The event is only half the product. The aftermath is just as important
When I was chief business officer at Defected Records back at the start of the decade, the best thing we made in any given week tended to get made on the Monday. Defected is a house music label that also throws parties, so on a Saturday night there would be a few thousand people in a dark room somewhere in the world, dancing to a DJ until the lights came up. Someone would have shot the event on a…
In the early 2000s, Defected Records, a house music label, discovered that the most successful content from their parties was created on Monday mornings. The label would host large events on Saturdays, and by Monday afternoon, videos of the event would be available online for fans to share and discuss. Defected's approach was flawed, as the brand failed to recognize that the event itself was merely a means to create lasting memories and stories.
Today, Defected calls this phenomenon the "Aftermath Economy." The FIFA World Cup provided an excellent example of this concept, with England's team facing Mexico in a match that occurred at 1 a.m. U.K. time. Due to a storm, the match was delayed by an hour, causing fans to decide how they would watch the game. The resulting stories ranged from late-night pub conversations to personal accounts of watching the game on phones in dark bedrooms.
These shared experiences generated a strong sense of community and nostalgia. Marketing budgets typically focus on promoting events rather than leveraging the aftermath to build lasting connections. However, the aftermath is when audiences transform raw footage into stories, photos, and group rituals, creating their own unique memories.
Brands often spend significant resources on the live event while neglecting the potential value in the aftermath. Consequently, audiences are increasingly disengaged with content that lacks genuine human experiences. The aftermath economy presents an opportunity for brands to create memorable experiences that go beyond the initial event.
Investing in post-event content and community engagement can yield higher engagement and genuine human connections. Examples of successful aftermath strategies include Lego's World Cup content, which exceeded sponsor averages, and Meltwater's findings that nonsponsors generated double the engagement of official sponsors during the World Cup.
To capitalize on the aftermath economy, brands should allocate resources towards staffing and supporting content creation during the post-event period, ensuring that they capture and amplify the human stories that arise from live events.
Written by urgent.news from Fast Company's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
