The Intersection of Video, AI, and Creative Innovation in Events with Steven Cotroneo and Mark Maguire

Mark Maguire [00:00:00]:

We use AI all the time. I'm not going to lie. It really is amazing. But as far as producing or creating production quality animations, it's not even close to useful. You started using AI ChatGPT. Everybody jumped online and you start asking it all sorts of questions and it just starts spewing stuff back and you're reading through it and going, that sounds really interesting, but it's all wrong.

Alyssa Peltier [00:00:28]:

Great events create great brands, but pulling off an event that engages, excites and connects audiences well, that takes a village. We're that village. My name is Alyssa.

Rachel Andrews [00:00:40]:

I'm Rachel Andrews.

Felicia Asiedu [00:00:41]:

I'm Felicia.

Alyssa Peltier [00:00:42]:

And you are listening to great events, the podcast for all event enthusiasts, creators and innovators in the world of events and marketing.

Alyssa Peltier [00:00:53]:

Hello everyone. What has been going on in this wide, wide world of events? My name is Alyssa and I will be your host for this week's episode of Great Events, a podcast by Cvent. Now this week we're going to be talking about a pretty broad category that affects all events. We're going to be talking about content, and specifically the video content that you create, you promote, you manage it, but it's all this content in the form of videos that gets leveraged by your events and your event programs, and ultimately oftentimes your marketing teams.

Now, in order to talk a little bit about the big trends that we're seeing in the video space and this video content space, I would love to introduce two outside subject matter experts to our podcast you. So Austin here from Cventures here. But today we've got some two outside perspectives that will be joining us from the agency side of the house located up in the Boston area. We have Steve, president and CEO, and Mark, project manager and info architect, from SAC Designs.

Alyssa Peltier [00:01:56]:

 Welcome to the podcast guys.

Mark Maguire [00:01:57]:

Thanks for having us.

Alyssa Peltier [00:01:59]:

So we're going to start with a little background. So Cvent has actually been working with SAC Designs, I don't know guys, how many years? Like five or six years at this point?

Mark Maguire [00:02:07]:

Yeah, I think it's five. It might be six now. Yeah, we're trying to figure out how many CONNECTs we've been to. So we've been all of them minus one for the last five or six years I think.

Alyssa Peltier [00:02:18]:

I love it. So SAC has had a huge role. I think the first time we started engaging with this group was for our very large user conference, Cvent CONNECT. SAC will come in and produce a lot of the, we call them sizzle reels for our product launches. That's a major opportunity that our customers have with SAC, working with an agency like these fellas here, and just trying to bring your content to life in the form of video.

So guys, let's just talk a little bit about the relationship that Cvent has with SAC. What else is it that you all are producing both for event programs and at large?

Steven Cotroneo [00:02:54]:

Yeah, so we're a graphic design in animation studio. So what we do for Cvent is a lot of the video explainer videos. I think we've created well over, we were just talking about, maybe a few hundred videos for you guys that we've created. A lot of the videos we do are at the trade show events at Cvent. So when you walk through the trade show floor, you see a lot of the videos. So we help brand those videos for you guys and then you guys produce those as well to keep a consistent look.

Mark Maguire [00:03:28]:

One of the interesting thing is when we started with you folks years ago, we had never done trade show videos before. Since then, we've totally become addicted and we love working with you guys on these. We've done trade shows now for other companies and they're completely different. But we take all of this information and all of the work that we've done for you guys and try to leverage it into those spaces. I think it just blows these people away when we start showing them some of this stuff. So it really is truly something that we've learned so much from and really enjoyed.

Alyssa Peltier [00:04:01]:

Yeah. The opportunity for intersection with video and events for really bringing things to life. Now, I know I jumped right into things here, Steve, how did you end up getting into videos in the first place? It sounds like there's been a growth trajectory where you've started working more with events and planners and marketers in that capacity, but you've been doing this for a while.

