How to Maximize Your Event Photography

One of our most loyal and beloved clients, Consultants 2 Go, recently celebrated their 10^th anniversary in business, and we were there to capture the event.  Consultants2Go® is a management consulting company providing marketing and analytic consultants to Fortune 1000 companies.  Being experts at using PR to market their services, they had a specific plan in mind for using their event photos.

We asked Sandi Webster, one of the company owners, to re-cap their strategy for maximizing use of the event photos:

1.    All photos were posted to the company’s Facebook Page and website

2.    Individual photographs of clients, consultants and staff gave more ways to market:

• Sending individual emails to each attendee who was photographed, along with a Thank You for attending.  For clients, this individual email was a follow-up to any conversation had at the party, and was another client touch point.
• For some clients, including a photo of a consultant who can help their business.  Even if they didn’t speak at the party, it gave them an increased comfort level since they probably saw the person at the event.
• For consultants who attended, sending a link to the Facebook page so that they can see the album

3.    Emailing a newsletter including links to the pictures

4.    Sending a press release announcing the anniversary, with a photo

5.    Making commemorative photo albums for the staff

These are just a few ideas for extending the use of your event photos.  Including your event photos as part of your overall marketing efforts is strategic and smart – just like Sandi.  Thank you for sharing your marketing expertise, Sandi, and congratulations on 10 years in business!

Green Screen Photography Takes Consumer Marketing Around the World

Hey all you event marketers out there!

Check out how Hotels.com created a contest from their Bedventure event held last week in Toronto — The contest is now over, but it was a huge success.  Here is a link to the page.   This event, executed by the event wizards at Eventstyle, used our Social Media Portal technology to create a contest from the event photos.

The guests uploaded the images to our social media portal.  The images were than uploaded to our new contest program.  Guests were able to get votes and receive 2 nights stay for the guest with the most votes.

This is the winning photo.

Contest entry is just one way to use our Social Media Portal.  You can also conduct a survey, capture email address data, and trigger a follow-up email, all using the Portal.  Give us a call if you want to learn more.  Meanwhile, here’s a video that showcases how the Portal uses Social Media to exponentially expand your marketing reach:  https://vimeo.com/46046963

A Look Back on Summer 2012

This summer brought tangible signs of growth for 5th Avenue Digital. The weddings we provided with photography, videography and our YouBooth photo booth were heartfelt and beautifully tailored to each couple.  We saw an uptick in same sex marriages that’s been encouraging and re-affirming.  John and Scott had been together 27 years before they were able to have a celebration that was as lavish and beautiful – and legal! – as every other wedding we’ve photographed over the years.

Our newer photographers were also able to spread their wings this summer to fantastic results. We couldn’t be more excited to see what creativity unfolds on the jobs they have booked for the fall. Nikki Scheidt is a new addition to our sales team as she has been doing a wonderful job meeting with our social clients at a time when all anyone wanted to be doing was going to the beach. Read the rest of this entry »

Event Focus Friday with Barry Rosenthal

What happens when you let a small-town boy loose in the big city? He works his way from catering kitchen to Sales Manager and Director of Private Dining Marketing for Tavern on the Green and the Russian Tea Room, taking time along the way to get his master’s degree in business administration and start a family.  These days, Barry Rosenthal is busy directing catering and sales for Capital Ventures’ unique event venue, Espace.  Barry talks about his 29 years in the luxury hospitality and catering industry and what keeps him striving to create the best experience for his clients. Read the rest of this entry »

Event Focus Friday with Dianne Devitt

Forget about your parachute, What Color Is Your Event? Dianne Devitt, owner of DND Group, can tell you that and much, much more. DND Group is the natural outgrowth of her philosophy and desire to help companies engage their people and maximize their organization’s potential. Dianne is an esteemed event planner, speaker, educator, and author of What Color Is Your Event: Mastering the Art of Bringing People Together.  Her journey began in theater and evolved into event planning with a natural progression to teaching.  Along the way, she’s also become an advocate for wellness and balance in the workplace and home, which she expresses in her own life through teaching prana yoga. Quite the Renaissance woman, and not bad for a girl from Queens! Dianne shares some life lessons and secrets for success. Read the rest of this entry »

Green Screen Photography Takes Consumer Marketing Around the World

When the event marketing pros at Eventstyle needed green screen photography for their client, Hotels.com, they turned to 5^th Avenue Digital to make it happen.  The event they produced is an ideal example of consumer event marketing at its best.

