Are you wearing the same dress as that other company?

So let's say you're shopping for a production company.  

Company number one - let's call them Product Productions - offers you a laundry list of "amazing" things they've done before for other clients that they can do for you.  PP says "You want to play Guitar Hero?  We've done that for like a billion clients before.  You want to work in the round?  We've got a round stage, a round truss, and even the perfect powerpoint template you can use - we've done it twelve times this month already.  You want an elegant awards dinner?  I've got these tables in my back room we can use that would be PERFECT!  Just sign on the dotted line!"

Company number two - let's call them IM Better (after all, this is a hypothetical situation...) - doesn't offer you any of that.  In fact, they eschew the idea of offering you a pre-fabricated product.  They say: "We believe that your brand and message should be the principle that dictates what kind of team building, staging, and overall visual vocabulary of your event.  If you want a company who understands how to distill the right production elements to turn your brand and message into a three dimensional experience, we're the ones to engage." 

The distinction between offering clients a product versus a process is one that is often missed, but its one that we feel is vitally important.  In this troubled economy, the expense of a live gathering is too great to settle for the expected, the mundane, or anything less than a bespoke solution for your message and your audience.  When you're a production company who owns a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  We don't even bother looking for the right tool until we know what it has to accomplish.  That way, we're giving your brand & your attendees what they need, not just what we've got.  

That's what we mean when we talk about curating our live experiences for each client.  We gather the right talent and resources to make each experience feel organic, aligned, and most of all unique.  To use an off-the-shelf solution is the event equivalent of wearing the same dress as someone else to a party.  The problem is, you're not a debutante, you're a business, and the purpose of spending all that money on an event is to differentiate yourself.  

Don't get us wrong, you want someone who is experienced - and executing something that you've got experience in is not a sin.  There are lots of solutions we've used before and then re-used because they are the right solution for a client - but there is always room for customization, and the choice to use that solution is the result of the process we've sold a client, not just a product.

So... do you choose the PP or something Better?  To us, the choice is clear.  Live experiences have power, so use it to the fullest, and engage in a process.