Go live or go home

Within a period of six weeks, STADA and komm.passion transformed an unassuming office at STADA Arzneimittel AG headquarters into a cutting-edge TV studio. On June 17, we were ready to stream the first live event from the new studio. Over 100 European journalists from 12 countries logged in to take part in the press conference organized, hosted and directed live on location by komm.passion. 

“That really was a big show,” said Frank Staud, Executive Vice President Corporate Communications at STADA. “Implementation – from the concept stage to the first live event – happened with crazy speed and maximum professionalism. With our new studio we’re not just at the cutting edge, but even a step beyond that. In times like these, events of this caliber can almost compensate for face-to-face events.”

Every year, STADA Arzneimittel AG presents the findings of the new STADA Health Report, a representative study covering various health topics. Typically, the presentation is held during a press conference in a major German city. But this was impossible this year due to COVID-19. So Berlin became Bad Vilbel and analogue-on-location became digital-on-air.

Back in early May, the room selected for the digital press conference was still just a normal office at the headquarters of STADA Arzneimittel AG in Bad Vilbel. Over the next six weeks, komm.passion planned and designed the new STADA TV studio and took care of the technology and construction – hand-in-hand with STADA. During this time komm.passion also planned STADA’s first live digital press conference for the presentation of the study findings, organized its implementation and managed the invitation of journalists across Europe.

Starting at the end of April, komm.passion also evaluated the findings of the market research agency KANTAR and wrote and designed the STADA Health Report 2020. Here as well, there are some new features compared to the year before: More subjects. More countries.More diverse topics. This time the participants included 24,000 people from 12 countries: Belgium, Germany, Finland, France, Italy, Austria, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, Serbia, Spain and the United Kingdom. The topic: Europe on the road to the future of health. Due to the health situation in spring 2020, the report was also expanded to include an additional chapter on COVID-19. On short notice, 6,000 people from six European countries were found for interviews on topics concerning COVID-19.

And then came June 17, the day of the digital live conference. In addition to the 100 European journalists who connected to take part, thousands of other people tuned in to watch the press conference on LinkedIn. “Honestly: Of course you’re always worried that something could go wrong. But the entire event went off without a hitch,” said komm.passion project manager Larissa Borgmann.  

With success: Within a week, the STADA Health Report reached over one million readers thanks to extensive media coverage in daily and specialist media. Roughly 100 clippings were used across Europe within that week. And what about the new STADA TV studio? The next live event was already held there the following week. And these won’t be the last two...