Each course came out as a work of art, some even inspired by artists themselves (squab, inspired by Joan Miró.) Tastes and aromas reflected their natural habitats and environments, whimsical dishes had us laughing (balloon), and dessert presented as performance art had us on the edge of our seats (white chocolate).

Seafood courses were presented on a piece of driftwood covered in seaweed that looked plucked right from the ocean. Three pieces of lamb accompanied by 60 garnishes, composed of 86 ingredients, made for over 42,000 possible flavor combinations.

A table centerpiece presented at the beginning of our meal turned out to be our ninth course: a block of ice that encapsulated what looked like four vials of blood. When the time came, we all stood up and slurped a refreshing beet, hibiscus and licorice brew with glass straws, and felt like vampires bumping heads.

The classic Alinea dish hot potato, cold potato lived up to its expectations, as did the black truffle explosion, both bursting with savory truffle flavor. The green apple balloon filled with helium had us in tears laughing as the balloons deflated and the pitches of our voice rose.

The grand finale dessert course was a performance work of art, dramatically choreographed by two chefs painting the tabletop with strokes of Chantilly crème, drops of English peas, throws of strawberry powder and a gentle toss of pansy flower petals. The piece culminated with the chef announcing “Chocolate,” a foot high drop of a white chocolate sphere, and in an instance they both disappeared. What was left was a white chocolate bomb explosion of spring colors, textures and flavors. My colleague Lucy immediately clapped in excitement, as this was a spectacular performance.

1. McDonald’s launches a new smoothie line in Chicago and needs consumers to sample this delicious treat.
2. Boeing unveils their new 747-8 aircraft and wants to position it as the must-have airplane for global operators.
3. The Oprah Winfrey Show takes 302 audience members on the infamous Ultimate Australian Adventure with the goal of increasing tourism in Australia.

McDonald’s and GolinHarris approached EA with the challenge of introducing Chicagoans to the newest McCafe smoothie flavor. Their goal was to provide smoothie samples to as many consumers as possible. Instead of simply handing them out on street, EA created a pop-up beach party in the middle of Riverside Plaza during summertime lunch hour. We measured success not only by the number of samples distributed (nearly 2,000 in a one-hour span) but also by the extended online reach of the event. Coverage surrounding the online video, pop-up party and product launch garnered more than 90.8 million impressions.

When the Boeing Company partnered with EA to unveil the new 747-8 Intercontinental, we knew we had a BIG job on our hands. EA created an event where more than 10,000 Boeing employees, their families and industry VIPs could be physically present to see the enormous 61 by 225 feet kabuki drape fall and unveil the aircraft. The roll out generated international buzz in the airline industry, as well as media coverage in outlets such as MSNBC, The Today Show, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune. Through social media alone, the reveal reached an additional 60,000 to 140,000 people. Since the launch, Boeing has received 36 orders for the 747-8 Intercontinental aircraft, which amounts to nearly $12 billion in revenue.

How could a 14-day trip to Australia not be a success? Oprah’s Ultimate Australian Adventure put that question to the test. In a partnership with Tourism Australia, EA ensured that the experience and the show episodes would provide a strong return by enticing American viewers to visit Australia. After the once-in-a-lifetime excursion aired, travel website Orbitz reported a significant spike in U.S. tourism to Australia. Spending on bookings increased by almost 10 percent, while the value of hotel reservations went up by 13.6 percent. G’day EA!

For more, check out EA’s video on our four-step process:

agencyEA Philosophy from agencyEA on Vimeo.

Our effort to merge creative passion with practical application is both our philosophy and who we are: creatively fueled, logistically driven.

[Chicago, IL] – May 10, 2012 – AgencyEA was named a finalist today in the Best New Product Introduction Event category in The 2012 American Business Awards, and will ultimately be a Gold, Silver, or Bronze Stevie Award winner in the program.

The American Business Awards are the nation’s premier business awards program. All organizations operating in the U.S.A. are eligible to submit nominations – public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small.

For the first time, The American Business Awards will be presented at two awards events: the ABA’s traditional banquet on Monday, June 18 in New York, and a new tech awards event on Monday, September 17 in San Francisco.

