There’s something particularly rewarding about seeing an event you’ve spent weeks working on finally come together. After all the planning and preparation, it’s a chance to see the conversations you’ve helped shape unfold in person, and the wider communications strategy come to life.
That was much of our experience at Fusion Live, Trustmarque Ultima’s flagship event at Magazine London, where Resonance supported the media programme alongside the launch of the company’s new TMU brand identity.
For us, Fusion Live was an opportunity to demonstrate how PR can contribute to a much bigger business moment. While securing media attendance was an important part of our work, the real value came from understanding what Trustmarque Ultima wanted to communicate and how we could use the event to bring those messages to a wider audience.
Finding the story beyond the event
With around 10 weeks to secure journalist attendance, we needed to be considered about where we focused our efforts.
An event invitation on its own gives a journalist relatively little to work with. Even when there’s an impressive speaker line-up, the editorial value comes from understanding what those speakers have to say and why their perspectives matter to a publication’s readers.
Fusion Live had several interesting conversations taking place across the agenda, particularly around the changing role of channel partners and the practical challenges businesses face when adopting AI. Alongside these, Trustmarque Ultima was preparing to unveil its new brand identity, creating an opportunity to communicate the company’s direction to the market.
Our work began with understanding how these elements could translate into stories for the technology, channel, AI and wider business press.
We helped shape the communications surrounding the rebrand, including drafting the announcement and considering how to position the news for journalists. At the same time, we identified opportunities for interviews with senior spokespeople and worked closely with Trustmarque Ultima’s customers and partners to coordinate access.
Rather than approaching the rebrand announcement and media programme as separate activities, we considered how the event could help journalists understand the company’s wider direction and the expertise behind its new identity.
This was an important part of our approach. The event brought together people with different perspectives on the industry, and we wanted journalists to have opportunities to explore those perspectives rather than simply receive the company’s latest announcement.
By the time we arrived at Magazine London, there was a full programme of media activity to deliver.
Making it happen on the day
With the rebrand announcement scheduled for 2 pm, there was plenty happening behind the scenes.
The team spent much of the day coordinating interviews and making sure journalists and spokespeople were in the right places. Naturally, not everything went exactly to plan. A few interviews were cancelled, which meant quickly finding alternative arrangements and keeping conversations moving.
It’s one of the realities of supporting a major event. You can prepare extensively beforehand, but there will always be things that need resolving in the moment. Having established relationships with journalists and a good understanding of the opportunities available makes it much easier to respond when circumstances change.
And while much of the activity on the day involved coordinating people and schedules, the thinking behind those arrangements had started weeks earlier. We knew which conversations we wanted to facilitate and how they related to Trustmarque Ultima’s wider communications priorities.
That preparation gave us the flexibility to make the most of the day, including opportunities that emerged once everyone was in the same room.
Turning an event into a wider communications opportunity
The results reflected the range of stories we had worked to develop.
Fusion Live secured seven on-site interviews and meetings, with another three interviews arranged for after the event. The activity generated ten published articles and LinkedIn posts, with coverage appearing in publications including CRN, Microscope, Technology Reseller and IT Channel Oxygen.
Importantly, the resulting coverage went beyond the rebrand announcement.
Journalists explored the changing expectations of technology partners and the challenges surrounding AI implementation. For example, CRN covered calls for channel partners to be more ambitious in their approach to customers, while Microscope explored the growing importance of consultative selling. These were conversations that connected Trustmarque Ultima’s expertise with the issues its industry was already discussing.
The rebrand itself also received coverage, helping introduce the company’s new identity to audiences beyond those attending Fusion Live.
For us, this is where the wider contribution of PR becomes particularly clear.
Events represent a significant investment for businesses. Yet the communications opportunity can easily become focused on promoting attendance or securing coverage of the event itself.
By involving PR in the planning, businesses can be more deliberate about how they use that investment. Understanding the media landscape helps identify which aspects of an event have genuine editorial relevance, while relationships with journalists can open up conversations that might otherwise be difficult to arrange.
There’s also an opportunity to think about how individual announcements fit into the company’s wider story. In Trustmarque Ultima’s case, the rebrand was an important moment, but Fusion Live gave us the chance to communicate what sat behind it through conversations with the people shaping the business.
And those conversations didn’t end when the event finished. In the days afterwards, we continued coordinating interviews and saw further coverage published, with journalists also sharing their stories across social media.
The experience reinforced something we see regularly in our work: PR is most valuable when it’s involved early enough to help shape an opportunity, rather than being brought in solely to promote it.
Fusion Live may have lasted a day, but the media relationships and coverage it generated extended well beyond it. For businesses investing in major industry events, that’s an opportunity worth considering long before the doors open.
Want to see what happened behind the scenes? Join Callie and Pris at Fusion Live for a glimpse of the team in action here.
