Roche Molecular Diagnostics, a division of the Roche Group, hasn't begun making award-winning art films. But the recent RMD worldwide Affiliates Meeting, held at the French Riviera resort of Cannes was certainly a smashing success, thanks to the full-service capabilities of Media Matrix. And while the Roche event planners didn't need a cinematic masterpiece, their communications objectives for the 2002 event were ambitious. Roche needed to deliver some serious, even potentially controversial, messages about competitive inroads against their PCR business. Representatives from 42 different countries, from Asia to Africa to Europe, would be on hand in Cannes to see how Roche would respond to recent challenges to their leadership in PCR technology. The Media Matrix creative staff quickly developed a colorful, cinematic spy/mystery theme with plenty of flash and media elements, including an interactive

audience response system to get everyone involved. The producers began developing ways to make the theme come alive, but the Cannes location posed some unique challenges…even from a basic, technical perspective.

"Not only did we have to take into account the challenges of a European location and international audience, we also knew that we'd be dealing with different technological standards for video and communications with a French AV crew," said Michael Olenski, President of Media Matrix. The differences between American and European standards were important, because video and electronic special effects were key aspects of the creative meeting treatment. "We finally decided to produce all of the pre-recorded video segments on DVD for playback at the meeting rather than PAL, SECAM or some other video format" Olenski says.