RSVP Melbourne stages a Mini seminair with bite

Over the years I've seen lots of hypothetical seminars on the subject of pitching for a job. This week I watched one of the best I've ever seen.
The opening session of the RSVP Event Talks in Melbourne was entitled Life's A Pitch.

This was a real life pitch to be delivered by three leading event producers for a real product for a real client.

It opened with Georgia Hobart - Events and CRM manager for MINI who went through the history of the marketing strategy that has been used to promote MINI outside the Motor Show. Essentially they took the product out of the Motor Show and created experiential events to attract buyers - I won't go into all that but essentially it has been a very successful strategy.

Hobart then detailed the target demographic, desired outcomes, budget, etc to the three contestants, who until now had no idea what the brief would be.

Then contestants had 15 mins to brainstorm with their teams and to come back to make the pitch.

The teams were Peter Jones Special Events, Jack Morton Worldwide and Great Southern E-vents.

During the 15 min brainstorming session MC Nic Yates kept the interest up for the audience by quizzing Georgia Hobart on the marketing of MINI and taking questions from the audience.

Then came the pitch - each team leader had 5 mins each to put their case and they were then voted on by the audience using responders.

Hobart was obviously impressed by each of the pitches and you could tell that she now has an extended pool of event producers to call on for future events.

So what were the pitches - here are just some highlights...

Peter Jones' started with cars on a platform at Southern Cross station that then headed off down Collins street which has been closed for the event (on a business day). Teams of dealers then had to "kidnap" potential buyers and take them to a location where they could experience the Mini first hand.

Jeremy Garling from GSE had potential buyers taken to an indoor test track in the shape of the Union Jack - this was in acknowledgement of the 50th anniversary of the launch of the original Mini. The main selling points would reflect the attraction of the original Mini - fuel efficient, compact, etc.

The pitch from Katie Chatfield of JMW was based on street art and very funky feel.

Everyone involved got their money's worth out of this session.

Nic Yates, Jeremy Garling, Georgia Hobart, Katie Chatfield and Peter Jones