Event Marketer Spring 2022 - 70

IDEN
BRAND: Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health
CURRENT TITLE: Associate Director-Event Marketing
DREAM TEAM TITLE: Director-Attendee
Engagement
WHY WE WANT HER: For her keen eye
on the objectives of internal stakeholders,
while never losing sight of the external
goal: creating lasting touchpoints with
customers.
FACT:
The pet health care industry is valued at
$103 billion, and the competition to win
the seal of approval from providers who
ultimately call pet parents their customers
is fierce. For Jessica Iden, who was
introduced to the world of face-to-face
engagement while working in marketing
at a clinical research site, becoming No. 1
in the hearts of these minds requires a little
creativity and fun.
To that end, Iden embraces the challenge
of dreaming up interactive, memorable
and shareable experiences within a
space that is rather scientific and technical
and that can contain regulatory roadblocks-though
there are fewer rules surrounding
animal health than there are in
human health care.
" Be it puppy soccer, creating a mechanical
flea or introducing a Pokémon Go-type
of activation where attendees had to capture
fleas and ticks all over the convention,
I am always looking for innovative and
disruptive experiences in that live space to
engage our customers and distract them
from our competition, " she says.
And she's been successful. In her role,
she manages all aspects of the on-site
presence for Boehringer Ingelheim Animal
Health's customer-facing events for
brands including NexGard, Heartgard and
Frontline Plus. Pre-pandemic, her team
produced or attended upwards of 30 conferences
and 32 customer events annually.
She was involved in the NexGard launch
70
EVENT MARKETER SPRING 2022
campaign at the North American Veterinary
Conference in 2014, which
catapulted the brand to the No. 1 spot
in its category. It now enjoys a more
than 40-percent market share. Overall,
her
" activation " over
" exhibit "
strategies resulted in a 350-percent
increase in customer engagement
across three major industry shows
versus a traditional exhibit.
For Iden, one of the biggest takeaways
of the pandemic has been the
importance of content marketing over
product messaging, recognizing that this
was one of the true success stories that
came out of the virtual pivot for her team.
Not the virtual booths, not the gamification,
but the content.
" We saw the reach with education in
the digital space was great. Engagement
was high with numbers that we would
never get in the live space, " she says. " Virtual
town halls and programs around product
education, there's still an appetite for that. "
Digital, she says, will continue to play
a key role in supporting content programming
as well as sustainable event practices.
" We have to be more thoughtful about
our presence and take a look at where we
can expand our digital footprint so that
there's easy access; where we can create
smaller, more localized events to reduce the
mass waste of large gatherings; and then-
and I think this is important-really get to
know our customer base, " Iden says.
Iden is a two-time
President's Cup award
winner, which is awarded to
only one marketer internally
each year. She says of her work
on the NexGard brand:
" It takes work to become
No. 1. It takes a lot of hard
work and innovation
to stay there. "
Her team examines attendee habits to
identify potential areas of waste, and knows
that their customers, for example, will take
home pens, notebooks, wearables and
drinkware, and use them in their personal
lives or in their clinics.
" I focus on making those items premium
and desired so that they do take
those with them and they don't end up in
the trash or at the hotel, " Iden says. " What
resonates with your customers varies based
on demographics and personalities and job
functions, so being more mindful of those
things creates a more sustainable thought
process as we move forward. "
That recognition that many small
changes add up to something big, and her
focus on the joy of engagement, lands Iden
a spot on our Dream Team.
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Event Marketer Spring 2022

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