Entrepreneur and trade show veteran, Daniela Ciocan, is transforming her B2B indie beauty pop-up format, Unfiltered Experience, into a three-part virtual event series that aims to connect brands with influencers, buyers and experts.

Unfiltered Experience Online kicks off October 13 with three days of meetings and connections between brands and influencers. Then, from October 27 to October 29, brands will have pre-scheduled virtual speed meetings with retailers and international distributors. Wrapping up the event will be three days of online meetings between brands and experts in R&D, product formulation, marketing and public relations, beginning November 10.

In February, the indie beauty focused pop-up formed a joint venture with global B2B media and events company, U.K.-based Tarsus Group. The partnership looked to allow Unfiltered expansion beyond Las Vegas, where it launched in July 2019. Big plans were in store for Unfiltered in 2020 before COVID-19 hit, including events in Los Angeles, Chicago and Nashville. Pivoting to virtual was a necessity given the current social distancing environment.

“Obviously we cancelled all of the in-person events and decided to do something online. But we looked closely at the landscape at what everyone else was doing. Primarily we’ve seen content in the form of webinars and brand presentations. We thought we could we do something that provides more value, especially to emerging businesses, to help them connect with distribution, social media connections and consumers,” said Daniela.

The influencer series of Unfiltered Experience Online will offer pre-taped, on-demand seminars featuring influencers, followed by prescheduled live meetings with them. Daniela said she has been using AI software as well as knowledge in her relationships with brands to best match meetings. Brands buy a packaging guaranteeing them a certain number of meetings based on the package purchased. For the buyers portion of the event, Daniela said she will have the usual suspects, including buyers from Detox Market and specialty national retailers, but also international buyers from chains including Douglas and Galleries Lafayette. The final section of the event will pair brands with experts, and also provide them with content on topics such as touchless packaging solutions, circle economy and trending ingredients.

“This is different from what everyone else is doing, but it’s really delivering on the connection, which ultimately is most important. And when you go to a trade show, those connections can give you new business opportunities,” said Daniela, adding that participants are invite-only.

“You can’t just buy a ticket to log on and be part of the platform and to see who the buyers are or to see what the content is. It’s exclusively by invitation. So it’s very bespoke in nature from that aspect,” said Daniela.