Steven Cotroneo [00:04:19]:

Yeah, I started way back during the dot-com burst in 9/11. So one of my first jobs was working at IBM, and I worked there for a few years before 9/11 happened, and then the economy crashed. Luckily I had a really great art director, which introduced me to these other design agencies, which I began contracting for them. Then little by little just building up my work. So I started hiring contractors and pretty much that's how I began. I was almost forced into it. I don't think I would be doing what I'm doing now if it wasn't for the economy, because I don't think I would have enough guts to start my own business that way. So I was forced into it. 

Steven Cotroneo [00:05:09]:

I started working with a few companies that needed more of my help. So I hired contractors, and we started working with other design agencies. Just building up a reputation and then slowly just building up a studio.

Alyssa Peltier [00:05:24]:

Have you noticed a change in, and I'm sure the answer is an obvious yes, but what has the change in our direction and design and also video been in that 20, 25 year span?

Steven Cotroneo [00:05:37]:

Well, years ago video really wasn't around. There was Flash animation, which I don't know how many people would know still what Flash is, but that was probably 90% of our work was Flash. So when that disappeared, we started learning more of the video. But again, when I left school, it was all print design, so that's what I started out as. Then I taught myself animation and then video as well. So now we still do print stuff, but it's more in PDF forms, or interactive print forms, so you don't see a lot of it around anymore. So now we're talking about this video and AI and the last year has just changed so much since the last couple of years. Every few years there's a huge change. Again, Flash, that was a huge change when Flash came in. Now this AI, it's over the last year, it's been just crazy.

Mark Maguire [00:06:35]:

We feel like we're competing against AI.

Alyssa Peltier [00:06:38]:

Yeah, tell me more about that, mark. I know that was something we wanted to talk about today is like the trends. So we're now in the 2024 landscape. AI is everywhere. In a lot of ways we see it competing with this creative space. I think there's a tendency to say AI is going to solve everything. But I don't think it's the magic bullet, especially in the creative space, that others believe it to be. So give me your point of view on that, Mark.

Mark Maguire [00:07:01]:

We use AI all the time. I'm not going to lie. It really is amazing. But as far as producing or creating production quality animations, it's not even close to useful. You started using AI ChatGPT, everybody jumped online and you start asking it all sorts of questions and it just starts spewing stuff back and you're reading through it and going, that sounds really interesting, but it's all wrong.

Alyssa Peltier [00:07:29]:

Yeah, thank you but no, thank you.

Mark Maguire [00:07:32]:

Yeah, and it's the same stuff with a lot of the animation or visuals that it's producing. They're cool and stuff like that, but useful, not particularly. So, some of the stuff when we started playing around with Midjourney, it is just crashing this stuff back in your face. You look at some of it and go, oh, that's pretty cool, but there's six fingers on the hand or whatever, strange things going on. So you have to take this stuff, massage it to make anything of use out of it. The video stuff is even crazier. It literally is meaningless and just gibberish. 

Mark Maguire [00:08:12]:

But in there are just little instances, little snapshots of things that are cool ideas. So we'll take those cool ideas and say, let's work with that. Let's try to fit that into a transition or try to make a little presentation that works off of that concept.

We'll never take that at face value either. We just work all of this stuff. As Steve could go on and say, he's been researching this stuff and people that actually use these things to create, so-called animations take six months to produce the animation from it. We don't take six months to produce animations for anything because, just like Cvent, all of our customers want this thing yesterday. So we are basically on a tier whenever we get these ideas.

Mark Maguire [00:09:00]:

Our major motivation in getting this stuff done is to work as closely with our customers as we can to get their ideas out there and then work really closely with them to make sure that we're producing exactly what they want, or even better than what they want is what we're shooting for.

Steven Cotroneo [00:09:16]:

So I have a list of maybe around 20 different AI applications. Again, every day, there are new applications popping up one right after the other. So I'm always learning the new stuff and I always tell everyone that we work with, we have to start learning more about it. So I don't think it's anything that's going to go away, and I use it for concepting. So if you need a quick idea, if you have an idea, oh, I want to do a 3D element in here, but I'm not going to spend two weeks to create this 3D element, you could literally have AI create a markup of a 3D element and put it into your concepts or color variations or type bases, you could do all that.

