3M Middle East: WorldSkills 2017 onsite social media coverage and content development
As sponsors of the world's largest and most diverse skills competition with participants from 77 countries, our client 3M asked us to cover the event with a view to developing compelling interviews, video footage, photography and social media content and messaging to leverage their involvement and showcase their support of the participants across 52 skills categories. Eleven777 helped create a vast and vibrant library of content that was posted across 3M's corporate Facebook and Twitter channels with engaging, thought-provoking messaging, over a period of three weeks following the five-day event, with a marked emphasis on the theme of sustainability.
Key deliverables: Social media content development, on-site VIP interviews, participant engagement, video footage and editing, event photography
Our approach
We could have taken the standard, easy-as-pie approach to content management, namely reposting the show organisers’ content, following the formulaic approach of covering a set number of participants over the course of the event, and pre-planning the topics to develop material for. Instead, a team of seven consisting of two content writers, two photographers, a videographer, a content manager and a ‘photo-op identifier’ (we made that position up!) scoured the length and breadth of the vast Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC) looking for the best content opportunities over three days (instead of the two we were contracted for), to develop some seriously impactful, engaging and amusing material.
The strategy was to capture the participants’ emotions, the palpable tension in the air as they brought their A-game, and our client’s products that were the catalyst enabling the competitors’ efforts. The result: interesting, meaningful, thoughtful and intelligently developed social media material that showed 3M’s involvement and innovative products in the best possible light.