It’s not often that a member of the Creative & Digital team gets the chance to attend a major congress, but as Albert Einstein famously said: “The only source of knowledge is experience”. So for EASD 2023, we were able to send Simon Myatt, Project Director.

This proved to be an invaluable experience that enabled him to assess EASD from a creative and digital perspective, and see first-hand what tactics engaged the audience.

Simon visited various symposia and booths, to experience EASD from the same viewpoint as the diabetes community.

Simon has pulled together a report in video format that provides his insights into EASD as a first-timer. Here are some of his key takeaways:

• Innovative symposium formats, offering active sessions and encouraging interaction with speakers, seem to resonate with delegates. We can achieve this by adapting the typical seating to stage format, by including breakout sessions where delegates are active as opposed to being seated.
• Interactive booth content should be clearly signposted with a call to action, so that delegates know immediately what to do. Interactive tools lacking clear signage were overlooked.
• There were few examples of gamification on booths, and what was present did little to excite or educate the audience, nor did it reinforce scientific messages. There’s an opportunity to offer exciting and scientifically-relevant gamification to draw delegates to the booth.
• Setting KPIs prior to the event and capturing metrics for all activities is essential to quantify success and can help us shape strategy and tactics going forward to move delegates along a cohesive journey.

Take a look at the video report: