1) Tell us about the origins of the Marble and MGME partnership, what inspired it?

The partnership was born out of a mutual need for access to one another’s markets combined with a shared respect for each other’s skill sets and services. It came to fruition when we were approached by one of our mutual contacts to assist with a project for Wipro at Davos in 2020. Following this it quickly became clear MGME’s deep rooted expertise in travel logistics and meeting planning on a global level, mixed with our strategic, creative and production capabilities covering the US, UK, Europe and the UEA is a huge benefit to both our clients.

It wasn’t until late 2022 when MGME were approached by a global cloud securities company for a multi location, worldwide sales kickoff that we saw the true potential of our partnership. We executed events simultaneously across Kuala Lumpur, Yerevan, Prague, Bucharest and Atlanta, alongside a broadcast to HQ based in London, successfully over the course of three days, bringing 5000 people together. From there, things moved very quickly. Our teams came together in New York in February 2023 and more large scale projects followed. We have exciting projects lined up in 2024 including work with global payment provider 6sense, the AI CRM platform.

Ultimately, it is the ability to have a full global reach with permanent locations set on two major continents, an end to end suite of services, and one key point of contact for a client that seems to really be resonating.

2) What combined expertise will this make available to clients of both agencies? 

Partnering means that we can enter into a different playing field for large scale, global entities that have an ultimately non-negotiable need for agencies that will deliver them a consistent product globally beyond their in-house resource capabilities. They want support that produces cost efficiencies, time efficiencies, and keeps their strategy and ideas fresh.

Our combined expertise also means we can bring global clients a more diverse service set. In the UK for example we have invested significantly in our in-house content and digital strategy department which now means clients of MGME and Marble are able to capitalise on a 360 campaign for their events. Having already seen an opportunity in this area, we will see our growth strategy even more greatly informed by this service as our potential to deliver it globally has increased exponentially.

3) How will this partnership inform the strategy and growth of Marble?

There is a real emphasis on the UK as a global hub for technology and especially emerging AI. Therefore, the investment space and the needs of financial investment businesses to bring their investments to the attention of their audiences has opened up a really exciting market which we are fortunate enough to have long-term heritage in with the likes of Founder Forum, firstminute capital and Henkel dx Ventures.

4) What are the biggest event trends you’re seeing in the UK? How does this differ from the US?

There is the increasing and developing merger between live experiences and marketing, much more commonly seen within the B2C market and now entering into the B2B market. I’ve seen some fantastic examples of this from the likes of YouTube and Google engaging in everything from new service propositions for YouTube advertising to new products for Google Drive, whilst hosting deeply immersive conferences that are still positioned around thought leadership. 

Secondly would be sustainability. Clearly a massive buzzword that I’m sure many people feel is overused and not always backed up with the proper credentials. However, the UK live experience market is right at the very forefront of bringing real solutions to businesses through sustainable execution that is rooted in accountability, and in some cases, monetising this to the advantage of a client or brand. Of course, there is a pure reason for the sake of the planet to be engaging in sustainable practices, but the reality is, unless this is commercially viable, which the likes of platforms like Earthly, Isla and b corp are allowing it to be, we won’t see the wave of uptake that is needed to really make a difference .

The biggest difference comes within the sustainability sector. Ultimately, this just isn’t as high a priority within the US live experience sector and it marks a real barrier for progress, but it is one we hope to help tackle as a united force between ourselves and MGME.