#AmazonEnCasaFest, or the importance of scripting a virtual event

Almost four hours of broadcast, a very, very familiar program, plus an afterparty later with music from the 80s and 90s, in which Edurne, Beret, Marta Sánchez, Modestia Apart, Hombres G, Dani Fernández, Rozalen, India Martínez participated, Omar Montes, Hombres G, CantaJuegos, PICA-PICA, Peppa Pig, among many others, and which was led by Pilar Rubio and Tony Aguilar. The challenge, to help those most affected by Covid-19. The result: managing to boost the number of donations to 2,750,000 euros. It is the largest mobilization of resources, capacities and people in the history of the NGO in Spain and in the world and will assist more than 1,350,000 vulnerable people through 40,000 volunteers. A comprehensive plan with which almost a million people will receive care and telephone support, 25,000 families will receive basic goods, 16,000 people will be supported in terms of employment and 3,000 homeless people will have a place to sleep. In addition, #AmazonEnCasaFest, was a ‘trending topic’ in Spain reaching more than a million viewers through different social networks.

One of the keys to this success lays in the dynamization and scripting of the event, which fostered interaction and commitment on the part of the spectators from their homes. Komodo tell us. “For online events to be dynamic, what we try to do is connect with the consumer, respond to the insight of our audience. In this case, the challenge was not so much to discover consumer insight -because it is one of the few occasions in which it is an international scenario: we are all at home and we are attacked by the same problem- but how to make each intervention within the format connect with the most human part of the audience. The message ran the risk of being ‘burned’ due to the repetition of the same resource by other communication campaigns, and therefore it was essential that the script respond consistently to the message we wanted to convey. It is like reading a book: at first you must get fully into the story, believe the character. At the knot, the story may have ups and downs and the reader’s attention may be distracted – it is acceptable – and this is when the outcome becomes important: this is where we must reconnect for the last time with whoever sees or listens to end the message again in the foreground. In our case, both the presenters’ closing script and the selected actions were strategically thought to end with a good feeling.”

“In short, the dynamism of an online event begins by assuming that we are not going to have 100% of the attention of our audience, and therefore the script must contemplate those moments of mental relaxation, in order to be able to connect with the audience not only once, but many times throughout the event / program. And in the case of a program that lasts more than four hours, creative strategy came into play from the very moment that we began to think about the format. In addition, the end was solidary: raising money for a charitable cause, and this type of action must be treated with a different focus than that of pure entertainment: it is about humanizing an (online) medium that is too cold to touch reality , but at the same time it unites us more than ever. It was necessary to find that balance between message and action so that the end and the communication of the latter was as honest and transparent as possible.”

“We are in times of challenges and rediscovery of the online world where every day, every hour, innovative formats and ideas emerge, whether you are an agency or an individual. But that same advantage can be the worst enemy of communication, falling into the ‘anything goes’, and today more than ever, we must take great care of online events so that in the future of this type of actions they enjoy credibility and provoke more engagement beyond the short-term impact. ”