NEW YORK – Emerald’s new brand-building division, Xcelerator, takes an immersive approach toward creating and building brands, with the ultimate goal of curating year-round communities in emerging and high-growth markets through face-to-face events and digital experiences.
“Our use of the word brand is purposeful,” Issa Jouaneh, Executive Vice President of Emerald Xcelerator, said. “It’s broader than trade shows. We are creating and building communities and, in doing so, engaging them in a way that’s most effective for them at various points in their development. Early on, that might mean smaller regional workshops, then executive events, and then moving on to trade shows and larger activations.”
The immediate focus for Xcelerator in 2022 will be on three industries: mental health (as it applies in the corporate setting), decentralized finance (Web 3.0) and breakthrough medicine.
Digital engagement will be important initially, Jouaneh said. “We have a digital-first mentality in terms of our launches because it allows us to engage with those communities immediately through content, before shifting from one or two touchpoints to more of a 365-degree engagement.”
For example, in the field of mental health – a huge issue that companies have been grappling with since COVID – Xcelerator started by building an expert advisory board, with plans to launch webinars, seminars and small workshops before kicking off a larger event in early 2023. “We see ourselves as facilitators and enablers, helping to develop and advance these communities,” Jouaneh said. “We’ve brought in industry subject matter experts and leaders in the segments we are launching and are building a team with deep industry knowledge to focus on what their community specifically needs.”
Emerald Xcelerator will build upon the company’s broader capabilities across a diverse portfolio of brands and services, including more than 150 events, media, content, market intelligence, lead generation and digital transactional solutions. In March, Emerald launched SIAL America, the first-of-its-kind cross-category food and beverage show in the U.S., and it also recently acquired MJBiz and Elastic Suite.
Reach Issa Jouaneh at Issa.Jouaneh@emeraldx.com
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