FCA Capital Markets Day
FIVE-YEAR PLAN PRESENTED TO HUNDREDS OF FINANCIAL AND MEDIA KEY INFLUENCERS, IN A PIVOTAL MOMENT FOR THE COMPANY
​
On June 1st 2018, the new 5-year Industrial Plan of FCA was presented near Milan (Italy) in front of an international audience of 300 top managers and key influencers of the financial community. The event was covered by more than 150 journalists of the major international news media.
​
I shared the creative direction of the FCA Capital Markets Day 2018 (CMD), an extremely high-stakes moment for the FCA management team.
This million-dollar and all-day meeting scheduled every four years, was also part of a larger effort to communicate that the company could survive and prosperate even after the change at the very top. The charismatic leader and CEO Sergio Marchionne planned to leave his assignment in few months.
​
It was crucial to inspire confidence in the future of the company and reassure about the continuity in the corporate culture and values.
What was I asked to do?
​
-
Share the creative direction with the Project Manager, the FCA Director Marketing Design Walid Saba. This included:
-
participate in the project from initial concept design, to final production, supporting the ideation of the communication and event strategy, visual style
-
conceptualize user-centered design and guarantee the consistency of the event identity
-
present and defend my work and that of my team to multi-functional peers and senior executives, until the CEO final approval
-
lead multiple sub-projects and diverse teams, internal and external (suppliers, adv agencies and partners involved in the event) in a very fast-paced environment and with deadlines and composure in normal and critical situations
-
​​
-
Sketches, graphics, and high-fidelity execution of visuals, templates and guidelines development (logo design, top executives presentations, collaterals)
​​
-
Social media engagement​. Six-hours Live Tweeting of the event.
​
Challenges I met and my solutions
​
As internal creative I feel deeply connected to the company, its mission, values, and culture. This passionate attitude is not always easy to recreate with people who are not immersed in the organization 24x7. The main challenges came from managing the external agencies.
​
First challenge. Briefing to improve.
I undervalued that external creative agencies have, inevitably, a different depth of understanding about the company, its products, services, history, and future strategy.
This problem emerged since I reviewed the first round of proposals for the logo design of the event; it was designed based mainly on geographical and automotive clichés.
The design presented wasn’t strong enough to represent the CEO and company vision.
Seen the situation, I decided to take those actions:
-
I scheduled immediately a new meeting with the agency for the day after
-
I prepared again methodically for the agency briefing, digging beneath the surface. I wanted to clarifying them the reason for the communication, what the target audience think and, eventually, what the company want them to think. I highlighted the single important message we want to pass that it was to reassure the financial community about continuity and performance after the CEO retirement.
-
I spent all the time necessary to fully brief them again; I helped them to contextualize their work in the bigger picture of what the organization is trying to achieve
-
I gave them more reference sources and materials and inspiration based on the history of the FCA logo and invited to elaborate new concepts starting from that
Second challenge. Proactivity, budget and quality of the output.
​
As support, the external agency give me a number of dedicated designers. As the deadlines approached, I realized that the execution of the brief didn’t reach the level of quality I request for an excellent presentation design.
I’m used to work with Top Executives and, especially during this type of event, they have no time and they are overload by high level of stress until the event take place. As designer I partner proactively with speakers on iteration to bring clarity and insight to their presentations. I'm aware that they need a good hand to conceptualize and visualize the content on the slide. It's an ongoing process until the final version.
The quality delivered by the supporting designer wasn't in line with my standards so I immediately intervened calling the account of the agency; first I listened to their explanations on the issue and then I suggested to dedicate at least two designer 100% of their time devoted to each presentations.
The result of my intervention was not as I had wished; it was a little to late to discover that the agency had underestimated the effort and the budget dedicated to our presentation design.
The final result was reached, but I had to intervene directly, eventually, making personally the design and improving the level of the execution. I had to find time and work in my already overloaded schedule.
Logo Design
My logo design was the one selected by the CEO to identify the FCA Capital Markets Day 2018.
My design competed with five other proposals made by external adv agencies I was coordinating.
​
The FCA logo original inspiration designed in 2013 by Robilant Associati (all rights reserved), was based on the three basic shapes square, circle and triangle (Feel Create Act).
​
Starting from these three shapes I got my inspiration for the winning logo from a zen tarot; the "new vision" card.
Social Media Engagement:
Six-hours Live Tweeting of the event
Key Results
6h
Live Tweeting
1.1M
Impressions
21,100
Engagement Interactions
1.1K
+Followers 24h
2.1%
Average Engagement Rate
Top Trend
Hashtag in the Top 5, Usa, Ita
Planning, delivery and outstanding results of the campaign.
As Corporate Social Media Manager, I was asked to strategize and plan a campaign to engage our audience.
In the week before the event, our team carefully prepared the tweets scripts and visuals. We asked for the official approval of the contents by each presenter. We planned the timing of the live tweeting set to start at 10:00am and during the six hours live of the event we tweeted more than 80 messages.
The day before the event, with a couple of tweets, we announced we will be live tweeting to tune in your audience. The day of the event, we distributed placeholders with the details of the live event both in the main conference than in the press room.
In order to extend the reach of your live tweets beyond our captive audience, we included the event hashtag and all relevant keywords in each tweet. We used #FCAFiveYearPlan, which became one of the Top Twitter Trend Hashtag in two countries (Usa, Italy).
We tweeted simultaneously to what the presenters were saying, picking out important things to highlight that relate to the automotive world and resonated with our audience of car enthusiasts. We didn't get hung up on the exact words. Our tweets were informal direct quotes and paraphrases, with the hashtags, links to the presentations and the source attribution.
​
The campaign was extremely successful especially for the outstanding average engagement rate.
