Sparks


About

A global brand experience agency. We are known for creating high-impact, end-to-end live brand experiences for the world’s most iconic brands. Every program we develop focuses on giving your consumer a reason to believe in your brand through immersive, memorable, relevant experiences. Our consumer-first approach ensures that every idea is grounded in a strategic understanding of your target audience, and lives in the experiential delivery platform that is most relevant to them. Recent platforms include but are not limited to: Trade show exhibits Proprietary events Meetings and conferences Product launches and press events Consumer activations and sponsorships Mobile tours and road shows Digital engagements Influencer programs Shopper experiences Guerilla and PR stunts Executive and customer briefing centers Other brand environments KEY SERVICES: Our all-encompassing approach arms you with everything you need to engage your audiences where they live, work and play. Our scope of services is integrated and includes all aspects of strategy, creative, production, management and measurement. Strategy is our foundation. We immerse ourselves in your brand, audiences, culture, business objectives and more to generate insights that deliver big ideas and informed solutions. We then develop an actionable plan that includes collecting and analyzing data, evaluating progress and making adjustments necessary to keep the program on track. Our deep and diverse creative bench translates strategic insights into experiential manifestations of the brand. Our 45 person creative team, across five studios, is comprised of a diverse pool of award-winning, eclectic thinkers, creators and storytellers who design experiences that energize, inform and inspire audiences. Digital integration creates live immersion opportunities and experience amplification to a virtual audience pre, on-site and post-event. Our in-house team incorporate digital technologies into all engagement phases, spanning the gap between our physical and digital lives. Creative is brought to life through in-house exhibit, event and graphic production services. Designs are applied to production methods spanning wood, metal, wire and fabric fabrication, paint, electrical, sculptural, graphical and more. Our integrated service strategy results in the most efficient and cost-effective method of producing, refurbishing, shopping, and storing your program assets. We also have over $5 million invested in 10,000+ exhibit/event ready rental components. Most recently we’ve launched our own proprietary rental exhibit system SPEC (Sparks Proprietary Environment Construction System) - a wall system utilizing fabric soft panels and hybrid wall structures. Panel offerings include 8’ tall, 10’ tall and 12’ tall in varying widths and include accessories such as windows, doors, shelving solutions, product display elements and graphics printed directly on fabrics. Printed fabric can bridge over multiple panels or standard digital prints on hard substrates can be mounted via a multitude of connections. We treat each client as a unique entity with exclusive needs and objectives and build customized service platforms around their requirements, wants and expectations. Our hands-on service philosophy focuses on identifying the proper team structure and support services required to best service your unique program needs. We are proud to have built SparksLinkSM, our online program and inventory management system that allows you to operate your experiential programs more effectively. With Sparkslink, you can easily manage, order and ship all program assets, track event calendars and timelines, collaborate on tasks, review floor plans, approve financials, and more — all in one place. We make it easier to get things done. We are committed to measuring every experience that we develop, as well as our clients’ entire program and the effectiveness our partnership. We have developed an innovative measurement methodology called EventScore which uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques to provide clients with a comprehensive assessment of event effectiveness against objectives and industry benchmarks, as well as a roadmap for continuous improvement. We work closely with our clients to get crisp on metrics, devise time-efficient surveys and develop reports that include findings as well as recommendations for improvements. LOCATIONS: Sparks is headquartered in the "City of Brotherly Love" Philadelphia, PA, with 10 additional locations around the world ranging in size and service offering. Full-Service Fabrication and Production: Atlanta Las Vegas Philadelphia Creative and Digital Studios Detroit Los Angeles New York Philadelphia San Francsico Account Management and Client Services Atlanta Beijing Boston Connecticut Detroit Las Vegas Los Angeles New York Philadelphia San Francsico Shanghai FEAUTURED SERVICE: EVENT MEASUREMENT Event marketers have it tough. We're beholden to multiple stakeholders with a variety of (sometimes conflicting) objectives. We're often held up to a higher level of scrutiny vs. other channels, and event budgets are usually first on the chopping block. Interested in measuring your event investments (or improving how you measure them)? You've found the right partner. Our Event Measurement Resource Center offers you everything you need to know about measurement--from why you should do it to how you should do it and everything in between. Visit the Event Measurement Resource Center at www.sparksonline.com/measurement.