More than 3,000 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted this year for consideration in a wide range of categories, including Most Innovative Company of the Year, Management Team of the Year, Best New Product or Service of the Year, Corporate Social Responsibility Program of the Year, and Executive of the Year, among others. AgencyEA is nominated in the Best New Product Introduction Event category for the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental Premiere.

Boeing partnered with agencyEA in 2011 to create a rousing revelation of the newest commercial aircraft for more than 10,000 employees, stakeholders, industry leaders and key customers.

“We are honored to receive this recognition from such a notable organization,” said Fergus Rooney, CEO of agencyEA. “This project was unique and challenging, but ultimately yielded great success for our client.”

Finalists were chosen by more than 140 business professionals nationwide during preliminary judging in April and May. More than 150 members of 10 specialized judging committees will determine Stevie Award placements from among the Finalists during final judging, to take place May 14 – 25.

Details about The American Business Awards and the list of Finalists in all categories are available at www.stevieawards.com/aba.

About agencyEA
AgencyEA is a Chicago-based experiential marketing agency. Taking brands from passive presence to active engagement, EA helps some of the biggest names in the world produce unique, memorable interactions. Founded in 1999, EA has worked with esteemed clients such as Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions, GE Healthcare, The Boeing Company and the Obama Administration.

About the Stevie Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in four programs: The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about The Stevie Awards at www.stevieawards.com.

Sponsors and partners of The 2012 American Business Awards include American Support, Business TalkRadio Network, Callidus Software, Citrix Online, Dynamic Research Corporation, iolo technologies, John Hancock Funds, LifeLock, PetRays, Primus Telecommunications Group, SoftPro, and VerticalResponse.

###

ROI. We all know the term and how important it is to our clients. Yet in the digital age, brand-side marketers and agencies alike find themselves increasingly confused about how to measure it. Do tweets count as ROI? How do I know I actually reached someone? Influenced them? Changed behavior or perception? Led them to actually purchase something?

Measuring ROI in the experiential marketing industry can be even more complicated. We offer clients an opportunity to connect with their consumers face-to-face, to leave a lasting impression and inspire their target markets to think or feel differently about their brand. But how do you accurately measure that return in a quantitative, meaningful way?

Our clients want to know the same thing. A recent RFP from a multinational Fortune 500 company posed the question, “How do you measure an experiential program’s success and its ROI?”

Our answer, short and simple: start with the objective. Experiential marketing programs require custom solutions based on the client’s original goals, and we know that no two projects are alike.

Last week, my coworkers and I had the opportunity to attend the Event Marketing Summit in Chicago. One of the sessions, led by Microsoft execs, focused on how ROI is measured at Microsoft’s B2B meetings and conferences. Kati Quigley, Director of Event Marketing, and Luca Balbo, Group Manager of Global Event Strategy, outlined key ingredients and a nine-step process. But at the core, both speakers reiterated that there is no single approach – measuring ROI always goes back to what the client wanted to achieve in the first place.

A few of their best practices that I found insightful and useful…

Nielsen’s Olympic Sponsorship

Nielsen’s Bob McCann offered a glimpse into their B2B sponsorship of the London 2012 Olympic games, and shared some best practices on how your own brand can sponsor the global event. Officially dubbed the “intelligence behind London 2012,” Nielsen is providing the research and intelligence behind this summer’s games. While you may not visibly see the Nielsen logo plastered behind track or swim competitions as you would Coca-Cola or Omega, the primary branding goal of Nielsen’s sponsorship is to shift perceptions from just a behind-the-scenes media ratings and research company, to one that is vibrant, innovative and providing insight.

I was surprised to hear of a B2B organization sponsoring such a consumer-targeted event, yet the opportunity for them is clear—out of the 70 global sponsors of London 2012, only six are current Nielsen clients. Nielsen is using the Olympics as a platform to showcase its capabilities, research tools and integration with the London Organising Committee to acquire clients in the market. Can’t wait to hear their ROI results, but I’m anticipating gold.

South by Southwest’s Technology Tour

South by Southwest’s Director of Technology Scott Wilcox gave us a tour of the technology utilized at the well-known festival in Austin, Texas, and how they have improved it year over year. They are using everything from mainstream Twitter to listen to the attendee community to the infamous homeless hotspots that premiered this year. Radio frequency identification (RFID) in all wristbands and credentials is utilized for authentications and access control throughout the citywide events, and bar codes are used for lead retrieval for exhibitors and sponsors.

