The Strobe Promotions Blog

They say, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”  As promotion marketers, the last thing we can afford to do is to create a dull promotion. So, how do we keep the energy high, the ideas flowing and the camaraderie among agencies on the same marketing team strong?

Sometimes simply having fun is the best way to connect an integrated marketing team.  In our world of promotional marketing, we often collaborate with other agencies to help build a promotion. I was lucky enough to be a part of a team building experience while working on a client’s promotion with multiple additional agencies. The promotion targeted children ages 6-13 and encouraged these children to “be active.”  Everyday a child could go to the website and enter their “play time” from that day to get an entry into the sweepstakes. On the site we suggested classic games like kickball or soccer for example, but any outdoor activity will do!

In the interest of helping our team to bond, the 4 agencies along with the client organized a “Game Day,” an opportunity for team members to get active and play as well. If you can imagine, the group was made up of about 45 people. We split into 3 teams and took turns playing soccer, kickball, and dodge ball, ending the day with a three-legged race. I have not played these games since I was 11 years old at sleep-away camp. The competitive child in me showed her energetic face once again! We all felt like a bunch of kids running on the field, quickly forgetting about the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives and traded in our coffee mugs for fruit punch juice boxes and our high heels for sneakers.  It was a truly fun day, and made for a terrific team bonding experience!

This past summer, our “Game Day” was the perfect way to make friends out of coworkers, put a face to a voice on the other end of a conference call, and simply just to have fun!  Much like the team-building experience we had with these games as children, adults like us rely on classic games like kickball, soccer and dodge ball to help find a connection and build on professional working relationships. Outdoor team games like these are high energy, safe and inclusive activities that seem to be tailored for just such occasions. Elements of teamwork and competition are built into these team-building activities where participants share experiences with each other in an environment which is fun and stress-free. Feelings of camaraderie and the sense that “we are all in this together” are inspired and an upbeat outcome tends to emerge naturally as a result of people having fun together.

This team-building experience has helped this squad of multiple agencies and brand representatives to get better acquainted, build trust, improve communication and most importantly, learn how to solve problems as a group. Today, though the promotion ended and though it may be the 99th planning conference call of the week, I know that the group on the other end of the line will work just as hard as I do to make sure future promotions run successfully and smoothly, knowing that we really are all in this together!

[image: life is good]