Two months ago, the Italian luxury brand became the first to hold a runway show on the Great Wall of China. According to Vogue, 500 VIP guests were invited from around the world.  This is a dazzling example of how seriously luxury brands are taking the Chinese consumers (and their spending power) very seriously.

I have attended very big events and organised several fashion shows myself but to have one of the world’s ancient wonders as event backdrop, 88 models walking down the runway and Hollywood A-listers at the front rows as well hundreds of global news media attending your event – it’s a marketer/ communicator/ event manager’s dream come true.

Fendi boss Michael Burke said,

“The Great Wall showed that Fendi is clearly one of the few brands that is going to be known everywhere as a magical brand. It’s not a stretch for Fendi to do something like this. But how many brands could pull this off with credibility? If Coca Cola did it, it would be a stunt. For many of our competitors it would be a stretch,”

This is definitely no stunt. It is a history-making event.  Godfrey Deeny, the European editor of Fashion Wire Daily titled his news report, ” The Fendi show you could see from space,” and you probably could.

Creating a successful event:-

A couple of my friends who are great event producers/organisers told me – to create a successful fashion show or in fact any event, depends on a few key elements: Location, Budget, Set-up, Products and Guest list.

• The ancient structure of the Great Wall sounds like a fantastic LOCATION, providing a long, natural runway.
• US$10 million was also a great BUDGET to have. Flying those media and celebrities down to the event and lighting up the Great Wall – not an easy task at all.
• The Fendi show featured an exclusive mini collection as well as the highly-acclaimed spring/summer 2008 collection.
• Guests were given complimentary hand warmers and were seated comfortably on heated seats. (it’s amazing the amount of details and thoughts that went into the production and set up)
• The SET UP and the guest list? Take a look at this SPECTACULAR show:-

To read more, simply do a google search and you have pages after pages of news reports (including Singapore’s owned network, Channel News Asia featuring it on primetime news).

I am one of those who had always think of museums and anything that has the word “heritage” as “boring and old”.

So, imagine my surprise when I first met Walter at a new media conference and he was one of the panel speakers. He was sharing a case study about how the NHB makes use of the social/ new media (by setting up a blogsite – Yesterday.sg) to reach out to more Singaporeans (especially the younger and tech savvy people) as well as anyone who’s interested in the heritage of Singapore (like Jon who’s British – he knows more about Singapore’s history than me).

The new campaign is called Explore Singapore! and is ongoing from now until the end of December. There are more than 86 activities to choose from. Some of you (who are Singaporeans) probably would have read or heard about Mark Lee, our local celebrity who is engaged to host the tours at Singapore’s oldest museum.

The interesting part of this is, there will be a Heritage Photoblogging contest where you can win brand new Nikon Cameras including a D40 kit! The idea is not new but when I think about it, it’s a great move for NHB to get the old and the young, the tech savvy or not-so savvy folks to (1) join in the fun by attending those activities, (2) show-off your photography skills and (3) some great content to put up on the blog and of course, most importantly (4) win a new Nikon camera.

If you are interested, here’s what you can do!

To take part in NHB’s first photoblogging contest and participate in Explore Singapore! Simply follow these easy steps:

1) Attend an Explore Singapore! event. Take lots of pictures. 2) Blog about it on your blog (remember to post the pictures!)

3) Visit the Explore Singapore! Heritage In Pictures webpage. Register your blog post URL there.

4) If approved, your blog post will be posted on the contest listings page.

5) Check back regularly to see if your entry is up. If at first you don’t succeed, try try again

6) Get your friends to check out your entry by putting this Brag Badge on your blog.

Celebrity photographer Dominic Khoo of www.whatisthesight.com will select the winners, who will receive an exclusive National Heritage Board winners’ certificate to be placed on their blogs.

Registration is open from 10 November 2007 to 31 December 2007.

Since I have some time in December, I might just bring mummy along to a few of those activities.

Titled “How to recruit great speakers for your conference (and avoid the terrible ones)” David wrote

In my experience, these awful speakers come in two main categories:

> Those who are chosen by conference organizers because they signed up as a “Platinum Sponsor.” These speakers assume they have the right to bore audiences because they paid for it.

> The second group are “big names” (such as a company CEO). Because these speakers are chosen for their brand value (“hey, he’s CEO of XYZ Company!”) instead of their ability to hold an audience with a compelling presentation, these speakers often suck big time. When one of these big names steps up to the podium, the audience is anticipating something extremely interesting. But then within five minutes of some inane nonsense about how their services work, half the crowd is playing blackberry. Ugh.

Over the years, I attended many conferences, events, summits etc and sat through alot alot alot of very very very boring presentations. If they are FREE,  well, then I guess I can forgive them (I usually got up after 10 minutes and try to excuse myself and go make some coffee outside the conference room and wait for the next speaker to start). For those conferences that I had to pay to sit in, I often feel totally cheated if the speakers were really bad!

As PR folks, we sometimes have to find speaking opportunities for our clients and David is also right to point out that, there will be times, some clients are given speaking time slots because they are big sponsors (but that does not make them great speakers).

David highlighted this interesting conference that asked its “potential speakers” to submit a short YouTube video on a topic that will inspire, and be relevant to the audience. Attendees get to vote who they want to listen to at the conference. The ones with most votes get invited with an expenses paid for trip and a speaking slot at the conference.

I totally love the idea! All conference / events organisers out there, NOTE PLS! Some form of “screening” will be great.

Usually out of a group of 10 speakers, 6 are crap, 2 have some interesting products (so, we just sat there to find out what’s new) and only 2 will be truly brilliant.

The success of a conference often lies in the quality of its speakers. I’ve sat through some really great presentations though and one of them was by Mitch Joel and the other speaker I totally adore is the person I listened to every week – Pastor Joseph Prince who is an amazing speaker!