Nudgestock takes behavioural science global with LinkedIn Live

For the last eight years, The Nudgestock festival has brought together the world’s leading thinkers on behavioural economics and psychology – and shared new ideas on how to incorporate behavioural science into marketing. The onset of Covid-19 makes such thinking more important than ever. However, it also made it impossible to bring together 500 paying attendees in the UK’s seaside town of Margate.

Nudgestock founder and Ogilvy Vice Chairman Rory Sutherland saw an opportunity to re-imagine the festival as a marathon online video event, bringing together experts across time zones for 15 hours of free viewing. Streaming sessions on LinkedIn Live enabled Nudgestock to generate over 120,000 views and register over 35,000 sign-ups. It also showed how taking an event virtual can transform the role that it plays.

The Challenge

•   Recreate Nudgestock 2020 as a virtual event
•   Switch promotion from ticket sales to driving free sign-ups and views
•   Generate high-quality engagement on a global scale
•   Translate the event into ongoing content assets and client conversations

The Solution

•   15-hour TV-style event crossing international time zones, Band-Aid style
•   Over 35 speakers, including the world’s leading behavioural scientists
•   Mix of live and pre-recorded content streamed via LinkedIn Live and YouTube
•   Interactive ‘side-tent’ Zoom sessions on specialist topics
•   Motion graphics enabling seamless transitions between presenters

Why LinkedIn?

•   Opportunity to leverage Ogilvy’s 1 million LinkedIn followers through a LinkedIn Live broadcast
•   Global reach and high-quality audience engagement
•   LinkedIn members’ proven interest in world-class thought leadership

Results

•   15 hours of live-streamed content with no technical interruptions
•   More than 120,000 views
•   Over 35,000 sign-ups to the event mailing list
•   Viewers voluntarily donated over £8,000 to the Red Cross during the event, in lieu of paying for tickets