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By Elizabeth Del Forn Throughout history, we have seen and heard bold and powerful women working to create positive change. In the last decade, movements and activism including #metoo, Time’s Up, body positivity, canceling diet culture, equal pay, sexual violence, women’s reproductive rights, and plenty more, have demonstrated the continued resilience of women and the …

VOICES ‘21 was more than a one-day event—it was (and is) a platform for our employee resource groups (ERGs) to welcome our colleagues back from the winter break, to celebrate all we accomplished in 2020 and to kick off the 2021 work year. It was a day that focused on real issues that impact GPJ …

EPIC is GPJ’s employee resource group for multicultural employees. We tackle big issues and have big plans to shift diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) within our organization and industry, so we needed a big name (an epic one). EPIC stands for Empowered People, Inclusive Cultures. We are culturally diverse, traditionally underrepresented, and ready to use …

We’re back with more experiential trends from our strategy team. Enjoy, and as always, stay safe out there! New approaches to live events are being tested and trialed From virus-sniffing dogs, to new CDC guidelines, to a new initiative from the city of Chicago, event organizers continue to explore new ways to promote and encourage …

Our strategy team has their finger on the pulse of all things experiential, and they’re back with some recent trends.  The first CES Virtual is in the books CES Virtual is officially a wrap. While reviews about the event were largely mixed, much of the new technology on display (AR, 5G and 360-degree audio to …

READY UP As of this writing, we are heading into 18 months under COVID-19 conditions. With so many people keeping at home through waves of lockdowns, it’s no surprise that gaming is still on the rise as quarantines have created new fans. There have been multiple, well-documented success stories in the industry.  Animal Crossing: New …

Featuring Evan Strange (Left) and Kelly Olson (Right) 2020 has been a crazy year for everyone, and for parents and caregivers, the added stresses of a toddler barging in on work calls and the time needed to care for loved ones has made this a year that will never be forgotten (read: good riddance 2020!). …

Featuring Cody Eastman and Liya Hoshi It’s wild to think that it’s only been two years since the inception of our first Employee Resource Group (ERG), and what’s been accomplished in such a short time. From heartfelt dialogues around becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable to creating a full fledged Pride experience across 7 agencies and …

Featuring Penny Davis, Senior Manager The GPJ Contact Center based in Austin, TX, provides registration, housing and technology support to thousands of event attendees via telephone, email and chat technology. Supporting events like Dreamforce, Workday Rising and Adobe Max, it is a world class customer service center and our customer service representatives (CSRs) are some …

When the first GPJ Employee Resource Group (ERG) was launched in 2018, no one knew just how vital a role they would play in the evolution of our agency culture, and how these groups would grow to include perspectives and deepen relationships with each other, with clients and also our communities at large.   The groups …

The final chapter in our journey alongside the development of IBM’s digital-first brand activations showcases the work of IBM’s Think City. (You can view the previous posts here and here.)  Think City was originally planned as a large-scale physical activation to debut at IBM’s Think 2020 flagship conference, but quickly evolved to digital-first as IBM’s …

The global pandemic may have put a temporary halt to creating the physical brand experiences we all know and love, but there is still plenty of creative work to recognize and celebrate.  The fundamental nature of experiences is that they know no physical or digital boundaries, and we’ve seen incredible creativity, collaboration, and resilience in …

GPJ’s Martyn Clarkson, SVP, Strategy and Planning spoke with PR Week about virtual events. Below is a re-print of the article.  August 05, 2020 by Natasha Bach There’s enough to stress out about when making a real-world event a virtual event. From concerts on Instagram and YouTube to webinars on Zoom, the show must go …

The future is full of things we can’t predict or imagine, however, the need for physical connection and proximity is certain to endure. The desire to be together in space and time; to be in the presence of something other-than and bigger than ourselves, can’t be tamed or extinguished. A new world and future of …

Continuing our journey alongside the development of IBM’s digital first-activations, we share with you today the next installment in our 3-part blog series ‘ReTHINKing Brand Activations,’ featuring the debut of IBM Quantum.  Let’s get you up to speed as to where we left off. IBM and experiential partner GPJ were faced with a new and …

By Brendan Brown, Senior Director, Strategy and Planning Last year a street vendor in San Francisco told my wife and I that the difference between fine art and commercial art is that with fine art you see nothing up close and everything from far away. For commercial art the opposite is true. Chaos in that …