Some past occurrences the SXSW technology team learned from included the AT&T iPhone service failure in 2009 and the audience take over via Twitter of Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote interview in 2008— what Wilcox referred to as “the first convergence of digital and physical.” Since, SXSW has amped up technology by dropping a connected web all over the city and adopted Twitter as the main listening tool to know what is happening everywhere, at all times, in order to continue to improve the guest experience.

The SXSW mission is to create a playful ecosystem and bring active, creative people and companies together to develop and share ideas. The organization’s long-term thesis is to cross the silos of technology, film, music and eco-sustainability, and I would recommend Nielsen to consider sponsoring SXSW in the very near future.

SXSW: The World Comes To Austin

CHICAGO Almost four years to the day after the groundbreaking ceremony that signaled the start of its construction, the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago hosted a glittery, celebrity-packed benefit on Friday night. With headliners Sarah Jessica Parker and Harry Connick Jr., the evening raised $5.2 million toward the hospital’s $600 million fund-raising goal—one of the most ambitious campaigns ever to be announced by a U.S. children’s hospital.

Ann Lurie oversaw the entire planning process, working with Jennie Steffus, the vice president of events for the founders’ board and affiliated organizations at Children’s Memorial Hospital, AgencyEA, and Pat Hurley & Associates to execute the much-buzzed-about affair. The agency, which handled the event’s production, design, and management, has worked with Steffus on related events for the past several years, including the new hospital’s groundbreaking ceremony, campaign launch, and its 2009 topping-off ceremony.

The hospital officially opens on June 9, and it was important to planners to hold the preview gala in the actual building, even though it wasn’t the most logistically simple venue. “The gala was to celebrate the building and all the wonderful programs and people who will fill it,” said Steffus. “We always knew it had to be inside the hospital. We knew we’d have certain limitations on the amount of people we could accommodate, so there was some dialogue on whether or not we wanted to allow the numbers to grow and perhaps add a tent to accommodate the overflow, but it was quickly decided that it had to all take place in the hospital.”

After self-guided tours of the hospital using audio devices with narration from Ann Lurie herself—who was, of course, present at the gala— the 700 guests had dinner in one of three dining rooms. “The most challenging aspect was creating unique event spaces within a hospital,” said Emily Olson, senior account manager at AgencyEA. “To add another layer, the building itself was under construction during the planning process, so every time we came in, it looked a little different.”

Ultimately, each dining room got a different color scheme of green, orange, or purple. In each space, “we wanted to create a look and feel that was playful and whimsical, yet elegant enough for our guests,” Olson said. In each bright room, Jami Darwin Chiang’s tall paper centerpieces were in the shapes of airplanes, flowers, and windmills. “The color scheme, graphics, and whimsical designs really made you feel like a kid again,” Olson said.

The night ended with dessert, cocktails, and a set from Harry Connick Jr. near an indoor garden on the 11th floor. “This would be our only opportunity to be able to host something this unique,” Steffus said. “After June 9th, we’ll never have the chance to have our donors hang out in an operating room, have dinner next to the fire truck [exhibit], or listen to an A-list entertainer in the Sky Garden. It was a once-in-lifetime opportunity and we completely seized the moment.”

For Steffus, the challenge lay in the lofty goal. “We raised that $5.2 million in less than eight months, so I would say some of the challenging logistics were just keeping up with the juggernaut that took off when our hospital leadership decided to champion this effort,” she said. “To have leaders and philanthropic titans like Ann Lurie, Chris Reyes, Lester Crown, Penny Pritzker, Andy McKenna, and Bob Murley rally around this undertaking, we all worked hard to make sure we didn’t let them down and provided any support they needed. They worked tirelessly to secure sponsorship dollars and sell [$100,000] tables to this event. So the devil was in the detail. Being able to staff our volunteers strategically and timely was very important to us.”

Though the preview gala has wrapped, the hospital is hardly done with celebrating its new name and home. Over the next few weeks, events include tours for employees, physicians, donors, and construction workers who worked on the project; tours will also be offered to the city’s community at large. On May 12, a “Move for the Kids” 5K run and walk will start at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Lincoln Park and end in Streeterville at the new facility. And on June 4, a ribbon-cutting will officially dedicate the new building.

Read the full article here.

