Shades of Athens: Planning an e-conference Event from scratch

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AD DISCOVERY — CREATIVITY Stories by ADandPRLAB

10 min readJul 1, 2021

The present article is written by 8 senior students of Ad & PR Lab, Panteion University, Athens, GR. Ad&PR Lab reserves for the last semester a pioneering module on Event Management, run by Mrs. Athena Fradelou and coordinated by the head of the Lab, Αssociate Professor, Dr. Betty Tsakarestou. The carefully crafted curriculum of Ad&PR Lab recognizes Event Management as a last and absolutely necessary step for a successful training cycle in Advertising and Marketing. While this part is often disregarded in relative educational programmes worldwide, Ad&PR Lab gives us the chance to work with a well respected expert on Event Management, in order to conduct a much enlightening training course. What you will read below is the outcome of a real life like Event preparation, which helped students delve into theoretical knowledge they acquired during the course in an experiential manner.

The Event Management Exercise

For the sake of the exercise, the Lab’s participants were split into teams and were asked to organize an e-conference with the concept: “Athens Development Strategies for its designation as a leading travelling destination in the world”. Based on that concept, we were invited to create content and present strategic actions for the city to enhance its international reputation, taking the following parameters into account: Modern Culture, History-Tradition, Wine & Gastronomy, Sustainability, Shopping and Natural environment. In addition, we had to create and present the following: Communication Material (logo, newsletter, website, online registration, press release), Target Audience Outline, Event Agenda and speakers, Marketing / Communication Strategy, Communication Plan.

STEP 1: Research

Life Cycle Model

In order to create our strategy for the event organization, we began our project by conducting thorough research. We studied Butler’s Tourism Area Life Cycle model and we found that Athens as a tourism destination is currently at the “Stagnation” stage of this model. Stagnation is a very crucial stage as after this the destination will either pass to the rejuvenation or to the decline stage. Athens is at the stagnation stage as it attracts millions of tourists, but cannot address the “right” ones. Most of the tourists do not consider Athens as a top destination and, as a result, they use it as a pitch stop, spending no more than one night at it. Athens as a tourism destination is no longer fashionable or desirable and it depends heavily on repeat visitation. This conference/event/project will help Athens to pass to the “Rejuvenation” stage as it will show and promote hidden aspects of Athens, which will make the destination desirable to new audiences.

SWOT Analysis

The next step in our research was a SWOT analysis. We discovered that Athens as a destination has many weaknesses as for example seasonality, lack of infrastructure, lack of economies of scale and lack of quality standards. Those weaknesses can be minimized if Athens “exploits” the opportunities that it has as a destination. For example, Athens could better exploit its landmarks and the modern way of life of the Athenians, the support of the European Union and the creation of the Hellinikon Project which will create thousands of job positions and will attract millions of tourists. Apart from weaknesses, Athens has many strengths as well, some of the most important ones are its landmarks and attractions and the diversity of cultures that live in it. It is very important for Athens to protect its “strengths“ as there are a lot of significant threats that could affect the destination, for example the excessive usage of natural resources and the high competition.

STEP 2: Setting Objectives & Target Audience

Our project has two objectives. The first one is to designate the city of Athens as a top tourist destination. The second one is to help businesses in Athens adjust, not only their communication strategy, but also their branding so as to comply with the new image of Athens. This image belongs to the new “reimagined” Athens 2.0 prototype we have built.

Which is our target audience? The first objective is addressed to all the Media around the world, influencers, travel agencies and also to investors. The second objective on the other hand is addressed specifically to Athenian local enterprises that are concerned with culture or tourism. To be more specific, we mean restaurants, cafés, hotels or DMOs.

Our action is addressed to people between 25–50 years old, male and female. It is very important that the audience is at a good financial and professional level. We would also like to attract people with a good educational level. Of course it would be unwise of us to invite an audience that is not interested in tourism, traveling, sustainability, investments and culture.

STEP 3: Creative Rationale, Branding & Concept in Action

Now on to our Creative Rationale. Most people know Athens for certain landmarks and cultural behaviors. However, Greece’s capital city in 2021 has so much more to offer. Under the “shade” of those landmarks, one can discover many different and unique shades of the colorful palette of Athens. Treating Athens like a palette of colors and highlighting all of its different shades, is the future of rebranding the city as a tourist destination, rather than a “city-break” one. The dual meaning of the word “shades” (σκιές / αποχρώσεις) intrigued us and that’s how we came up with our brand’s name “Shades of Athens” and our logo. Let us walk you through our concept and how we plan on bringing everything to life. Our event will be fully virtual and only the guest speakers will physically be in Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center during the live broadcasts.