To promote Hotels.com’s connections with hotel properties around the world, Eventstyle created a Bedventure in the heart of New York City.  They set up a giant bed next to the Flatiron Building, where people on the street could have their photos taken with their choice of international locations as the background.  That’s the magic of green screen photography!

Extending the consumer outreach even further, the event included 5^th Avenue Digital’s exclusive Social Media Portals, which allowed everyone who had their photo taken to immediately email it, or post it on Facebook and Twitter.  The Social Media Portal is our Special Sauce that turns standard event photography into marketing mojo.  All those photos will now be sent, posted and tweeted around the globe, taking exposure for the Hotels.com logo and marketing message to new heights.

Perhaps the age-old admonition not to jump on the bed had an effect: many people at the Bedventure had a blast doing just that!  Take a look:

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Event Focus Friday with Alexis Fine DeAngelis

What a year for Alexis Fine DeAngelis. She recently had her second baby and was named Director for The Glazier Group, where she’s worked for the past seven years managing special events and catering for the New York properties. Alexis has literally grown up in the business, working in the family business of Fine and Shapiro on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, followed by years with a kosher caterer where she learned from the bottom up in the industry, from waitress, to captain, to working in the kitchen prepping food. Alexis shares her winning approach and survival tips.

When you walk a venue, what are the top three things you look for?  

Coming from a catering/operations background, I look for the kitchen, load in and the space.  I have a pretty good eye to know what can and cannot fit into an area and what can be produced with that venue.  Sometimes, with limited kitchens or when you have to create a kitchen out of a room from nothing, you need to be creative with your menus and honest with your clients.

Read the rest of this entry »

Jimmy Choo Courts Fashion Bloggers with In-Store Photography

In today’s fashion industry, bloggers have great influence.  Fashion blogging has become an industry in itself, and retailers know that bloggers have the power to activate consumers, accelerate trends and popularize brands.  The smart folks at Jimmy Choo have created special in-store events tailored to fashion bloggers, tapping into the universal love for high fashion shoes.

For their latest in-store event, Jimmy Choo asked 5^th Avenue Digital to provide photography for a group of fashion bloggers who were invited to try on and be photographed in their favorite Jimmy Choo styles.  With minimal space and maximum expertise, we created the look of a high fashion shoot, with full length shots of the bloggers.  We then provided a customized website from which the bloggers could access, download and publish their photos.

The event was a big hit for Jimmy Choo and the bloggers’ delight is seen in their faces!  Take a look a the link for more of the photos.

Green Screen Photography is a Perfect Fit for a Fit Pregnancy Magazine Event

The savvy marketing team at Fit Pregnancy recently asked us to provide green screen photography for a major event they co-sponsored with Big City Moms.com, called The Biggest Baby Shower.  Hundreds of Manhattan moms gathered at The Metropolitan Pavilion to test out, touch, feel and get educated on everything they might possibly need for their growing families.

To cap it all off, the event got a big PR shout-out by Pix 11 News anchor Frances Rivera, who covered the event, then announced her own pregnancy on air when she filed her report. Her Fit Pregnancy “cover photo” was featured on the news segment – along with a shot of our fabulous photographer, Jen DelCastillo!

Click here if you would like to check out the news segment.

A “Do-Good” Friday Event Focus with Liz Glover Wilson

Non-profit organizations are always searching for help and support from their local communities. This week’s Event Focus Friday interview comes from Liz Glover Wilson, who founded Elizabeth Rose Consulting, LLC in 2003. The company’s mission is to support non-profits in achieving their goals to have a positive impact on our communities by managing special events, volunteer coordination and fundraising. They have successfully produced events for dozens of organizations who are truly making a difference in our society and for our environment.

Since I was a child, charity work was always a big part of my life. Over the course of my career, which was primarily as Corporate Events Planner, I found myself always drawn to fundraising events and the environment. After nearly 14 years, it felt natural to take the leap and bring all I learned along the way to the fundraising world. Now my boutique company brings a blend of event and fundraising services to support non-profit organizations. We support anywhere from 4 to eight clients annually.