The way I see it now on social media that are people that are using these AI prompts that are literally going in there, they're typing in, I want a video of blah, blah, blah, 

Steven Cotroneo [00:10:10]:

and it gives you a 15-second clip. So you'll probably know this on LinkedIn, all these other social networks where you watch a video that has cut after cut after cut after cut of these 15 second videos that remind me of these whiteboard videos that we used to see way back in the day. It just so boring, especially now that you only have a short attention span to grab people's attention. But I think it's an excitement now, so everyone wants to learn it. But again, it's going to be there, but I don't know how it's going to be in the future.

Mark Maguire [00:10:48]:

So AI is useful. Steve mentioned something about short attention spans, and that is definitely something that we pay attention to. Most of our videos are a max of two minutes long, although we do numerous videos for you guys in the testimonial realm that are into the three-minute range. Those things are awesome. All of those people on your testimonials, they have such great stories and they just praise Cvent. If anybody who's watching this stuff has never been to a Cvent CONNECT, you got to get yourself there because it's so much fun and it's so interesting. Yeah.

Steven Cotroneo [00:11:25]:

We look forward to Cvent every year. You guys give us tons of work too, but we just love going the interaction with people. It's just fantastic.

Alyssa Peltier [00:11:35]:

Well, I love that because it's a testament to the partnership that you can have with a creative agency, a video team bringing these creatives to be inspired by your brand and continue to evolve that year over year. I'm sure you guys come back from Cvent CONNECT and you're like, we've got so many ideas for next year based off of what we heard your customers say, how we saw the content come to life, how we saw our videos come to life, how we have this stage, or how this activation could be brought to life. It really is a partnership when it comes down to it with your creatives. The more you can bring them into your process, I think the better because that gives you guys more... And really what we were talking about with AI is creative accelerants. So these events are creative accelerants too, to bring you into the fold to bring you into our event and to make it iterative year over year. So I love that we have that partnership with you.

Let's talk a little bit more about 2025, some stuff that we see.

Alyssa Peltier [00:12:31]:

We talked a lot about AI. I'm sure that's not going anywhere. In fact, I'm sure it will continue to snowball, but what else is going on in the world of video that might be relevant to our event producer customers here?

Mark Maguire [00:12:43]:

3Ds has been gathering steam now for a while, and a lot of our partners, customers want us to produce 3D for them. What we do isn't always completely 3D we play around with this stuff and it's just after a while it gets a little overwhelming, so we try to intersperse it with more 2D or 2D ish. There's this transition between 2D and 3D that Steve has become very effective at doing, and I think that that's what we're playing with now, and more and more of our customers like to see effects like that.

Steven Cotroneo [00:13:19]:

When you talk about trade shows, all this new technology coming out, they're always trying to learn not only just the AI, but you could create video on glass. So it looks like you're immersed within the trade show. Also, augmented reality, virtual reality, we're playing with that. So I have all the VR lenses here, to create apps with and experiment with. So VR has been around for a long time as well, and you don't know what's going to prevail in the future, but we are always keeping up with the latest and greatest technologies.

Alyssa Peltier [00:13:57]:

I was going to say, are there certain industries where you're finding these more cutting edge applications are more desirable? I know we talked a little bit about the biotech and life sciences space, especially because you are rooted in a cradle of innovation there in the Boston region. Tell me a little bit about that. Are there some that are pushing the boundaries to try to trial these new technologies when it comes to content and video?

Steven Cotroneo [00:14:19]:

Also, it depends on who you're working with too. Certain companies just want, I don't know if it's just a younger generation that wants to push the boundaries of what you could use. So with biotech, we're talking to a group now that wants to bring in more of the VR. It's very detailed what you're talking about in someone's body and how to travel through someone's body to find cancer cells, how to make it like a game. Everything's gamification, how to keep people engaged. So we're seeing a lot with the biotech, with the VR especially. Then we were just talking about this earlier, I just saw there's a company developing video on Coke cans. Yeah, video is everywhere

Steven Cotroneo [00:15:04]:

And that's why it's fun. People would rather watch something than read it. There's even a stat out there, that 50% of people are more likely to buy something if they watch a video. So it's everywhere.

