The invite shipped in a bold pink envelope in order to stand out. The invite itself was interactive; each guest was given a unique code that was printed on the bellyband. Entering the code at our website was their way of RSVP’ing. Plus, a coaster popped out the center of the invite and served as a reminder of the upcoming event.
With a thirst to take the Olson brand from a “Midwest shop” to a nationally and internally known powerhouse and thought leader, we decided to bring high-profile keynote speakers in the areas of emerging media, branding, digital innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership, such as Arianna Huffington, Soledad O’Brien and the second most-watched TED.com presenter Simon Sinek to a stage within our Minneapolis headquarters.
The idea behind the invite was to bring a futuristic and forward thinking tone together with MN culture. Using an old craft of letterpress with a bold new take on color. The gold and bright foil colors were used to evoke new and bold ideas, yet keeping it smart and sophisticated.
More than 200 top decision makers from companies like Target, Best Buy, General Mills, Kraft, Wrigley, Boston Scientific, Ecolab, Northwestern Mutual and UnitedHealth Group spent the entire day with us, learning from thought leaders and openly discussing and sharing key challenges. We were blown away by the love we received on social media, with 688 Tweets equaling 11,329,778 impressions. #nxmwsummit was trending topic for 12 hours in Minneapolis. Notable tweets/re-tweets came from AOL Advertising, music maven Estelle and media superstar Soledad O’Brien.
