How SAP Drives Ongoing Engagement With Its Ultimate Virtual Event

Whether they’re hosting them or participating in them, virtual events are a big part of most B2B marketers lives. But what goes into making a good virtual event an excellent experience?

An excellent virtual event has the best of everything: a relevant topic, engaging and well-spoken presenters, audience interaction, a unique console design and more. SAP’s annual Customer Experience LIVE checked every box, which is why it won the Ultimate Virtual Event Award at the ON24 Experience 2022.

Read on to learn how SAP did it.

How SAP Set Its Virtual Conference Up For Success

CX LIVE 2021 was a two-day event targeting SAP’s customers in Europe and the Americas. To accommodate various regions, the company planned each session for the same time in two different time zones and ran the same content on both days.

The conference opened with a short, two-minute housekeeping video to orient its attendees. This preamble gave attendees a quick rundown the event’s virtual environment, showcased the event’s key sessions and explained how participants could engage with the interactive features found in ON24 Virtual Conference and ON24 Webcast Elite.

How SAP Used Stellar Design to Make CX LIVE Pop

SAP’s keynote session featured stellar custom branding with a pink to blue gradient background and matching widget to keep a consistent theme throughout the event.

The segment kicked off with a 15-second video about CX LIVE 2021 then opened to a live feed with the host in a night show-style studio. The dynamic environment was complete studio musicians and a dynamic, green-screen background that moved around on the New York skyline themed to the event’s design.

The hybrid event had in-person audiences in San Francisco, New York and Mexico City, and additional participants tuned in remotely. SAP’s production was top-notch — complete with multi-angle cameras, a hands-free mic and a teleprompter.

Throughout the session, the host chatted with different speakers who joined the program remotely. They each had camera and lighting setups at their locations to match the professional look and feel of the event.

The event featured live video with the host, pre-recorded videos about the day’s topics, remote discussions with the presenters and accompanying slides. SAP also used audience engagement tools like polls, social channels and email sharing for the event, a resource list, Q&A and a contact us button.

SAP Takes CX LIVE Global, Drives More Results

Even more unique, SAP created special widgets for closed captioning in English and, to cater to their international audience throughout the Americas, translations of the event in Spanish and Portuguese.

Immediately following this address, participants could join the breakout sessions in discussion rooms facilitated through ON24’s book a meeting feature.

The rest of the event’s agenda was set up with a “choose your own adventure” style where participants could pick the topics that interest them most. SAP also used ON24 Breakouts to host exclusive virtual discussion rooms for live, unrecorded, unfiltered conversations.

Outside the keynote address, participants could access a virtual lounge with additional content like customer videos, sponsor videos, help and instructions and the event’s agenda. The lounge was designed as a multidimensional space to emulate the look and feel of an in-person lounge.

How SAP Is Getting More Out of CX LIVE

SAP’s CX LIVE 2021 event served as both a demand generation event and a brand awareness event by introducing SAP’s new brand treatment.

Overall, the company received fantastic customer reviews through the post-event survey. More than six months later, they continue to see on-demand registrations for the keynote address, the only recorded part of the event.

The planning team has since come up with several ideas on how to Breakouts in the future including exclusive, invite-only roundtable sessions, sales discussions, demos and more. The team has also repurposed the session into several smaller video clips for future digital marketing campaigns.

Want to see what award-winning experiences look like? Click here to explore our ON24X award-winner gallery.