JUSTIN Hochberg

For 2 yrs. I ran the largest science-fiction award show, the Saturn 🪐 Awards. We worked across every studio and iconic star of the genre to create an experiential live event. From that perspective, I would first say to improve live events one should strategically understand where they fit within the consumer demand curve, and a brand’s marketing mix. Post Covid consumers want experiences more than things. Second, I recommend conceptualizing an event as a longer journey than just the time someone spends at a venue. An event starts the moment someone finds out about it. It continues through their preparation for it, arrival at it, and even extends past their departure from it if you’ve done a great job.

For 2 yrs. I ran the largest science-fiction award show, the Saturn 🪐 Awards. We worked across every studio and iconic star of the genre to create an experiential live event. From that perspective, I would first say to improve live events one should strategically understand where they fit within the consumer demand curve, and a brand’s marketing mix. Post Covid consumers want experiences more than things. Second, I recommend conceptualizing an event as a longer journey than just the time someone spends at a venue. An event starts the moment someone finds out about it. It continues through their preparation for it, arrival at it, and even extends past their departure from it if you’ve done a great job.

Most presentations are not engaging because most people don’t tell a story that’s engaging. It’s really hard, but the following 2 tips can help anyone improve their success while presenting. First, create an aspirational narrative that transcends the specific data, product or whatever you want to sell that touches people viscerally. Make people feel. Apple had think different, Nike has just do it. It’s a common understanding that people don’t remember what was said, but how they felt while they experienced it. Second, present visually. There’s a reason people say a picture is worth 1000 words. It activates multiple senses. You don’t need bullets - that’s what you’re there for, you just need a great picture or infographic.

The most effective way to use social media these days, which is overrun with every brand involves intersecting 2 powerful concepts. First, understand your consumer deeply. Not from just research, but from connecting dots that do not exist to most others. Steve Jobs was famously asked why he never did consumer research. He responded, because it’s not peoples jobs to know what they want. It’s my job to tell them. Second, social media is meant to be social. It has lost much of its communal connective tissue through the echo, chambers the algorithm works. Craft a compelling narrative, it is easily accessible and joyous, and people will follow.

A fire needs oxygen or it dies. An argument can only continue for so long, when only one side is willing to engage. Chemically, when a person has a reaction to something in their environment, there's a 90 second process that happens in the body. If the recipient chooses not to engage and let that cycle out, it ends. However, if during it one engages them in anyway it resets the 90 seconds. So every interruption, every reply on a social media thread, starts that cycle again, and keeps fueling it. Keep this in mind when you’re dealing with people in person and on social media.

It’s easy to think there is some end goal to celebrate. However wins are everywhere around you and your team. Celebrate them in every moment of the game rather than wait for some big one time moment.