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Encore’s activation at IMEX America 2024 demonstrated how to use connected content across multiple LED banners for greater impact and participant engagement.
In Convene’s April 2025 CMP Series, Convene editors explored what exactly Return on Emotion (ROE) means — both in definition and in practice. According to two event professionals who have made ROE a mainstay metric in their toolkit — Community Factor’s Liz Lathan and Encore’s senior vice president of communications and industry relations Amanda Armstrong — it really depends on your event goals.
“What you’re trying to achieve is a sentiment about your brand, about your event, about your experience,” Armstrong said. “So … on the whole, you want positive, but you also want impactful.” She alludes to a roller coaster — that taking an audience “on highs and lows” can create a more meaningful experience. Below, a roundup of ideas from both event profs, big and small, on how to hit those emotional high notes.
1. Offer “spontaneous think tanks
“We use big [Post-It] notes … we ask people to share the challenge that they’re here to solve, and then we ask them to look at that wall of woes, and if they see a challenge they’ve solved in their business, to add their name to it [and then] facilitate a session sharing how they solve that problem,” Lathan said. “Often, that is enough of that out-of-your-comfort-zone kind of adventure that people feel super engaged.”
A “Wall of Woes” from an event produced by Lathan challenged attendees to take initiative by leading a conversation on how they worked through a business challenge
2. Stimulate the senses
This was the strategy behind an activation Encore produced for IMEX America in 2024: “Break Free: Unlock Your Impact,” designed to illustrate how planners can create emotional engagement at their events. The 4,000-square-foot “booth” led attendees through an immersive, multisensory experience that encouraged active participation — for example, attendees could engage with a hologram guide in hands-on experiences. Encore also showed how to use LEDs to present content in a more memorable way by connecting content across three LED banners [see photo at top of page]. “We did this in addition to the hologram to show a lower cost option for content display than holograms,” Armstrong said.
3. Host a welcome party
Fresh off completing their research project on Return on Emotion, Lathan and her then-colleagues at Haute hosted a group of event professionals at Atlantis Paradise Island in the Bahamas in 2022. Wanting to kick off the experience on a high note, they followed their HAAAM blueprint (on eliciting feelings of being hopeful, adventurous, active, accepted, and motivated), which the study determined as the most influential emotions in driving business at events. “The very first thing we did was when the attendees arrived at the Nassau airport, we literally had a welcome party,” Lathan said, complete with pompoms and signs. “That moment of acceptance didn’t start” on-site at the registration area, she said. “It started at the airport.”
4. Opt for engaging over expensive
For organizers with small or non-existent budgets, Lathan offered this advice: “Don’t get overwhelmed by it. Just start with the simple parts. Don’t feel like you have to pour $2 million in it in order to evoke these things. Come back to what was fun for you when you were a kid, and what engages you now. Add some play back into things.” A perfect example is a Puppy Park, where attendees can cuddle with and even adopt shelter dogs right on the trade-show floor.
Attendees at Convening Leaders 2025 cozied up with pups from Jenni’s Rescue Ranch in Houston inside The District at the George R. Brown Convention Center. Photo courtesy Whatever Media Group
5. Create an environment of acceptance
This is something that can come at no extra cost, according to Lathan, who suggests asking members of your board, committees, or volunteers to act as a welcoming committee during registration — to “be the event ‘wing people’ to help make sure that people are connected.” Another suggestion from Lathan: At the start of the event, ask a leader speaking on stage to encourage attendees to adopt the Pac-Man stance: “You should never be standing at the reception in a completely full circle,” she said. Standing with part of the circle left open — “so that someone else can enter at any time” — helps make the environment feel more welcoming.
Jennifer N. Dienst is senior editor at Convene.
Everything You Need
to Know About ROE
This article and those listed below are part of Convene’s April 2025 issue cover and CMP Series story package.