Contact

2828 Charter Road
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19154
United States

Articles

Women In Events: A Course In Confidence

Women In Events: A Course In Confidence

A Course in Confidence. Senior Marketers talk about the unique challenges of being a woman in the event industry.

What You Need to Know: Periscope for Events

What You Need to Know: Periscope for Events

If you’re thinking about using the live-streaming app Periscope to extend your event, check out our event marketing usage ideas and tips.

What Integrated Marketing Really Means in Events

What Integrated Marketing Really Means in Events

As a marketer, you appreciate good storytelling. And you know the best brand stories transcend every consumer touchpoint, both online and offline. Therefore, integrated marketing has become a popular buzzword that encompasses a wide range of...

Upgrade Your Internal Meetings

Upgrade Your Internal Meetings

Internal meetings are now infinitely more attendee-centric. The perfect internal meeting opens up possibilities for attendees to learn new skills, meet with peers from other areas of the company and the world, and to engage with each other and...

Two Pop-Up Case Studies: Ashworth & Palm

Two Pop-Up Case Studies: Ashworth & Palm

The Ashworth Gallery Pop-Up opened in NYC for 10 days during the US Open, including US Open interviews broadcast live from the venue, a retail component, as well as an evening VIP event.

Thoughts on the Growing Role of Pop-Ups: Interview with Jane Hawley, SVP, Sparks

Thoughts on the Growing Role of Pop-Ups: Interview with Jane Hawley, SVP, Sparks

Tell us about your company and what it does. Sparks is a leading global marketing agency committed to delivering compelling creative marketing solutions that build brand and customer preference across all marketing channels exhibit, event...

The Rise of the Chief Experience Officer

The Rise of the Chief Experience Officer

A recent Adweek article questioned whether the era of the CMO is over “as customer experience trumps traditional branding in delivering commercial performance.” While the role of the CMO has been radically changing in light of technology, we...

The 3 Secrets to Throwing a Killer Event

The 3 Secrets to Throwing a Killer Event

As a marketer, you know how important it is to foster positive brand awareness. It’s your job, after all. But with today’s asymmetrical media, your job is a little tougher. People are harder to reach — and fewer engage — so you have to...

Temporary Brand Immersions: Connect with Consumers Where They Live, Work & Play

Temporary Brand Immersions: Connect with Consumers Where They Live, Work & Play

One day, it's an empty space. The next, it's a beehive of activity. Then, just a week or two, or a month or two later, it's gone. It's called a Pop-Up Experience, and it is a growing form of alternative media.

Striking a Balance: Internal Meeting Agendas

Striking a Balance: Internal Meeting Agendas

When it comes to meeting strategy, just about everything’s changing—right down to the agenda. However, the balance among hardcore business sessions, networking opportunities and social events can be a delicate one.

Social Media and Events: Connecting the Dots

Social Media and Events: Connecting the Dots

There are constant reminders everywhere telling us that social media is important for fully integrated event marketing success. That's a no-brainer, but what isn't as obvious is how event attendees use social media. Up until now, the questions...

Show Stopper: 3M Pushes the Experiential Level With Its World of Innovation

Show Stopper: 3M Pushes the Experiential Level With Its World of Innovation

Succinctly and effectively communicating the depth and breadth of a $20+ billion company that offers 50,000 products, while educating and enlightening visitors to 3M’s people, business processes and technologies was no easy task, but 3M’s...

Seven Keys to Creating Best-in-Class EBCs

Seven Keys to Creating Best-in-Class EBCs

In addition to being a significant investment that requires a great deal of internal support, both the initial design and execution of the EBC and the ongoing support of the center can require a greater allocation of time and money than many other...