Mark Maguire [00:15:19]:

It's funny, we do a lot of what's called animated banner ads as well. We try to do very high-energy animated banner ads, and we have statistics from companies, and I don't even know why they send them to us, but they're awesome statistics that basically show what type of feedback they get, the positive feedback that they get from these animations in their space. That's the financial space, compared to just text banners.

Alyssa Peltier [00:15:47]:

Well, we're in this TikTok generation. I don't think that's changing. I think the appetite for video is continuing to grow. I know I threw out some statistics two or three years ago that was a testament to the power of video in the event space. But even you guys are talking about beyond that application, different channels, different mediums for you to even video, but video still being the predominant, a more enriched experience. Not flat pictures, not text, but also shorter form, right? The attention span is shorter.

Steven Cotroneo [00:16:14]:

Years ago, there was an article I was reading where the attention span of a person is equivalent to a goldfish, which is literally five seconds, 10 seconds. You have to [inaudible 00:16:27] really quick. We see that, we see that with the videos. But to bring one of the videos up that we created for you a while ago that we spoke about this before that got 6 million views. 

Steven Cotroneo [00:16:38]:

We looked at the stats of that and people were watching that from start to finish.

Mark Maguire [00:16:43]:

That was about two minutes long. So that was pretty good.

Steven Cotroneo [00:16:46]:

So it was pretty cool.

Alyssa Peltier [00:16:48]:

Well, a friend of mine used to use the term edutainment, and I think that's really what we're circling around is fine line of information, but education, but also the entertainment.

Mark Maguire [00:17:00]:

Like I said before, we're trying to tell a story, but we're trying to tell it in an extremely interesting way to keep people's attention. We're trying to show what it is. A lot of the stuff we do is marketing product based type things. So we're trying to show the product, but in a very interesting way, and how people might be using it in interacting with each other and create that excitement about why you should be using this also.

One of the spaces that we're getting into, and it was thanks to you folks, is the hospitality space. You have the trade show at Cvent CONNECT every year, and there's a lot of hotels and location based people demonstrating their stuff there. It's always the same, they show pictures of their facility and people in their facility and that type of thing, which is great. But we tried to go beyond that and we produced a bunch of these things for you folks a couple of years ago,

Mark Maguire [00:17:56]:

and we tried to take concept of what's really interesting and unique about that particular industry, whether it be a hotel or wedding space or that kind of thing, and try to bring some emotion into it. Focus on why people really want to use them, what beyond just the space is intriguing people and bringing them into that space? I find that we would like to do some more of that stuff. It looks like we might have the possibility of doing that. So we look forward to that.

Steven Cotroneo [00:18:30]:

Yeah. When we started working with you, we actually developed this video style, which more and more people are looking to create too. So when you talk about explainer videos or these videos that we do, I often don't like to say explainer videos because the first thing that comes to your mind is a cartoon animation. That's what you usually see when you see explainer videos. So I get my inspiration from watching movies like from HBO, Natural Geographic, NFL Network, and we're actually working with a couple of the contractors that help us develop these videos, something that has a lot of energy to it, not only hard cuts, strong animations, strong video typography, and something that's really a lot of energy that gets people excited. 

Steven Cotroneo [00:19:22]:

So for example, when you're walking through the Cvent floor and you see all those videos playing at the same time and the same sort of motion moving around, it's just incredible to see.

Alyssa Peltier [00:19:33]:

I have a question on, because we started talking a little bit about brand and how videos can bring a brand to life, the beginning of our conversation. You all as creatives, how do you feel when you're working with a brand who I'm going to say is a little more reserved, a little more conservative? Are you helping them to stretch that brand persona, that brand energy, that feel, so that it can tap into some of those more B2C type things that you talked about, Steve?

Steven Cotroneo [00:20:00]:

Yeah, so a lot of people will come to us and they'll have the brand they've created, I mean there sometimes we'll help create the brand, but for example, Cvent, you guys had a brand. We, I think helped develop video brand portion of it. But we'll receive bringing of the colors, typography, all that, and they'll come to us because they want us to expand upon and take that and don't make it look like a corporate video pretty much. They'll show us what they create before, it's like a solid color, it's just boring to read.

Alyssa Peltier [00:20:34]:

Doctor videos.

