You’ve heard the old adages repeatedly: two heads are better than one; we can be better together; there’s no ‘I’ in team; and so many others. Partnerships and professional relationships have proven time and time again to be essential to any success, and this is especially evident in the hospitality industry.
Think back on all the events you’ve executed over the years, how many different vendor partners did you work with? Probably dozens. And just imagine what can be accomplished when there’s a shared vision? The Austin-based Haute Companies media house recognized the power of partnerships recently when they decided to acquire the EventWorks production company, out of Los Angeles, under their umbrella.
“We're not in the large event space, but it makes sense, and our clients are asking for it,” said Jeff Haynes, founder and CEO of Haute Companies. “Now we can bring something to the customers that no other agency is speaking to. It’s going to be a really fun playground for us.”
When one door closes another opens
The merger of Haute Companies and EventWorks dates back nearly a year when Walsh and Haynes connected with each other by happenstance in passing.
“We started conversations of what the future of EventWorks would look like and soon discovered that we could fill a perfect little hole that they had,” said Alisa Walsh, CEO of Haute Rock Creative and EventWorks. “COVID was a very detrimental year for us, but when one door closes another opens.”
Haynes immediately saw the benefit of bringing EventWorks under the Haute Companie umbrella because it will mean that Haute Rock Creative can start delivering the types of events that are in demand.
“Stronger together, better together, and all of those things are true in life and especially in our world,” Haynes said. “We didn’t just sit back and lick our wounds during 2020, we decided to it’s time to get stronger, and I feel like this truly was meant to be.”
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And the perfect icing on the cake was that the merger couldn’t have gone any more smoothly.
“The merger of the two companies, it would be a boring book because it was simple, and clean, and it made sense,” Haynes said. “If you put it out there in the world, it tends to happen.”
It’s all about synergy
Whereas Haute Rock Creative will serve their clients from an agency, media, and marketing perspective, EventWorks will oversee the event planning and execution aspects.
“The synergy between marketing and events is more the same than people realize,” Walsh said. “It all comes down to that human-to-human element in everything that we do.”
When thinking about the synergy the two companies will have together, Walsh thinks of it as the opportunity to take a small idea that a client of Haute Companies brings to the table, and then they can take it through to fruition thanks to their planning and event expertise.
“We are able to take a little miniscule idea and build that out into something pretty incredible and creative,” she said. “EventWorks can take that creative idea that Haute Companies might have for a client and put legs to it and make it work. We are not only doers, but thinkers.”
Haynes said he believes that the new partnership with EventWorks will help increase loyalty among clients.
“There's a new term, return on emotion, and if you can emotionally tie a brand to their customers, it’s an unbreakable bond,” he said. “So, the challenge becomes how are you going to connect with your customers from a genuine place, and how do you get through that noise and really connect; and with EventWorks I can already see the magic starting to form.”
Even though Haute Companies and EventWorks are still a little ways out from delivering their first large-scale event together, they have already found themselves busy producing their new narrative.
“It’s always fun as an agency to start retelling your own story,” Haynes said. “The new story is what we can do together.”
Walsh said she can only see bigger and better things for the company for the future.
“The world truly is our oyster in what we can offer our clients now,” she said. “We can shoot for the stars.”
Haynes agrees.
“This is breathing life back into us, our brand and our teams,” he said. “We wake up excited every day for what’s to come.
“We're back, we believe in what we can do together, and the future Is definitely bright for us.”
