GET TO KNOW ELEVATE
BrandStorytelling is proud to be working with STORY + STRATEGY on the return of Elevate, BrandStorytelling’s summer retreat for brand storytellers and their partners. This year’s Elevate is exciting in that it will be unlike years prior (thanks in large part to STORY + STRATEGY’s involvement) - but to understand why, let’s first look back at Elevate’s origins.
As BrandStorytelling’s winter event, sanctioned by Sundance Film Festival, began to grow in attendance, the buzz revolved around a similar topic: storytellers and their partners were hungry to address the challenges and opportunities brand marketers were facing in a media environment where interruption was becoming increasingly less effective. While BrandStorytelling at Sundance was a space for a celebration of this growing change, members of the community seemed eager to have communal conversations about best practices around generating brand-funded content and entertainment for a marketing purpose. In the summer of 2017, BrandStorytelling launched Elevate to address this need being communicated by the growing community of brands, production companies, and agencies looking to cultivate a universal set of standards and practices for the business of brand storytelling.
Elevate initially featured a series of expert speakers who presented on key tenets of the brand storytelling process, from ideation to production to data collection. Sessions were followed by breakout discussions that gave community members the opportunity to have organized versions of the conversations they’d been having at Sundance. The results exceeded the expectations of all involved, with several great learnings emerging from the summer gathering. The first of these findings was that everyone, from the smallest studios to the largest brands, felt that they were creating processes as they went along. Year one revealed that no one organization had all the answers, but collectively, the community could work together to cultivate best practices. Years two, three, and four built upon that initial revelation, advancing practices around ideation, investment, distribution, measurement, and more.
This year’s event, taking place from July 11-14 at the beautiful and remote Sundance Mountain Resort, has evolved to keep up with brand storytellers’ growth in the space. With more experience than ever before, brand storytellers and their partners simultaneously have more to show for their efforts and more nuanced questions to ask. While the agenda at Elevate has always been built upon community interaction with plenty of time allocated to sessions and discussions, this year, the program is being crafted by the participants themselves over the course of weeks of discussion. Enter STORY + STRATEGY, who are spearheading the info gathering effort. Shawn and Marc have worked directly with the BrandStorytelling team and event participants to identify the most salient Elevate topics to curate a series of workshops designed to address attendee needs more specifically than ever before. The structure of each day will provide ample opportunity for conversation and networking outside of these workshops, empowering attendees to learn not only from workshop leaders, but from their peers as well. This year’s Elevate will also be host to a whole new slate of activities offered through the Sundance Mountain Resort, including hiking, biking, yoga, and craft arts, providing balance and space to think on the day’s learnings. As always, our days will close with dinner, drinks, and time to connect with old friends and make new ones.
This year, total attendance will be 50 brand representatives, 26 partner companies, and 34 exclusive industry guests, bringing us to a limited attendance of 110 participants. Elevate guests will each enjoy their own cabin or suite situated throughout the Sundance property. The rustic elegance of the rooms, natural setting, and overall beauty of the resort will provide a serene backdrop for thought leadership and advancement of the business of brand storytelling. We’re thrilled to be helming this updated edition of Elevate with the support of STORY + STRATEGY and can’t wait to return to Utah for this one-of-a-kind experience.