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How to score a hit at trade shows - The Marketer magazine

http://www.themarketer.co.uk/articles/how-to/how-to-score-a-hit-at-tra...

How to...

score a hit at trade shows

Whether its a chocolate fountain or space invaders, trade-fair gimmicks are ever more elaborate and expensive. But theres more to an effective stand than the freebies on offer Crammed with gadgets, gimmicks and grinning sales staff, trade fairs can be an overwhelming wonderland. As over-stimulated visitors flow around your stand, diving in just occasionally to snatch a freebie, its easy to experience that sinking feeling. Getting visitors to notice your stand, approach for more information and above all, hand over theirs is anything but easy. Yet marketers believe trade fairs represent the best return on investment of any marketing tool, according to George P Johnson Companys Event View survey of 2006. Not surprisingly, then, experiential marketing typically accounts for between a whopping one-quarter and one-third of the total marketing budget, according to the Events Industry Alliance. So how can you ensure its money well spent? Getting the best results from a trade fair is about setting clear objectives, planning meticulously, thinking beyond just the stand plus a good helping of ingenuity. Beware budget-busters Its easy when planning an exhibition presence to get sucked into the Taj Mahal syndrome, says Trevor Foley, chief executive of the Events Industry Alliance (which includes the Association of Events Organisers). But the first step to exhibition success and getting the spending right is to identify the business outcomes you hope to achieve with the stand, he advises, and plan accordingly. Whether the aim is to boost sales, find distributors or merely enhance brand recognition, each goal will require a different kind of stand with a different budget and different planning, says Peter Bowen, CEO of exhibition contractors Access Displays. For example, if its sales youre after, you want to ask yourself how much you need to sell to recoup the investment in your stand, says Bowen. Inevitably, then, the biggest budget stands tend to be for high-margin consumer items and high-profile brands. Gearing up for success At the extreme of the scale are car manufacturers. Vauxhalls presence at the 2007 London Motor Show, masterminded by Fitch Live, the new experiential company from WPP, shows the lengths to which big companies are willing to go. The new Corsa is targeted at brand-savvy, young urban drivers throughout Europe. The stand aimed to reflect that by using the concept of an urban playground. BMX riders were put through their paces on a competition-standard track, while visitors were also drawn in to the stand by customised table football and space invaders consoles. To avoid mixed messages and ensure that the emphasis was on the Corsa rather than the other Vauxhall-Opel cars that would normally share attention, Fitch Live placed only Corsas on the stand on the first press day. Nigel Lloyd-Jones, group account manager at Fitch Live, says there are special challenges for the client at this top end of the scale. You have the architect whos responsible for the stand concept, then an agency that will be layering on the communication. It can be challenging in terms of roles and responsibilities and whos taking the lead from a creative point of view. That issue requires a frank conversation at the start to establish who has the final call.

"If you can't get the stand location that is going to deliver, then don't do the show"

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15/7/2009 1:19

How to score a hit at trade shows - The Marketer magazine

http://www.themarketer.co.uk/articles/how-to/how-to-score-a-hit-at-tra...