Selling It In: How to Get Company Execs And Employees to Sign on for the EBC

Selling It In: How to Get Company Execs And Employees to Sign on for the EBC

The true power of the Executive Briefing Center as a marketing and sales platform lies in the fact that it often brings together representation from multiple internal groups to provide the customer the most in-depth, informed presentation possible.

SAP Steps Up: Inside SAPPHIRE NOW, One of the Year's Most Successful Proprietary Events

SAP Steps Up: Inside SAPPHIRE NOW, One of the Year's Most Successful Proprietary Events

It is considered one of the year's most successful proprietary events and one of the event industry's most impressive reinventions. What was once SAP's Sapphire was reinvented as SAPPHIRE NOW, a redesigned, reengineered and rewired digital...

Proprietary Events Whitepaper

Proprietary Events Whitepaper

Cool info and a case study on SAP's Sapphire NOW!

Proprietary Events Heat Up: Spending on proprietary events on the rise

Proprietary Events Heat Up: Spending on proprietary events on the rise

Event departments around the world are expected to double their financial commitments to the red-hot proprietary event trend in 2013. Proprietary events, the ownable, single-brand-produced events that so many Fortune 1000 companies are rolling...

Pricing a Pop-Up

Pricing a Pop-Up

Leasing a space can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $200,000, depending on location and length of stay. In general, because Pop-Ups turn landlords' unused space into profitable inventory, brands report leasing space for 40 to 60 percent of the going...

Pop-Up Interview with Meredith Silbreg of Taylormade-adidas Golf

Pop-Up Interview with Meredith Silbreg of Taylormade-adidas Golf

The 2009 US Open was being held in Long Island, NY, so we selected a space in Manhattan for our Ashworth Pop-Up art gallery.

Pick Your Flavor: The Top Two Pop-Up Environments

Pick Your Flavor: The Top Two Pop-Up Environments

Pop-Up experiences are characterized not only by their affordability and their high impact, but also their versatility and flexibility. There is no steadfast rule to the theme, size or scale of a Pop-Up. More often than not, a concept is morphed...

Opening Doors: On-Site Tips for What Works & Why

Opening Doors: On-Site Tips for What Works & Why

A successful EBC attendee experience requires a variety of elements coming together to create an experience that impresses the customer and moves the dial on business. Three points to keep in mind when you're building the strategy for successful...

On the Record: Briefing Bites from Top EBCS

On the Record: Briefing Bites from Top EBCS

We have a number of customer technical centers throughout the world, but we didn’t have one here in the United States. Forty percent of our operations are here, and it didn’t make sense that we didn’t have a place where we could bring our customers.

Landing Gear: Boeing Uses a 30,000 Sq Ft Customer Experience Center to Bring Prospects Event Closter to Its Brand and Products

Landing Gear: Boeing Uses a 30,000 Sq Ft Customer Experience Center to Bring Prospects Event Closter to Its Brand and Products

Face-to-face engagement is getting big play across the entire marketing mix at Boeing these days, and it's paying off. The old-school sales approach of inviting prospects to watch presentations and look at mock-ups has literally been thrown away...

INSIDE FANFEST: Super Bowl

INSIDE FANFEST: Super Bowl

Maxim magazine can sure throw a party. During the Super Bowl it celebrated the game Texas-style with The Maxim Party State Fair powered by Motorola Xoom on Feb. 5 at Centennial Hall at Fair Park (home of the annual Texas State Fair). The party was...

INSIDE FANFEST: NCAA Final Four Bracket Town

INSIDE FANFEST: NCAA Final Four Bracket Town

March Madness is all about college basketball and its fanatical fans, and this year was no exception at Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center, home of the 2011 NCAA Bracket Town fan experience. Thousands of attendees of the Final Four...

INSIDE FANFEST: Daytona 500

INSIDE FANFEST: Daytona 500

NASCAR events are a big deal for Ford whose research shows that out of 75 million fans of the sport, four million of them attend the races every year. The research also shows that 39 percent of them are new car intenders, meaning they're people...

