Inside Broadsword's Agency Day
The day kicked off with presentations to outline the successes and updates from different departments including discussing our strategy and goals for the team in the year ahead.
Managing Director, Anna, as well as our Wellbeing Chair, Mia, discussed all things people we have planned for the year including our calendar of social events and initiatives built on the idea of social rewilding. Centred on person to person connection, we will be seeking more opportunities to be together, get outdoors, share ideas, and bring more joy.
We invited Chloe Combi, a Futurist, to deliver a keynote on the current landscape and what it means for the future based on in depth research, interviews, and data. She talked about generational trends as well as exploring cross-generational challenges amongst the rise of AI deepfakes, divisive content online, and the dwindling attention economy. Chloe emphasised the need for diverse perspectives from a variety of backgrounds to ensure brand messages hit the mark for audiences, drawing comparisons to controversial campaigns and rebrands that alienate their loyal audiences while trying to chase a new demographic and highlighting the importance of living and absorbing values, so that external communications are consistent with internal operations.
Chloe also emphasised the importance of authentic, meaningful, and human experiences that target emotions, with Gen Z investing in experiences more than ever, and the need for community, nostalgia and real world perspectives. On this note, event planners are in a powerful position heading into 2025 — with the power to engage audiences in meaningful stories, and facilitate getting back to the real world.
To end the day we took part in a hands-on team building workshop with B Corp certified consultancy, Jump in Puddles, who facilitate LEGO Serious Play workshops. We used play as a tool to communicate the messages from the day in a lasting way. Groups were challenged to build a physical model to interpret our company values. Each group visualised this differently, getting creative and using metaphors to communicate what each value meant to them. It really helped to consolidate the updates to our strategy as it prompted our brains to really think about, explore, and understand these things, rather than simply having the ideas presented on a Powerpoint. Many groups had no idea how to represent the values, until they started working with their hands and the ideas flowed into something tangible.
As always we will be working hard to balance purpose and profit — building our brand, building efficiency and building on being a B Corp in 2025.
