United.B: the art of reinventing the corporate plenary
Conceived as a genuine exercise in clarity and coherence, the United.B plenary session aims to embody the Group's vision and ambitions before all AFM shareholders. United.B presents its vision with a structured approach, combining strategic rigor and controlled staging. A collective discourse, supported by harmonized content and coordinated interventions, helped to highlight the solidity of the model and the cohesion of the ecosystem. An exemplary plenary session, reflecting a company aligned with its mission and looking to the future.
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As the annual convention of the Association Familiale Mulliez approaches, expectations rise. Each Group entity is preparing to speak, and United.B stands out: this year, the plenary session is set to leave a lasting impression. All our teams share the same conviction: to make this event a powerful, clear and inspiring moment, in keeping with our collective vision.
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When the day arrives, the stage is set for a fluid, controlled performance. Sixteen speakers follow one another in a precise rhythm, supported by a unified narrative and a sober yet impactful staging. Key messages follow one another, illustrated by coherent, dynamic visual content. Attention is maintained, understanding is reinforced: the United.B strategy takes shape before the eyes of shareholders.
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Beyond the session, the impact continues. The presentation becomes a benchmark, materials are circulated and discussions continue. The United.B plenary session is a model of balance between rigorous content and creative form. A structuring moment that consolidates the clarity of the corporate project and reinforces cohesion around a shared ambition.
A demanding context: holding a shareholders' meeting
Every year, the Association Familiale Mulliez (AFM) brings its shareholders together for a major convention: two days of intense plenary sessions, during which results, objectives and investment strategies are shared with the entire family. A necessary but often dreaded exercise: how to keep the attention of an audience saturated with slides, figures and long speeches? How can we prevent the exercise from becoming a formality?
More than 600 shareholders gathered at the Cité des Echanges in Lille, immersed in a veritable marathon of conferences. On the agenda: the presentation of financial results and reinvestment prospects, as well as the sharing of strategic initiatives undertaken within the Group's various businesses.
It was in this context that United B was to present its vision. The challenge? To transform an obligatory event into an inspiring, readable and interactive experience. To meet this challenge, United B chose Acmé for its hybrid approach, combining rigor in content and creativity in form, to offer an experience that draws on entertainment codes and captures the public's attention.
A conceptual common thread
Acmé's mission was to support United B in structuring and staging this plenary session, building a clear and engaging conceptual thread.
The idea was not to transform the financial discourse, but to find the right balance between seriousness and dynamism. The key messages had to be conveyed coherently, with a fluid narrative that moved seamlessly from the presentation of figures to the concrete illustration of actions carried out in the field.
Structuring your speech
A total of sixteen speakers took to the stage. An orchestration challenge:
Speaking coaching: each speaker worked on his storytelling, rhythm and posture, to deliver an impactful, accessible message.
Consistency of content: harmonizing the various contributions, so that they flow together like chapters in a single story.
Diversity of points of view: the format was designed to combine strategic speeches (C-level, CEO) and testimonials from the field, offering a comprehensive view of the United B ecosystem.
This upstream work avoided the pitfall of a succession of disconnected monologues, and gave the whole plenary a clear backbone.
Staging the message
Beyond content, form played a decisive role. To keep the audience's attention for nearly two and a half hours, we injected creative elements inspired by the codes of events and advertising:
Motion design: clear, modern graphic animations to support data and ideas visually.
Sounds and jingles: a discreet but effective sound identity, marking transitions between speeches.
Video: filmed clips punctuate the speech and flesh out the figures.
Standardized sliders: a graphic follow-up to avoid patchwork effects and ensure a fluid presentation.
This staging transformed a simple presentation into a true collective experience.
Interaction at the heart of the experience
Interaction with the audience was also key. While a plenary session is often a top-down exercise, the challenge here was to break this logic and directly involve the 800 participants.
Moments of exchange and breathing space have been designed to ensure that shareholders don't remain passive. Quizzes, live reactions, testimonials: all ways of capturing and maintaining attention, while creating a sense of belonging.
Acmé's intervention was therefore based on a two-pronged approach, a creative consulting approach:
Strategic advice: working on content, structuring content, giving coherence and clarity to a dense message.
Creativity of form: infusing entertainment codes to transform an obligation into an inspiring moment.
Result: A model for tomorrow's plenary sessions
The challenge was met: United B's presentation captured the attention of a demanding audience, maintained concentration levels throughout the 2.5-hour conference, and above all conveyed a coherent and memorable message. The constellation of companies was highlighted, not as an addition of entities, but as a complementary and legible ecosystem. Shareholders were able to understand the logic of the whole, while at the same time perceiving the concrete impact of the actions taken.
Beyond this single event, our experience with United B illustrates a strong conviction: plenary sessions, often perceived as a must, can become genuine moments of strategic communication. It's just a matter of daring to hybridize codes: maintaining the necessary seriousness and rigor, while borrowing from the worlds of entertainment, advertising and the media to engage audiences. Conferences and general meetings no longer have to be boring exercises. They can be thought of as engaging experiences, where you learn, understand, feel and experience something.
With this project, Acmé and United B demonstrated that it is possible to transform a formal exercise into a memorable experience, capable of uniting a demanding audience around a shared vision. By combining rigor and creativity, individual coaching and collective coherence, sobriety and entertainment, this plenary session paved the way for a new way of imagining major corporate meetings.