How MCI grew UKG Live audiences by 20% with people-centred innovation

UKG wanted its flagship one-day Melbourne B2B event to showcase its technology-driven HR, payroll and workforce management solutions while reinforcing its position as a market leader. The one-day Melbourne event needed to bring together professionals from multiple industries to explore the future of work in a way that felt strategically aligned with UKG’s brand purpose and customer-first thinking. MCI was tasked to build on the success of the 2024 platform. The event campaign was designed to maximise global brand credibility in the Australian market, drive growth across customer and partner segments and boost audience engagement and retention through targeted, high-impact event design. 

MCI activated the UKG brand from event strategy through to on-site delivery, ensuring an integrated approach and consistency at every touchpoint. The team led communications and messaging, event branding and visual identity, programme and content strategy, experiential design and production, and sponsorship and partnership management. Experiential delivery included event website and app development, technology-driven engagement and streamlined logistics. The plenary programme combined large-scale production with short-format, high-impact future-of-work content. Executive speaker coaching and show direction supported six key UKG clients, while video production and testimonial capture extended the life of event content. A curated Community Lounge and Partner Experience Hub, featuring 10 key UKG partners, created fully accessible, hands-on networking and cross-industry learning for 900+ attendees. 

Building on the 2024 event platform, UKG Live event aligned the brand with solution-driven content and reinforced customer-first thinking across the APAC region. Measurement showed strong business transformation impact, with 89% of guests feeling informed and inspired by the content and better equipped to bring new solutions into their workforce. Guest engagement was high, reflected in a post-event NPS score of 86.45 and 94.4% app engagement. Audience acquisition targets were exceeded, with uplift in customer engagement contributing to 20% audience growth year on year. The event attracted attention from the wider global UKG team, whose colleagues now look to UKG Live in Australia as an inspiration for customer engagement. 

“We have worked with MCI over the past couple of years to deliver our inaugural customer event. It has attracted attention by our wider global team, and our colleagues are now looking to our event as inspiration. The success of the event comes down to the wonderful team at MCI, who have become an extension of our small Marketing team, and continue to make every year better than the last.” 

Kathryn Lagua 
Head of Brand and Communications, APAC, UKG 

Let's collaborate to design people-centred business events that elevate your brand and deliver measurable audience growth. Contact MCI here.

Q1. How can an agency help our brand grow attendance and keep people engaged at a one-day B2B event?
A. At UKG Live, MCI Australia supported end-to-end strategy, content, creative and production for a one-day event that welcomed 900+ attendees and achieved 20% year-on-year audience growth. Engagement was sustained through short-format, high-impact sessions, an event app with 94.4% engagement and carefully designed spaces such as the Partner EXPO and Community Lounge that encouraged movement, interaction and networking throughout the day.

Q2. Our marketing team is small. Can MCI still support a large flagship customer event?
A. Yes. For UKG Live, MCI became an extension of UKG’s small marketing team, taking on strategy, planning and delivery across communications, content, branding, production and partner management. This collaborative approach freed the internal team to focus on stakeholder relationships while MCI handled the complexity of delivering a large-scale, high-profile event.

Q3. How do you design a future-of-work event that feels people-centred, not technology-led?
A. The UKG Live experience was built around real-world customer success stories and conversations rather than product demos alone. MCI worked with subject matter experts and UKG clients to shape content that spoke to everyday workforce challenges, then embedded this into plenary sessions, the Partner EXPO, the Community Lounge and the Partner Experience Hub. The result was a technology-rich event that still put people, relationships and practical outcomes at the centre.

Q4. How can we make our customer stories work harder in an event format?
A. MCI helped UKG turn six client stories into a structured content journey, providing executive speaker coaching, show direction and on-site support so each story landed clearly and confidently on stage. Event video production and testimonial capture extended these stories beyond the one-day event, giving UKG assets to use in ongoing marketing and sales activity.

Q5. Can a regional event become a reference point for our global organisation?
A. The success of UKG Live has attracted attention from UKG’s wider global team, whose colleagues now look to the event as inspiration. By aligning content, experience design and measurement with UKG’s brand purpose, MCI helped create a flagship APAC event that demonstrates what effective customer engagement can look like for the organisation worldwide.