How These 4 Brands Succeeded With Social Media Contests

How These 4 Brands Succeeded With Social Media Contests

Social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest enable businesses to directly reach current and potential customers, and one creative way to engage this audience is by using contests. Take a look at these examples of four...

Five Simple Yet Ultra-Effective Event Sponsorship Opportunities

Five Simple Yet Ultra-Effective Event Sponsorship Opportunities

Different doesn't have to mean flashy. In fact, some of the most effective advertising venues can often be the simplest. For your next event, consider selling these understated yet impactful sponsorship opportunities.

Experience Design: Tips for Creating an Influential and Visual EBC Environment

Experience Design: Tips for Creating an Influential and Visual EBC Environment

First impressions mean everything, and EBCs are no exception. The environment that you design for briefings is representative of the company, its message, its values and what it can do for its key clients.

Event Marketers Face Lowest City Availability Numbers

Event Marketers Face Lowest City Availability Numbers

From venues to hotels to convention centers to full citywides, marketers are waking up to the realization that for many events, options are becoming extremely limited. In an effort to lock down locations and dates, and to make sure they still have...

EBCs: Marketers Leverage Executive Briefing Centers to Engage Customers and Prospects in More Intimate Environments

EBCs: Marketers Leverage Executive Briefing Centers to Engage Customers and Prospects in More Intimate Environments

As prospects have less time to attend traditional trade shows and customer summits, and as brands press on to create quality time with prospects away from the eyes of competitors, EBCs fill the void.

Creating Kid-Sized Brand Experiences

Creating Kid-Sized Brand Experiences

Marketers are busy rolling out pint-sized mobile tours, street campaigns, local activations, and retail engagements—all created to engage kids and their parents. The latest kids experiences are fun, educational and interactive. Here are a few...

Authenticity isn't a Strategy

Authenticity isn't a Strategy

Authenticity is one of those words we hear a lot in relation to marketing, but very few businesses (or marketers, for that matter) really understand the concept. If you’re thinking of authenticity as a marketing strategy, you’re missing the point...

6 Tips to Get You Thinking about Upgrading Your Proprietary Events in 2013... and Beyond

6 Tips to Get You Thinking about Upgrading Your Proprietary Events in 2013... and Beyond

Proprietary events are becoming big business, which means if you've been running an event for a while, it's probably time to think about kicking it up a notch. Here are some ways to take your event to help the next level.

6 Questions You Should Ask Your Event Agency

6 Questions You Should Ask Your Event Agency

As an event marketer, you understand the power of a live event. Bringing brands to life involves a number of moving parts, and you need an agency that can seamlessly manage and integrate every aspect. But finding the right one can be a challenge.

5 Ways to Improve the RFP Process

5 Ways to Improve the RFP Process

Request-for-proposals (RFP) have been around forever. An RFP is an important step for a brand to gauge the talent and capabilities of potential partners. And for those partners, an RFP is a chance to wow potential clients and build valuable...

5 Tips for Qualifying Leads at Events

5 Tips for Qualifying Leads at Events

Events provide wonderful opportunities to spark connections that your sales team can use to build profitable relationships. Here are five ways to maximize lead qualification at your events.

5 Tips for Protecting Your Event Data

5 Tips for Protecting Your Event Data

Here are five tips from different brand categories for keeping event data safe and secure.

5 Event Technologies that Maximize ROI

5 Event Technologies that Maximize ROI

In the world of event planning, striking a balance between "wow" factor and cost-effectiveness is a constant struggle. However, things are looking up, as new technologies make it feasible to do much more with less.

15 Content Marketing Pieces From Live Events

15 Content Marketing Pieces From Live Events

If you aren’t into content marketing, you’re missing one of the marketing world's biggest trends…ever. Here are 15 types of content that can be easily extracted from events and used across the entire marketing mix.