Steven Cotroneo [00:20:45]:

They want us to expand upon that and make it exciting for them and really stretch the limits. So what we usually do, if they want us to do it, we'll really go for it and then we could dial it back if they want to. But we find that most people love that excitement. I think that's where we're finding our niche, is creating these videos that have the higher energy, even the corporate videos, what people think would be boring. We're making them exciting.

Mark Maguire [00:21:06]:

One of the things that Steve briefly mentioned was typography. That is one of the most essential things we do in our videos, and it's quite unexpected by folks I think. People have come up to us after it and talked about, not even about the animation going on. They've talked about the typography and how did we do that? Steve, I'm going to give him some praise here. Steve is just awesome with typography. He's obsessed with it. Yeah, I think that's a real addition to our animations that people are, like I said, unsuspecting. But when they see it, they're very appreciative of what we've done.

Steven Cotroneo [00:21:46]:

But I also think it's surrounding yourself by people that do this stuff more too. You talk about inspiration, and I remember learning this when I was younger and I never understood it, but surround yourself by people that are better than you. When you're younger, you're threatened by that because you don't want them to take the work. But now I work with these people that are working at these crazy studios and you just learn from them. That's how you learn how to make yourself better and you go to them and it's unbelievable. It's an awesome collaboration.

Mark Maguire [00:22:22]:

Sometimes when we're doing the videos for CONNECT, Steve mentioned the NFL, but we use people who work on the animations for the NFL, for HBO, for Netflix. These are very high-end people, and everybody wants these people. They are very hard to get. So we need to plan well in advance to get them to work on some of these videos. So that's why we're constantly pressing to get this information upfront so that we can schedule time to get them to help us with this stuff. They do just some remarkable stuff.

Alyssa Peltier [00:22:59]:

That's a perfect segue. How do people get in touch with you all? Because I have a feeling after listening to this podcast, people will want to talk to SAC Designs. Where can they find you?

Steven Cotroneo [00:23:07]:

A while ago, I thought it would be a good idea to use my initials as my company. SAC, S-A-C, Steven Anthony Cotroneo. Then Design is DZN, so it's hard to say all the time, but our website is sacdzn.com, and on there you'll find an array of our work from print, web, and video. Then we also have a YouTube channel, which you could find us through SACDZN on YouTube as well.

Alyssa Peltier [00:23:41]:

Love it. That's perfect. I feel like I could talk to you both all day. As a former creative myself, I'm like, we can do copy, colors, typography.

Mark Maguire [00:23:49]:

Well, we've worked together in the past, right? We did that hybrid video that came out amazing.

Alyssa Peltier [00:23:52]:

Yeah, I know. Well, and every time I have these conversations, I'm like, talk about surrounding yourself with the people that enrich your soul and make you more creative. I always feel like even in a 20-minute chat, I got some value out of that.

Steven Cotroneo [00:24:05]:

It's great. I think I'm very lucky doing this job, getting up every day. There's not too many people that could say they love doing what they're doing, but I honestly wouldn't know what to do if I wasn't doing this.

Alyssa Peltier [00:24:18]:

All right, with that, that's a wrap for this week's episode of Great Events, a podcast by Cvent. We'll see you next week.

Alyssa Peltier [00:24:27]:

Thanks for hanging out with us on Great Events, a podcast by Cvent. If you've been enjoying our podcast, make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

Rachel Andrews [00:24:37]:

And you can help fellow event professionals and marketers, just like you, discover Great Events by leaving us a rating on Apple, Spotify or your preferred podcast platform.

Felicia Asiedu [00:24:47]:

Stay connected with us on social media for behind the scenes content, updates and some extra doses of inspiration.

Rachel Andrews [00:24:54]:

Got a great story or an event to share? We want to hear from you. Find us on LinkedIn, send us a DM or drop us a note at greatevents@cvent.com.

Felicia Asiedu [00:25:03]:

Big thanks to our amazing listeners, our guest speakers, and the incredible team behind the scenes. Remember, every great event begins with great people.

Alyssa Peltier [00:25:13]:

That's a wrap. Keep creating, keep innovating, and keep joining us as we redefine how to make events great.