Hey, COCO+ fam and friends — we’ve cooked up a new event series for you. We’re doing something a bit different, and playing around with the format of your typical after-work forum and Happy Hour. Putting a little of that Coconuts flavor to your post- nine-to-five.
We’re calling it Coconuts Colloquiums, and yes, we’re aware that we’re borrowing this terminology from the world of academia. Are we scholars? Nope. Far from it. But that’s kind of where the lewls lie. It’s a light-hearted affair.
Anyway, here’s the breakdown of our concept:
Fuse one part powwow (some call this a “panel”), one part mixer-mingler thingy, booze for miles, and the sparkly magic of entertainment-meets-insight. Hopefully, you’ll leave our sessions a little bit more enlightened and a lot more inebriated.
We launched our Colloquiums series last Thursday at The Hive Carpenter, where we hosted a panel discussion featuring a group of creative industry pros who we handpicked not just for their professional experience and insight, but also their reputations for dishing up real talk.
This time, we talked the influencer scene. Yeap, we’ve taken issue with some of these personas before on this site… but enough about us. We wanted to hear what happens when you get four different perspectives — a magazine editor, a PR-marketing pro, a blogger-influencer, and a biz dev director — talking on the topic, together in one room.
On the panel, we had Aly Ang (Senior Account Director of W Communications), Wilson Lim (Editor-in-Chief of Men’s Folio), Dawn Cher (blogger and founder of SG Budget Babe), as well as Joshua Pillai (co-founder of A Phat Cat Collective) to discuss the question: “In this age of bloggers and influencers, where does traditional media fit within the cultural landscape?”
The answers were hilariously revealing — you had to be there — but the general consensus among our panel is this: Influencers have the benefit of having the audience reach to spread the word about a topic, issue, or brand, but their posts do not necessarily translate to higher product revenue. Did we get to hear a bit of dirt from the inside, too? Yes, yes we did. But we promised we wouldn’t tell.
Ah, and of course, the panelists repeatedly pointed out what we all know: No one likes an influencer or wannabe influencer (which businesses hear from a whole lot) calling them up with demands for free stuff. Takeaway? Influence responsibly, influencers.
We’ll be hosting more Coconuts Colloquiums on similarly juicy topics, and if you’re into that kind of thing, then we’d love to have you there. The Colloquiums, as with all of our events and parties, are free to attend for COCO+ members — if that strikes your fancy, then sign up to our COCO+ membership program and we’ll catch you on the flip side.
