TwentyThree Summit 2025 Interview: Remco Evers, Vice President NOMOBO

Remco, thank you so much for taking the time. Looking forward to hear from you and your expertise. Yeah, appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for having the time to allow me to be here. Of course. So first of all, as the Executive Vice President at Nomobo, a global videocontent agency known from producing high-end broadcasting and on-demand video, can you share a bit about your journey and how has it been working with video so far? What drives your passion for this craft? Yeah, so I've been with Nomobo since the start, working there and being leading the creative and all the stuff that we do online with live streaming for now 13 years already, which is a long time. It's been a journey. I think we really started at the forefront of when live streaming started. Actually, the story is that Google asked the festival that we were engaged with to test a new feature on their platform, you might know, YouTube. And we were the first and Coachella to test live streaming. Never did that before in that scale. And that sort of made history and it jump-started, I think, our journey into creating online video and really creating high-end quality live streams for festivals, for artists, for sports brands. And in this day and age, also a lot of corporate events or business events, tech events, tech companies that know how to find us. It has been an amazing journey. I think the development of platforms has really contributed to seeing the value of doing things online, reaching more audiences, being able to, with almost a click of a switch, you know, you plug in an internet cable to the setup that is filming us right now. And you will be able to reach a lot of more people. And I think that's incredibly inspiring to be working with and with the team that we have to do that for the brands that we every day are allowed to do that for. Yes. It's really clear that you work with loved brands. Yes. Brands that people love, people know a lot. So from this concept that is all about creating this emotional connection with customers, how can video and storytelling help brands translate that love, that passion for their audiences? To translate that passion is, I think, going back to what drives me every day while we, why we do this is we want to bring the experience that you have at a live event or at an event like this to audiences at home. And making sure that it's not just capturing it, but thinking do we want to make, do we want to show, you know, all the stuff that goes around the festival to really try to make or an art to show or a business event to really make sure that it's not just a quick message or a message of being shared to you, but it's really an experience and then that you feel connected, that you feel or that you see things that you might also see when you are there yourself. And if we can achieve that, I think that's when people start to really be engaged in what we make. They start to appreciate the brand. They start to appreciate the quality. And it's a couple of basic principles. Of course, it needs to look good. It needs to sound good. It needs to be on brand. It needs to fit the brand that we're working for. And I think if you nail that, then yeah, you will at some point turn audiences into fans. And I think that's what we're all about. That's the thing that we want to get. Yeah, because then they will return and they at some point then probably will engage deeper. They might even on the business side, they might buy products, be more engaged on that side. But on the artist side, they will go out and find the music. They will go out and actually buy a ticket for a festival. Yeah, that's pretty exciting to do that every day. Yes. And talking about excitement. I know and we all know that working in large, huge productions often means facing last minute challenges, right? Yes. So I imagine I have a couple of memorable stories. Can you share anything with us? Yeah, well, live events are, of course, super excited, but they change rapid. Yeah. So being at events that are under heavy weather conditions and all of a sudden you need to pivot and a big storm comes in and you need to make sure that the show goes on. Yeah, that's a challenge. I would also say a challenge. And I think we've all been there in the COVID years to then, you know, not be able to still travel all over the world and being able to still communicate, get things out. That was incredibly challenging. Yes. And I think we found a way using remote production workflows, building trusted facilities and trusted strategies and technology from our home base to still be able to, you know, bring the same sort of experience out the door. It's very challenging. And it really took a lot of great people in the team and the people that I work with every day to come up with something special. Yes. There are, of course, many stories that I can tell that definitely, yeah, make you change things. I would say one of the stories is during Black Lives Matter riots that were happening in New York City while we were doing a live stream on top of one of the biggest tourist attractions in New York City. And the city denied us the fact that we were flying a helicopter around for imagery. So we were doing a test flight and I saw the images coming in and I was like excited. And yes, it was beautiful. And then we got a call from the mayor like, sorry, you need to shut this down because otherwise I might even need to take other measures. And yeah, then to pivot and to make changes is stressful. But on the other hand, then to just rely on that we believe in a certain thing is beautiful. And I can carry on with lots more stories. Yeah. I imagine you need a calm head to take this decision in the best way possible. In live events and definitely in live broadcasting or live content, staying calm and sticking with the plan that you have and knowing that you can go left or go right in a flick of a switch because somebody doesn't show up. Music events. The beautiful live streams that we do for Ultra Music Festival, could happen that an artist is late or that an artist doesn't show up or something else happens. And then you need to be able to in the moment make a decision and make sure that the whole team stays calm and sticks with the plan we have. Yeah. And I think that's the exciting thing of what we do. Yeah. It's definitely a stressful thing as well. You mentioned a plan. And if we take a step back, we can talk about strategy. Yes. And at TwentyThree, we believe that becoming video first, becoming a video first company requires a clear and an actionable strategy. In your experience working with clients, do they typically come with a defined video strategy or is more about focusing on that specific project individually that they hire you for? That's a good question. And I think for us, what we experience in Aetna Mobile is that a lot of our clients come with a goal in mind. With actually an ask that they already have established a event or already have an idea of what they want to produce on a video content on the content side. But they want to make sure that it hits the right target audience, that it's meaningful, that it adds value, that it has an ROI behind it. And I think we are able to help them translate that in an actual way. Good approach, a good strategy, a good plan. You can call it whatever you, a strategy, a beautiful work. But sometimes it's as simple as just making a real good plan and executing it really, really well. I love it if a company knocks on our door or a brand or an artist knocks on our door and is an open blanket still. And really is looking to us to come with the strategy or ideas to ball out the video content that they might need, to have an open discussion with them on what we can create for them, and then start going through the whole execution process and deliver that. The great thing is we work in online video. So everything is measurable. Everything that we do, everything we can immediately see if it worked, if people liked it, if people watched it, if people, how long people stayed, where they watched it from. And I think that's at this day and age so valuable because, yeah, you can immediately see if you got that AA+ plus score on that strategy that you created. Or that we all need to come together and just be honest with each other. Did it work? And let's try something else. Try shorter form. Try a different video content approach. Or put more money towards the one thing that really worked. I think I'm not afraid to admit that I'm not 100% in the know of what works. I definitely learn every day. I think video content and the consumption of video content changes a lot in the last 13 years. It's also about prior and era, right? It is. And nowadays with all the video platforms that are so easy at hand on your mobile phone, you do need to think differently. And you do, I don't know if you need to be disruptive or you need to be, but you do need to be daring. And you need to admit that we all don't know what really works. It actually evolves every day. And that's the great thing of the business that I think we're all in. We can try new things. We can test new things. And then get really good at that. Try to be on the top level and try to beat the competition because I think that's the game that we're all in as well. For sure. That makes, I think, a strategy, constant developing thing. Yeah. And this year's theme of the TwentyThree Summit is the human side of digital. What does that mean for you? I think for me, everything that we do is about emotions and storytelling. The humans in that are the ones that are telling those stories. So for me, humans and actually people are so important in all the digitalization, all the video content that we make. Yeah, putting that really in the heart or that's sort of the front of everything that we do at Nomalbo is super important. I told it in the beginning, like we want to make sure that you feel the experiences that are at the events that we are. That's also, of course, very much a humification of what we do. But yeah, I think that that's what it means for me. Amazing. Thank you so much, Renko. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me and enjoy the rest of the time here.