Transcript
Event Marketing is about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. At least that is the opinion of event expert Peter Decuypere, who developed the Holy Trinity Methods for a unique event experience.
Hi Peter, welcome back.
Nice to be here. Nice picture by the way.
Yeah, we found an ugly guy on the internet… sorry. After your first book, We Love Events, you made a second one, Holy Trinity Events. You did see the light?
I did see the light, yeah. I’m a philosopher so for me going from a religious model and going to a more secular and interpretation wasn’t that hard. It’s about the Holy Trinity and it’s about, What I liked about the idea of Holy Trinity is that you define something, the divine, by combining three elements. And putting those elements together, really creates value. And I transpose that to events. So I got to a model, a method, where you have God experiences, me-experiences, re-experiences, God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Hallelujah.
And how does that relate to events exactly?
Well it’s rather simple you know. I will explain it in two minutes. God and the God experience, that’s not so difficult. That’s about people on stage, standing on a stage. They are far away, preaching their message of love and we have to give them applause. Jesus, he’s like a human amongst the humans. So it means, Jesus is the visitor of an event. He wants to eat something, he wants to drink something and he wants to have a good time. It’s about me, myself and I. It’s about me-experiences. It’s about star cooking chefs coming to your festival and preparing dinner for you. That’s what Jesus and the me-experiences is about. God experiences, me-experiences and then we have the re-experiences. That’s when people, the visitors, do something together. You create value, re-experiences, by doing things together. By activating the people coming to your event and give them excuses to connect. God experiences, me-experiences, re-experiences.
And you always have the three elements?
Well yes, you have the three elements. And what you can do with the Holy Trinity Method is just check if you can upgrade some of those elements. If there are too many gods at your festival, Because what you see is that it’s rather difficult to make a difference by adding more gods to your event. Look at the festival Tomorrowland. You have four hundred DJs coming to that festival. So two weeks in a row, eight hundred gods coming, adding ten gods to that line-up doesn’t add so much value. So that’s the problem with a lot of those festivals nowadays. Also like rock/pop festivals, Glastonbury and so on, Pinkpop. And many more. And many more gods. Difficult. We still need those gods, we still need the Rammsteins and the Guettas and so on. But it’s difficult to add more value by adding more gods.
So now you need to focus on the me-experience, the Jesus experience?
Yeah.
That’s food and drinks and things like that, or?
Well, it’s like upgrading that customer experience. And I think you can upgrade that customer experience by adding customer expression throughout the customer experience.
What do you mean by that?
It’s by activating, by giving the people an excuse for self-expression. Let them express themselves. Let them do something within that me-experience.
Burning Man, for example, or?
Well, Burning Man is more like re-experiences, is like give the people an excuse to connect. That’s really like an extreme example of Holy Trinity, where those elements, re-experiences, are very very important. Me-experience of course, radical self-expression. That’s what Burning Man is about. But Burning Man is of course an extraordinary event, it’s difficult to copy. But just think of something simple. Instead of selling Fantas at your event, that’s a commodity. There’s no self-expression in drinking a Fanta. Just give the opportunity to make a smoothie, and pick your own ingredients and choose it yourself. That’s adding some self-expression within that smoothie. I’m sure that if I have a smoothie and you’re with your girlfriends or your boyfriend at an event, you will take a sip of each other’s smoothie. Not of each other’s Fanta. And that’s like adding a little bit of self-expression. Just a little bit of self-expression.
And the re-aspect?
Well, the re-experiences, that’s about doing things together. By giving the people an excuse to connect. I will give you a very very simple example. If you put a single swing at your event, that’s a me-experience. If you put a double swing at your event, just take Best Kept Secret. If you go to Best Kept Secret Festival, they have swings. And that double swing is just an excuse to connect. That’s creating opportunities. Double swinging that can result into babies you know. A single swing, that’s difficult. And that’s what Holy Trinity thinking is about, it’s about combining those things. And checking if you do not have too many gods, if the me-experiences are OK, we experience God, Jesus…
For a festival, that makes sense, but can you also apply those principles to for example a conference?
Yeah, I’m sure. Because I think that customer expression is important for all events. Excuses for self-expression, doing something yourself. I will give you a simple example. If you register for an event… I did it for the presentation of my book. I asked people, what musical track, what number, do you want to hear on the dance floor, after the book presentation. What would you fill in if you had the opportunity? What do you want to hear on the dance floor after your book presentation?
Maybe something of Madonna?
Madonna. Like a Virgin?
For example. Why do you think about that number?
I don’t know. Justify my Love, OK? Ok, Like a Virgin. And what we did when we got those data, of course check it for privacy and so on, and we put it on the tag. We just put: do you also like Madonna, Like a Virgin? And you were just walking around. Oh my god, you like Madonna, yeah, I like that track, but I prefer that.
It’s a conversation starter.
Yes, it’s an excuse to connect. You know you have simple ways for those re-experiences. It’s a double swing, but just put a ping-pong table at an event, and you will see that people start playing ping-pong. And you can do it at a congress, whatever, you can do it at conference. Just put ping-pong tables and people start playing ping-ping. Ping-pong are re-experiences. It’s something that, You do not play ping-pong to win. You play ping-pong because it’s nice to play ping-pong. It’s about gifting, it’s about taking that little ball and give it to you. That’s what ping-pong is about. So I’m sure that applying that Holy Trinity Method and checking if the God experiences are OK, the keynote speakers that you have and the me-experiences. Is the food experiences, OK? Are the toilets OK? Is the parking OK? And those re-experiences are the excuses to connect. You can apply that method also for conferences.
OK great, Peter. You are working on the English version of the book?
Yes.
When and where can we find it?
We hope to get it ready by the end of this year, 2018. So if you send it out next year just say 2019 No, I think it must be ready by the end of this year.
OK. On your website I assume?
Yes. If you check my website, peterdecuypere.com you will find all the information.
OK, Peter. Thank you very much.
Nice being here.
And you at home, thank you for watching our show. I hope to see you next week.
