Case Study
Matalan Digital Conference
Kevin Matthews – Matalan Internal and External Communications Lead
Matalan has more than 230 stores in the UK, employing over 12,000 people, with an additional 50 international stores in 14 countries worldwide. When the Covid-19 pandemic forced us into lockdown throughout 2020, Matalan Internal Communications lead, Kevin Matthews, approached MSP to discuss virtual solutions to enable stakeholder engagement. The rest is history – and also the future for MSP and Matalan.
The challenge
Twice a year at Matalan, we bring between 500 and 1,000 colleagues together from around the business for a conference, in which they hear from the board and the senior leadership team about how the company is performing and the business’s direction of travel.
But when Covid-19 hit, we couldn’t do that. At a time when it was more important than ever to communicate on the business’s plans for getting through the pandemic, we couldn’t bring people together. We still needed to have a conference, because you still need to be able to get your message across to the wider workforce. So, we decided to hold our autumn/winter conference digitally. Instead of bringing colleagues to the conference, we wanted to bring the conference to our colleagues. MSP provided the skills and expertise we needed to enable us to deliver a virtual conference to the wider Matalan team.
The solution
MSP had built a studio in their building, and it was a perfect solution to stream our content over the period of a week.
Instead of just engaging 500 or 1,000 employees as we would usually do with a live conference, we were now able to make the content available to every single employee. For the first time, everyone could have access and hear directly from the board and the leadership team.
MSP understood what we wanted to achieve and were able to provide the guidance and assistance to make it a reality. They were available around the clock prior to the conference, during any pre-recording and in the week of the conference itself, to ensure we could deliver a professional-quality broadcast from start to finish.
The results
We streamed for up to one hour every day for a period of one week. We were able to dress the stage with Matalan products, be it home or fashion, and display graphics and imagery on the on-stage digital screens.
We’ve got great visual merchandisers in Matalan, who know how to create eye-catching scenes, so the stage looked great. Working with the creatives and MSP engineers we were able to make our sets look really professional.
Some of the feedback we’ve had was that it was like watching a TV broadcast at home just with people they know. That was down to the quality of the cameras and the camera work, the staging and lighting, the editing and the on-stage presence that we had.
MSP were able to really show us what’s possible and how we could get the best out of what we were trying to do.
That level of support and reassurance was absolutely crucial, which helped us get the best out of everyone who was on the stage.
MSP has a team of professional studio engineers and broadcast camera operators leaving you free to concentrate on the content and on the key messages that your employees are going to hear.
MSP helped us deliver the message in a more engaging way than ever before. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, both from colleagues who have been to countless conferences over the years, and also from those who don’t normally get the chance to attend.
The recommendation
It’s a very natural working relationship with MSP as they make people feel comfortable when they’re on the stage or in front of the camera.
They help you shape your event, and they assist the presenters to produce a quality output with great production values enabling you to get your key messages out to your audience.
The team at MSP are experts. They were able to produce broadcast-quality pre-record and live content effortlessly. They are friendly and supportive, and ensured we could get the best from our presenters.
It was a pleasure working with MSP and the results were outstanding.
I would highly recommend working with them and I look forward to working with the team again soon.
Kevin Matthews – Matalan Internal and External Communications Lead
MSP in four words
Professional / Efficient / Helpful / Organised