Canada Life are market-leaders in the financial sector and provide an extensive range of retirement, investment and protection solutions to individuals, families and companies. Their company culture is at the heart of everything they do, and they proudly champion their heritage, values and people. High-quality support, delivered by expert colleagues who are invested in their customers’ needs, is firmly woven into the company ethos.
Before the pandemic, Canada Life’s annual briefing was predominantly run in-person at each of the company’s UK offices. These prominent one-day events aimed to reach around 1500 employees in the UK-wide division and provided an opportunity for colleagues to come together and for senior leaders to be able to communicate Canada Life’s strategy and priorities.
With Covid restrictions in place for much of 2020 and 2021, the briefings were moved across to a virtual format, and the organisers felt confident in managing these internally using the day-to-day equipment and video conferencing software that was available in-house.
2022 saw in-person attendance at events becoming more popular as people gained confidence post-pandemic. As a result, Canada Life launched their Canada Life Connect events; a hybrid event format bringing people together in-person but also harnessing the flexibility and adaptability of virtual technology for those colleagues who would appreciate a remote and less time-hungry option.
To maximise production value and allow the Connect events to scale as required, the event organisers wanted to bring in an event tech specialist experienced in hybrid event streaming. After receiving a recommendation about us and conducting some research, CrowdComms were chosen to support Canada Life in delivering their Canada Life Connect hybrid events in May and December 2022.
“In our search, CrowdComms clearly stood out as the company who could do what we needed.”
Bringing in the Experts
Hybrid formats can be as simple or as complex as needed and are a great way to add a digital component to any event you are running. A hybrid event offers the capability to connect with audiences from all over the world, attract keynote speakers whose location or demands on their time ordinarily make them hard to book and lower the event’s ecological footprint by reducing the need to travel.
The organisers at Canada Life Connect 2022 were mindful of creating fantastic experiences for every remote and in-person attendee. Not only was this achieved by careful session planning and utilising a range of engagement tools available to both audiences, but also through the seamless delivery of the sessions to remote attendees.
Live sessions were streamed via the CrowdComms multi-award winning Virtual and Hybrid Event Platform, where attendees had access to the event agenda, live sessions, engagement features such as Q&A and chat, as well as being able to enjoy content-on-demand post-event. At CrowdComms, we have our own dedicated team of experienced stream technicians focused purely on you and your audience above all else. They have in-depth knowledge of our platform and products and are renowned for their reassuring, cool, calm, collectedness!
The event organisers at Canada Life Connect 2022 were understandably daunted by the thought of delivering large-scale hybrid events in-house and greatly appreciated the benefits of having the CrowdComms team take the strain. The wonderfully positive feedback from event attendees and the stress-free experience for the organising team, only served to support the decision to bring us in.
CrowdComms – Leaders in Adaptability
“The support from start to finish was excellent.”
While the run-up to the events was smooth sailing as far as the tech was concerned, during December in the UK, we had to contend with unexpected snow and large numbers of train strikes, both of which impacted the proposed show days of the winter Canada Life Connect event.
Events are fast-moving and high-pressured at the best of times. With our decade of experience in the events industry, we know what’s at stake if things don’t go to plan, and we ensure that we do whatever we can to support our clients in delivering their best events. The event organisers at Canada Life Connect hugely appreciated our willingness to adapt as events unfolded, and despite the challenges facing the UK, the December event went ahead and was a resounding success.
“We had to pivot our plans, and your flexibility was hugely appreciated.”
Thank you to Canada Life for providing us with their feedback for this case study. To find out more about them, you can check out their website here.
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