Chicago, IL (April 26, 2012) – AgencyEA, a leading Chicago-based experiential and event marketing firm, announces today the promotion of Katie Ellis and David Wildman, two members of its executive leadership team. Wildman is now Vice President of Strategic Accounts, and Ellis will lead the Marketing department as its Vice President.

“We are proud to announce the new roles of Katie Ellis and David Wildman,” said Fergus Rooney, Chief Executive Officer of agencyEA. “Katie and David have both been instrumental in developing a vision for the EA brand and growing the agency to what it is today. We look forward to their continued success.”

Ellis began working at EA in 2004 as a member of the Production department. In 2006, she transitioned into a marketing-focused role where she oversaw the company’s external marketing efforts, brand strategy and overall communications.

“During Katie’s tenure at EA she has become a trusted leader, not just in the Marketing department but for the entire agency,” said managing partner Gabrielle Martinez. “Now with a deep understanding of all aspects of our business, we are proud to announce that she will continue to lead the Marketing department as Vice President.”

The agency also announced a promotion for another member of the executive leadership team – David Wildman as Vice President of Strategic Accounts. Wildman joined EA in 2007 as Director of Meetings and Events. Now, as Vice President of Strategic Accounts, he will work with the Client Services department to generate new sources of revenue for EA and seek new business that meets the agency’s long–term, strategic goals.

About agencyEA
AgencyEA is a Chicago-based experiential marketing agency. Taking brands from passive presence to active engagement, EA helps some of the biggest names in the world produce unique, memorable interactions. Founded in 1999, EA has worked with esteemed clients such as Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions, GE Healthcare, The Boeing Company and the Obama Administration.

This eclectic three-room collection begins with a curving entrance flanked by curtains of chainmail, which makes you feel more like you are entering the rabbit hole more than an art exhibit. Mixed media from video to hair and everything in between make up this collection that showcases avant-garde and conceptual works by the three western European fashion houses: Bless, Boudicca and Sandra Backlund. These designers far surpass the lines of traditional materials.

Boudicca "Wode"

Sandra Backlund’s “Last Breath Bruises” collection showcases multiple dress forms wearing an incredible display of warm and cozy knitwear shaped into very structural, architectural shapes in blacks, blues and skin-colored hues. The juxtaposition of the soft, knitted medium sculpted into almost alien-like armor is exceptionally beautiful.

The exhibit is in Galleries 182-184 in the Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago from now until September 13, 2012.

Sandra Backlund "Last Breath Bruises"

Bless "Perpetual Home Motion Machine"

Sandra Backlund "Last Breath Bruises"

Boudicca Tornado Dress

The Creative Project Manager requires superior project management skills.  S/he must be a conscientious team player and a good organizer. This person also demonstrates excellent verbal and written communications skills.  The Creative Project Manager is a creative problem solver, exhibiting initiative and a take-charge attitude.

Assists the Creative Director with every aspect of completing creative projects through the management of available resources.

Reports to the Creative Director.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Works closely with client services as a liaison to the creative department, helping the creative services sell their best marketing solutions to account executives and the client
• Conceives and provides concepts for projects/campaigns to meet approved client strategic marketing objectives
• Has a thorough understanding of the planning, creative and production processes
• Proactively gathers the necessary information to plan and implement each client project
• Leads project specific agency brainstorming
• Works with Creative Director in the selection of all event elements, vendors, freelancers, event talent, and any and all outside resources/purchases needed to fulfill the creative vision of each project
• Reviews all print proofs along with the Designer on assigned projects and signs off prior to sending to print production
• Writes copy/headlines/scripts as requested
• Recommends project deadlines to Account Executive and Creative Director for approval; provides timely issuance of all documentation: proposals, project initiations, creative briefs, estimates, timelines, meeting summaries, and status and budget reports
• Assists in the art direction of videos, event collateral, photo sessions, audio tapings, press-proofing, etc., and supervises freelancers assigned to CPM’s projects as requested by Creative Director
• Assists with new business presentations as requested by the Account Executive or Creative Director

QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree preferred
• Has working knowledge of computer design software and hardware and strives to stay current in level of knowledge and abilities
• Media research experience recommended but not required
• Strong communication skills; ability to present to senior management and all levels of the agency
• Ability to write with clarity, precision

Qualified candidates should submit a cover letter and resume to cwithers@agencyEA.com.