Each virtual tour starts from a well-known, highlighted landmark in Athens. The presenter, George Kapoutzidis, starts the narration in an engaging, documentary-like manner, giving brief cultural and historical information about the locations. The camera moves through the streets, mapping the most interesting parts of the Athenian neighborhoods. During the tour, the camera focuses on specific spots, and that’s the point when we move to our speakers’ talks, live from SNF. There are 7 points of departure, each one represents a specific event, all seen from the perspective of the 6 topics given. The goal is to share the city vibe with everyone watching. We achieve that through the variety of the events offered (live tours, talks, cultural events etc.) and the 31 speakers that we think have something important to say and match our event theme.

Moving on with our second objective which includes a variety of different training sessions about Greek tourism, sustainability, success stories, brand communication & brand strategy, hands on projects and Greek entrepreneurship. At the same time, we will be addressing subjects like how the meaning of Greek tourism has developed through the years and commenting on digital & travel trends in order to keep ourselves updated and on top of things that concerns us, as professionals.

All of the above will be accomplished through talks, seminars, workshops & brainstorming rooms. There will also be time for the participants to meet the speakers, exchange ideas about the professional world and get feedback about their work on the seminar.

The event will include 15 of the best speakers from the Marketing and Advertising field, in order to show us the most effective, interesting and innovative ways to change the perspective that tourists and many people from the professional world have for Greece as a tourist destination.

We also chose to include in our agenda a variety of different “Night Events”. More specifically, in cooperation with the Municipality of Athens & Technopolis, we will be transmitting through our online platform many cultural events that will take place in Athens, the exact same days as “Shades of Athens”. The purpose of this “Night Events” section is to present to people the new, modernized, & fun side of Athen’s nightlife!

STEP 4: Planning the event

When it came to planning the event, we chose the dates from 24 to 27th of September, as it is the end of summer tourist season and also the point when the preparations for the next season start. Also, 27th of September is designated as the World Tourism Day.

Our e-conference will be hosted on the online platform “meetyou”. Our speakers though, will physically appear at Stavros Niarhos Foundation.The reason behind this choice, is that we wanted to give the sense of a real life event while keeping it safe and give our foreign audience at the same time, a chance to be a part of this immersive experience from the comfort of their home.

So, in the platform we will include a digital visualisation of the main lobby where eight digital rooms will appear (Information, auditorium, exhibition, network lounge, meet the expert, networking event, poster area, feedback).

The ticket prices vary, from 200€ — 300€, depending on when each one joins. Students can enjoy a discount, while press and bloggers will be entering for free.

About the sponsors, our e-conference is coming to life under the auspices of the Hellenic Republic Ministry of Tourism and Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Apivita will be supporting us as our golden sponsor while the municipality of Athens, Alpha Bank, Technopolis, COSMOTE, Visa, ERT are supporting our event as well.

STEP 5: Setting the Agenda

Now we are going to analyze our agenda. Our agenda is split in two different halls, one for each objective. The two halls will simultaneously host different talks according to the objectives. Our schedule is divided into 4 days.

See the detailed schedule & speakers on the event’s website: https://shadesofathens.wixsite.com/home/agenda

For reference, to kick off the event we have a small talk from our host George Kapoutzidis. Then, our day consists of events from both our objectives. For example, our agenda includes talks, workshops, Q & A, discussion breaks and “Meet the speakers” events.

On our last day, there will be a closing ceremony, followed by our awards and a small trailer video for what the future holds for Athens!

STEP 6: Communication Strategy

We are now moving on to the last, yet very crucial part of our communication strategy. The strategy timeframe consists of 4 stages: before the event, the stage at which the speakers and speeches are announced, during the event and the period after the end of the event.

In the following diagram, you can see the strategy visualization. Horizontally lies the axis of time and vertically each of the media used in each of the four stages:

In the first stage, we start with the announcement of the event, we launch our site and application, while at the same time starting some “teaser posts” on social media, which reveal the dates and thematic pillars of the event. In addition, we send newsletters to all our sponsors in order to forward it with their network and we write press releases for both Greek and foreign media, in order to inform them about the event.

During the second stage, we announce through social media and our site, the speakers and sponsors of the event and we set up advertising campaigns with different targeting for each target audience, as well as we share our content to Facebook & LinkedIn groups related to global tourism and entrepreneurship. At the same time, we are moving on with some magazine spreads as well as outdoor campaigns to increase the reach of “Shades of Athens”, while also creating a small spot on TV and radio. Also, native content articles are posted and a newsletter is sent to those who subscribed to our site.

The third stage is related to the communication during the event. We have enabled social media posting, specifically Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn posts for real-time coverage of the events, and also highlights on a daily basis. At the end of each day, we will be sending a recap Press Release to Greek and International media, in order to keep them updated about the event outcomes.

The last stage of our strategy is related to the communication activations after the event. Having gathered a notable amount of email addresses via bookings and our website, we plan to send “ Thank you” emails to the attendees, motivating them to share their experience on social media and our website. On our social media, we will be thanking our big sponsors for their aid, and we will be also sharing testimonials from speakers and attendees. Last but not least, we plan on creating a backstage, recap video of the whole event, and also a sneak peak of our event for next year!