Introduction

Nepal Nirman is an annual event conducted by Himalaya Television as an effective branding campaign. The event Nepal Nirman seeks to look at the best possible road map with to-do list in various sector of nation building and economy of Nepal in the ensuing new fiscal year. Nepal Nirman is basically framed as a two-day event that comprises of panel discussions from the various priority areas of government, the industry and the people.

My Role

During my work as a project lead of the event Nepal Nirman 2015, I was also enrolled in a Business School. During the very trimester that was running, we had to take up Strategic Brand Management as a subject in marketing. The event harmonized well with my learning in business school especially on Events Branding.

My learnings

• Importance of Events branding

Events branding is a beautiful concept. It provides ample opportunities of marketing and branding. It carves out a strong identity of the host as well as provides a platform to showcase sponsors and build lasting relationships with them. Event sponsorship is an untapped marketing channel simply because it provides a captive audience. In the 2016 “What Sponsors Want” survey, IEG found that sponsorship spend is projected to continue its year-over-year growth with spending increasing 4.5 percent over 2015 to $60.2b in 2016. This shows brands today worldwide believe in sponsorship.

http://www.sponsorship.com/Resources/What-Sponsors-Want-and-Where-Dollars-Will-Go-in-20.aspx

• Framing content of the event

 It is important that the content of the event aligns with the image and theme of the host; this will build a remarkable brand image of the host.

Nepal Nirman, an event concept is built by a media house (Himalaya Television) to bring out think tanks of different sector discuss about the roadmap for national development. This high profile conclave organized by Htv vibes well with its corporate image as a responsible media.

In 2015, while the event’s planning was being plotted out for the second time, a major earthquake shook Nepal. Looking at the aftermath of the earthquake, the number of lives lost, relocating the people who lost their homes, the whole disaster area needed long-term reconstruction. So our team at HTV decided to make this event Nepal Nirman something of a platform to rise against the disaster. The event that year then focused on Roadmap to Reconstruction, Revival and Development after the earthquake in the New Fiscal Year. This was again a smart positioning on part of Htv to conduct an event that focused on community revival.

• How to sell event sponsorship?

Framing content is one thing while transforming the same content in an innovative way to communicate the worth of it to the sponsors is entirely a different and challenging task. Since Nepal Nirman was already conducted in year 2014 and had a portfolio of being successful, the content pitching was easier than the first time. Also, the event was aligned towards revival and rise after earthquake, which made it contextual for the brands that wanted to associate with the community revival. Immediately after earthquake, most of the negative emotions and pain floated around different types of media. It seemed that people needed to hear something positive, and the event was planned to live up to it.

It is always a better (safer) option to get sponsorships from a strong PR if the event is being conducted the first time. However, the portfolio of the event should be managed well so that when the event is being conducted annually after that, efforts are correctly placed. The success evaluation of the first event is inquired in detail while you are in the process of conducting the event second time.

For example:

While my communication with INGO’s about the event in 2015, they constantly inquired about how was the event in year 2014 evaluated as a successful one? Sponsors, guests are not an easy audience to communicate to. They believe more in facts and numbers. The INGO’s wanted us to give exact numbers on the audience we reached and were keen to know in what form was the influence measured.

Hence, a portfolio of the event conducted should be well managed; the host should be accountable to it in every way. One way the event Nepal Nirman was planned to manage the portfolio was by coming up with a book of the summary of the event and presenting it to the concern body (government) with the to-do list in various sector of nation building and economy of Nepal in the ensuing new fiscal year. However this was not possible in year 2015 but was postponed for the next year.

Sponsors normally seek a good coverage and right positioning of their brand while they decide on sponsorship of an event. So the number of audience that event reaches does matter to them. If not live audience, a digital or social media coverage is definitely expected. Nepal Nirman had both elements that attracted the sponsors. The event had a good number of audience, which included high profile guest speakers, political and bureaucratic representatives, other guests and few students gathered from colleges. The event was also planned to be featured live in Himalaya television. The very year the event was featured in website and was also going viral in social media.

For the year 2015, Jagdamba Steel was the title sponsors for Nepal Nirman. This sponsorship also showed the relevance of the brand to the content of the event. Jagdamba Steels had a good brand association to Nepal Nirman – since it is a construction oriented company and the event that focused on Roadmap to Reconstruction after the earthquake was a good platform for them to showcase their corporate brand image. Along with Jagdamba, there were more than eight sponsorship partners for the event that wanted to tie up with community revival themed event.

Few glimpses from the event:

The promotional video of Nepal Nirman for the year 2015 – I worked in concepts from end to end with the inhouse graphic designer of Htv to create this particular promotional video which was on air in different television channel throughout the event.