Pushing the Limit: Making a Virtual Investor Conference “Must-See TV”

Looking back on more than 600 virtual conferences OpenExchange has hosted and helped manage since the onset of the pandemic, most of these conferences follow a certain pattern. Insightful keynotes are followed by dozens of public company presentations or “fireside chats” featuring C-Level executives and maybe an analyst or two, expert panels organized around a timely topic, and hundreds — sometimes thousands — of individual one-on-one and small group meetings between executives and institutional investors over the course of one to three days.

This virtual format is workmanlike and tried-and-true, largely replicating the experience of the pre-2020 in-person investor conferences. And it’s certainly gotten the job done: virtual investor events cost at least 40% less to put on, yet typically attract 40% more investors, owing to the increased convenience of attending. For that reason, our clients are now saying that virtual attendance is here to stay — at least as an option in a so-called “hybrid” virtual/in-person format.

Breaking the Mold

But what happens when a conference organizer is determined to break the mold, and re-think the whole concept of a virtual event? What happens when they assume a TV producer’s mentality, and commit to a compelling viewer experience?

That’s the attitude taken by one of our clients, Credit Suisse, as they planned their 24th Asian Investment Conference — a flagship event in the bank’s investor conference schedule.

The event is positioned as the Asia Pacific’s premier investment conference for influential ideas and actionable advice. It connects about 2,000 institutional investors, hedge funds, and high-net-worth individual investors with CEO’s and CFO’s from 330 companies and top thinkers and opinion leaders.

An Industry-First Virtual Conference

Credit Suisse wanted to produce an industry-first virtual conference that adopted the flavor of a financial news broadcast channel like CNBC or Bloomberg TV, rather than a conventional virtual conference. The concept was built around two instantly recognizable financial network correspondents (CNN International’s Manisha Tank and former Bloomberg Asia anchor John Dawson), and would be broadcast from two new studios in Hong Kong and Singapore.

With that seed of an idea, a team at Credit Suisse, OpenExchange, and AsiaWorks (a leading Asian production company, based in Bangkok, Singapore and Jakarta) swung into action to create rich, engaging video experience, delivering more than 15 hours of content a day on three simultaneous streams to thousands of simultaneous viewers. With the co-anchors as hosts, the livestreams incorporated virtual and in-person keynote and plenary sessions, fireside chats, one-on-one conversations, presentations, and insight panels.

Dividing the Work

AsiaWorks took the lead on producing and directing the live program content from the two studios, while OpenExchange provided the backbone video distribution network, hosting platform, conference showcase and both live and on-demand viewing experiences, as well as management of a complex schedule of one-on-one and small group meetings. We employed leading-edge technologies for both cloud-based production (Grabyo) and for back-channel communication and coordination (Unity Intercom). Simultaneous translators interpreted presentations in multiple languages. And it was all organized and delivered to a global audience, as most of the usual attendees were constrained by travel restrictions to their home countries.

The result felt more like a television show than a conventional conference — even down to devices such as headline crawls and information panels in an L-shaped information bar that bracketed live content on the right and bottom of the video frame. These information frames provided a multitude of on-brand messaging, awards announcements, “Did You Know” teasers, social media posts, and QR-code-triggered survey and polls.

And all without commercial interruption!

The Viewer Experience

The viewer experience, designed and produced by AsiaWorks and delivered by OpenExchange, was truly groundbreaking in the investor event space. Coordinating dual live broadcasts from studios 1600 miles apart required a great deal of planning and coordination to deliver a lively, engaging program that felt very much like live TV.

The broadcast had a very organic feel to it, in that by the third day enough content had accumulated from the previous 48 hours in the form of “in case you missed it” highlights, injected into the flow of the program and filling breaks in the live action. And because it was live, it had all the spontaneity and what’s-going-to-happen-next vibe of a breaking news broadcast.

Highlights from the Conference

The Real Question

For the last 12 months, investor conference organizers have been asking themselves the question: “How can my virtual events live up to the experience of an in-person event?” That may be the wrong question.

We would pose the question in a wholly different way: “How can we fully utilize the creative tools and analytics available in a virtual (and soon hybrid) event to make it even better than an in-person event?” The Credit Suisse / AsiaWorks / OpenExchange collaboration in March turns out to have been a great start in answering that question.

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Michael Covino, Michael Kolowich, and Shawn Whitaker also contributed to this article.