problems, big and small. And what we also know because of where everyone is located, so this world without location, effective collaboration really never stops. You may start something, I'll pick it up hours later, and that process is continuous and it never really ends because we're always kind of growing, moving forward, taking on the next task. And what we found is that Atlassian's clients really were the world's best teams and they were unleashing that power and potential because of those specific solutions that they were using, and it let them overcome a variety of issues, if you will. So that foundational idea of unleashing the power of teams through this technology really was threaded throughout the entire experience from the moment someone received an invite to where they sat in the ballroom and any type of communication post event.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (19:12):

Right. I mean, we are pretty powerful people if you think about it, right? We are using our creativity-

Molly Hodge (19:21):

We have the power.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (19:21):

Yes. Yes. I just want to talk a little bit too about how having a thoughtful, creative brief and thoughtful boundaries for the creative team really is a budget friendly thing for clients too. Because when everybody's aligned, when we have a direction, we know where we're going, we're not wasting time. We're focused, we're not wasting dollars. Part of the process, it gives everybody a sense of where we all need to go together. We're going to be driving certain brand objectives across all platforms, all means of communications or experience. We're reinforcing beliefs sometimes and a lot of the times we're stoking enthusiasm and excitement for a brand. And that's mostly in the live space where you get to have the chemistry of people being together and looking at something really awesome or beautiful that moves people and emotionally connects with people. We want brands and people to connect on that level.

Molly Hodge (20:35):

Well, I can just say too that I think you're right, the brands want to connect emotionally to the audience, that's why they're there. They're there to look at somebody face to face and have that emotional connection and be able to connect the audience member more fondly with a brand or again, move them to action. And what I take a lot of pride in is looking at the holistic program. Like Michelle said, it's not just about what's happening in the ballroom or what's happening online beforehand, or how the audience is being acquired, it really is about every single touchpoint. So what does it feel like when you first arrive? There's a trade show or a village experience, everything should be tied together with that red thread. There shouldn't be a disconnect between, for instance, the stage set in the keynote space versus a stage set in some other room or the signage or the graphics or a big brand moment in a hallway or a village.

(21:42):

Everything should be connected and just reinforce that same set of messaging to try to move that audience. And that's something that I'm extremely passionate about. Again, there's no creative that we come up with that is frivolous. We are again, grounded in strategy with the help of Evan and his team. And I just think that that's what makes me proud and that's what makes me keep working as a creative director. This is why we do it.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (22:13):

Yeah, it is.

Molly Hodge (22:15):

And seeing that audience reaction, it was really hard when we were only doing virtual events because we couldn't hear the applause. We couldn't see the smiles, we couldn't hear the laughter. It was just like, "Here you go. Good luck. We think we've done a great job and we hope that we've created something that's really engaging," but we didn't get to hear it. And it's definitely really-

Michelle Bartosiewicz (22:38):

It's a different payoff.

Molly Hodge (22:39):

It's a different payoff. Yeah.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (22:43):

And it's not a different approach. We would approach-

Molly Hodge (22:46):

100%.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (22:47):

... executing the creative the same way with the same strategy, but we just don't get the smile or [inaudible 00:22:55]. Yeah, exactly, at the end of the road. I think it's time to maybe weave it all together here. And we leave our listeners with a couple of key takeaways. I know Evan, you talked about the why. From a strategist perspective, the why is really, as you said, the fiber for the red thread. And without that why, creatives don't have the tools really to do something purposeful. Because we do love nothing more than just to think of crazy stuff, but without guidelines or guardrails, it just doesn't work for us.

Molly Hodge (23:42):

When you're saying about the guardrails, and I have worked at other agencies, I do think that InVision has a very unique culture in that we are extremely collaborative. We respect each other, we trust each other and I think that makes a really big difference in the end product. Evan and I talk more than once a week, probably. We're very, very aligned, but we also are very close with the media producers, with the actual event producers. We work very, very, very closely with this whole team. And it's not like we take it from Evan and now, "Your work is done, Evan, bye-bye," it's not like that. We continue through this whole process and we're all very collaborative. And I truly, truly believe that, I think that this agency, InVision is one of the best. I think we have the best culture for true collaboration, and I feel like everyone has each other's backs. We are in it together. We're all for the final product and I'm really proud to work here.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (24:55):

I am too. Molly,

Molly Hodge (24:56):

How about you, Evan?

Evan Strange (25:02):

Love it. I think you bring up a really, really good point because anybody that's worked in the agency world, that's been in either strategy or the creative side, understand that relationship, what it should be but also that it's different at every single agency. And some places you go, you'll be brought into a project as a strategist to help creative back ideas into a strategy that already exist. But where I think we thrive is that we're leading with those insights so we have these ideas, they're able to be sharpened immediately as they come in so I think when we do say that we lead with strategy, it's the starting point, but it's also a continuous relationship throughout the entire process, which I love being a part of.

Molly Hodge (25:53):

Me Too.

Michelle Bartosiewicz (25:54):

Me three. So with that, I want to thank everyone for listening to our podcast, Unraveling the Red Thread. And I want to thank Molly and Evan for your time today and joining us at the Xcast. And most of all, thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. Be sure to join us for the next podcast episode which is coming soon, we promise. Until then, cheers.