The Southern Association of Orthodontists is a constituent organization of the American Association of Orthodontists and a 501 C (6) tax-exempt professional society, with a member base of 2,600 orthodontists from 11 states in the southeastern region. Their primary mission is to advance the art and science of orthodontics in the interests of public health. The organization holds a large annual meeting in rotating locations every fall, with 1500 people in attendance and dozens of hours of continuing education available, most of it being clinical training.

“We support our university programs and try to provide a lot of funding and free services to the residents. We have 14 different orthodontic residency programs in our 11 states. That’s kind of a lot of what the annual meeting is. There’s also an exhibit hall, so we have a vendor community that we’re also trying to serve and kind of enhance, connect, and engage with,” said Executive Director, Heather Hunt. 

The impact of COVID-19 prompted many organizations to shift their in-person meetings planned for this year to virtual events. Event planners were tasked with re-planning entire events with not much time and had to make quick decisions that could be easily executed. SnackMagic was the perfect solution for last-minute planning for an online event with over 1000 attendees. “When we made the decision that we needed to go virtual, we knew we were on very limited time. We had everybody who registered by–I think it was September 15–will get a snack box sent to them and it’s been received very well. We’re very positive about it.” 

As in-person events came to a complete halt earlier this year, SAO, like many organizations, put their planning efforts on pause under the assumption that the pandemic would subside by the fall. “COVID hit less than one week after we had gotten the final details set to launch online registration, so we were ready to go to Nashville to have the annual meeting, and then around mid­summer when Davidson County announced that the kids would be going back to school virtually and not in person, we knew we weren’t going to be having a meeting in Nashville of any kind.” SAO needed to reimagine the entire convention online in a matter of months. Not only did they need to replan their event online, but they had to get people to register, so SnackMagic was used as a benefit for the early adopters to register for the digital meeting.

With a menu of over 500 unique snacks and beverages and the ability to filter treats out by dietary restrictions, SnackMagic was the ideal gift for health practitioners who often have eating habits that involve getting a quick bite in between patients. “Orthodontists are very fit and healthy, and they’re also used to snacking type of behaviour, trying to grab it in between patients, so I loved that there were a lot of healthy foods on there,” said Heather.

“Almost all of them exercise too. I’ve got a lot of keto dieters, I’ve got a lot of paleo dieters, and there were so many different types of products on there that were so well labelled. I could search based on different types of diet.” As a gifting service, SnackMagic takes out the effort of estimating details that are uncertain during a time that is also uncertain. Without the need to pick out the snacks in each box or the need to tediously gather addresses or other information, SnackMagic is a straightforward alternative for event planners like Heather that need to execute an event with not much time to spare. 

The SAO Annual Convention took place virtually on October 16th and 17th, 2020, but the platform remains open until November 30th, 2020. “For live meetings, we had two tracks going: one clinical and one team on Friday morning, Friday afternoon, Saturday morning, and Saturday afternoon. There’s a total of 24 hours of continuing education the attendees can get,” explained Heather. “For all of our speaker sessions, we had live Zoom Q&As with the speakers, then we had all day long Zooms to open Friday and Saturday.” 

With a total of 24 hours of continued education, SAO wanted a solution to provide attendees with the fuel they need to stay by their computer, but they also wanted something personal that can be shared in conversation during the recreational activities throughout the event. “We also do cocktail hours and those are online. People talked, especially in our Saturday cocktail hour about their snack boxes and what they had,” said Heather. “They were showing on their screens some of the stuff that they found in the SnackMagic box that they had ordered. 

The SnackMagic boxes got mentioned quite a bit.” As an experience more personal and memorable than just a gift card, SnackMagic is an unforgettable experience for attendees. This touch-point is ideal for breaking-the-ice moments and to thwart the awkward facets of Zoom calls by providing something as universal as food to talk about. 

SAO further personalized their experience for their gift recipients by including a custom sticker on the box, which is one of our many customization features. “At first we were talking about having flyer inserts, but then with such limited time and all the different steps and the difficulty of getting that printed, getting it shipped, it seemed like that was a formula for there to be potential hiccups,” said Heather. With the UPS and FedEx delivery system impacted by COVID-19 on top of everything else, SAO needed another option. “When you had the option of doing this sticker and showed me examples of how it was on the outside of the box, I thought, ‘They’re (sponsors) going to love that’. Because I can take photos of the box and send it to them and they can see how much it is–just a small extra fee per box. I felt like that was the simplest, but yet it provided great value. It was that sticker that kind of sold the deal.” 

SnackMagic provides a flexible list of customization options that are catered to meet the needs of any event. Between custom swag, custom stickers, and custom digital branding throughout the ordering process, SnackMagic provides not only a customizable snack box, but a customizable virtual event experience depending on any type of budget or timeframe.

“I like the fact that there were options and the sticker was really just based on the time crunch for us–that was the most realistic to get it done so you all look good, the sponsors look and we look good. And I also like when I went and I picked out my snack magic box myself for myself, I love the placement of our sponsor logos on the menu,” said Heather. “Next year, we’re going to be insistent on using SnackMagic and we’re just going to do the sticker because it’s as simple as just sending a file to you. When I got my box, I thought the sticker was going to be small, but it was huge.”

In a huge scramble for time, the SAO annual convention was in dire need of an uncomplicated gifting system that was simple to manage and effortless to execute. With a setup process of only 2-3 minutes and a user-friendly Treats Dashboard to oversee all gift statuses, as well as Thank You notes that can be shared with sponsors, SnackMagic was the optimal solution for SAO to provide a thoughtful experience to event attendees and to generate conversation in just three and a half months.

“You have to build an online meeting that ideally you would have 12 months to do, and instead we had three and a half, and this is a very similar story to a lot of other people who plan meetings,” said Heather. “I think the thing I like about SnackMagic the most is for a very good price point, it delivers high value and is relatively little effort. It took very little for us to execute.” SAO’s virtual event was a major success despite many hurdles. 

Next year’s “normal” is still uncertain, but with the help of SnackMagic, SAO will have confidence knowing they are prepared. “We definitely want to do it again next year. I have given SnackMagic out to probably a dozen other planners and suggested that they work with you all.”