Merci Niebres About Designing A Live Experience
Merci Niebres has not only the best first name e.v.e.r. for french-speaking people, she has also a terrific job.
Her job? Experience designer (or more truly: experiential marketing producer)
Her mission? Create the perfect brand moments. (she also focus on developer outreach, product launches, internal summits, integrated strategy development, and special projects for the C-level & executive teams at Google)
Her secret talent? Develop inaugural tech conferences that lead to annual series for global reach
80% of her time?
Google I/O, Google’s award winning flagship conference? Merci. 5 years in a row.
Solve for X, the company’s “moonshot” summit? Merci.
Yellowstone Weekend, a summit for world leaders & global change-makers? Merci.
20% of her time?
Running scalable outreach programs for global startups and Google’s developer user groups around the world by way of ecosystem development. She’s also a passionate mentor and connector for young startups.
Her drug?
Restlessly trotting the globe, searching for new mountains to climb and enjoying getting lost in new corners of the world. Yet her favourite spot is definitely Paris where she’s always to spent time? Her alibi? Develop Google’s Launchpad.
We asked Merci Niebres about what she loved about her job, exemples of great brand moments, and more insights about producing experience.
Her favorite project…
Google I/O 2014 — My focus for I/O that year was to create a space and experience for attendees to not only learn about Google’s new products and platforms in a new way, but also to get a taste of San Francisco and the Bay Area within and outside the conference walls.
My focus was to create a space and experience for attendees to not only learn about Google’s new products and platforms in a new way, but also to get a taste of San Francisco and the Bay Area within and outside the conference walls
SF & the Bay Area was changing at that time, with an exciting growth of new startups & tech companies that brought in an influx of new dwellers into the city. The face of SF was changing. It was important to us to be able to celebrate the city’s local talent, artists and history, as a way to honor a place that had been so integral in the growth of tech companies like Google & those represented by attendees of the conference. We won an award for best conference design that year; have a look here.
Other projects she loved producing: Google Glass Live demo at I/O 2012, Creating a concert on top of a parking lot at SXSW, My last & final I/O (2015), Solve for X.
The most important factors in producing successful events…
It’s all about collaboration. For most of my projects, I bring together multidisciplinary teams ranging from designers and producers to writers, stage managers, and musicians. From my experience, success comes from having a cohesive team of talented and creative people and connecting all the knowledge and understanding from the different backgrounds and perspectives.
success comes from having a cohesive team of talented and creative people and connecting all the knowledge and understanding from the different backgrounds and perspectives
What’s so unique about experiential marketing is that it’s an intersection of design, storytelling in space and creating special moments for people. It’s an uncharted intersection that is never boring, and this is why I am so attracted to creating events & live experiences.
Her tip on how to approach curating & producing an event…
Important things to think about as you curate & produce the event:
Other experiential projects (outside of the ones you’ve worked on)
Merci Niebres is a big fan of…
Google projects: Google Science Fair, Google Presents Abbey Road, Google Zeitgeist
Other recent industry projects: Summit at Sea, Facebook Messenger App Launch by Sid Lee, The Lady Gaga Experience at the Grammys, Obscura Digital’s projection on the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque
Her philosophy…
Teach what you’ve learned; it keeps you honest. Keep on exploring; adventure keeps you interesting. Work well with others; collaboration keeps you successful.
Work hard & be kind. All else will follow.