At the other end of the scale, those organisations operating on a tight budget can still catch visitors eyes if they use a bit of ingenuity. Exhibitors at B2B events generally maintain a more formal and corporate presence, but this doesnt have to mean ditching your creativity, as data suppression and asset management company Read Group has shown. The company was facing a combination of challenges, explains marketing manager Louise Walker. Showcasing three new products at the 2007 International Direct Marketing Fair, Read was concerned about overloading the target audience with different messages. Plus, the company could only take a small space as a previous multichannel marketing campaign had absorbed most of its budget. The solution, says Walker, was to group the three products together under one banner, The Suppression Revolution. An in-house team developed a stand based around the theme of a Russian-style revolution to ram home the messages in style. The stand was made to look like an underground revolutionary office, with staff dressed as revolutionaries, complete with berets. We had revolutionary-style visuals on the backdrop for the recognition factor and we were handing out vodka shots, which went down very well, she says. Particularly effective, Walker believes, were the companys revolutionaries walking around the show with banners, offering entry into a prize draw for people who signed up for the revolution. By the end of the event staff had an opted-in e-mail list of 456 names. The human touch A favourite corporate clich is our staff are our greatest resource, but they could be your Achilles heel at a trade fair. Something we see very often at exhibitions is staff standing around, chatting on their mobiles or eating sandwiches, says Trevor Foley. Thats not the shop window you want to be creating. Keith OLoughlin, managing director of TRO (formerly The Russell Organisation), agrees that staff are very often the weak link of an otherwise impressive stand. One of the pitfalls novices fall into is to take people from the office to staff the stand. But if they arent extrovert characters they may well not be making the right impression. Many organisations that exhibit frequently rely on professional staff contracted from agencies. These people are often actors who are trained to understand the brand messages and deal with visitors, while passing front-line enquiries to a smaller number of company representatives. Getting staff to ask open questions, rather than just can I help you? is another must, while exhibitors should beware the temptation to have personnel standing on the corner of stands with their arms folded they look like bouncers, says Peter Bowen. The nitty gritty Our busiest day of the week by far is Friday, he continues. Thats the day people ring up and say: Were going to an exhibition over the weekend and we havent got a stand. Can you do something for us? Needless to say they are likely to be disappointed. Sufficient lead time is vital for a good stand, which can mean planning months ahead for more elaborate ventures. Well set up a critical-path analysis leading up to the date of the show, clearly detailing the consequences of not meeting deadlines such as artwork and health and safety documentation, says Bowen. Failure to keep to deadlines can often lead to stiff penalty charges from venues.

Fast focus
Even the most extravagant of todays exhibitions barely come close to the great Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851. Measuring its visitors in millions rather than thousands the show was ahead of its time. It included the worlds and the as Britain showcased the jewels of the Industrial Revolution and empire. The Crystal Palace park was way ahead of todays typical exhibition venue, containing boasting almost

Sparrowhawks were employed to keep the glass and iron structure free of pigeons. Centuries on, the to date is the , with 20 halls totalling 190,000m2 . There are 85 exhibitions and trade fairs taking place in the UK this September alone, according to exhibitions.co.uk. Visitors to trade fairs spend around , according to

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15/7/2009 1:19

How to score a hit at trade shows - The Marketer magazine

http://www.themarketer.co.uk/articles/how-to/how-to-score-a-hit-at-tra...

government statistics. Health and safety is something that is sometimes forgotten by novices, but venues can have strict (and varying) regulations. Stands higher than four metres will need local authority permission as a temporary building and structural analysis. Similarly, stands need to ensure wheelchair access. Proper planning means checking the basics, too, including booking enough power points and wattage to plug in all those laptops and projectors. Costs for facilities vary hugely, but Bowen says that as a rule of thumb marketers should expect to pay the same for their stand as for basic rental space rates tend to be between 250 and 350 per square metre. Having chosen an exhibition ideally after extensive research your location within the venue becomes the next priority. If youve picked a venue but you cant get the location that is going to deliver, then dont do the show, says O Loughlin. Theres no point in being at the back of the last hall. Exhibitors looking for a steep discount for undesirable locations are likely to be disappointed, he says, as most venues offer universal rates. And booking early doesnt mean cheap rates: Its not in the organisers interest to give discounts. They understandably dont want one exhibitor finding out the people on the stand next to them are paying less, says Trevor Foley. Freebies Giveaways are an integral part of any stand and, though you might have thought the free branded pen had had its day, theres always a new twist on that old corporate staple. The current bandwagon is saving the planet. Lots of companies are now offering pens, mugs and carrier bags made from recycled materials, says Gordon Glenister, director general of the British Promotional Merchandise Association (BPMA). What is important, he cautions, is to make sure the materials are both well-branded and clearly identified as recycled. Theres no point saving the planet if you dont get the brownie points. Theres also a lot of activity on the USB front, says Glenister. Mug warmers and desktop vacuum cleaners are the most popular desktop plug-ins. Research shows that people are particularly likely to notice the brands of products in their workspace they certainly have time to, Glenister points out. Brand-message metaphors are another simple idea that works well. It might mean something as straightforward as giving away a large-sized latte mug to show that you get more from us. The possibilities are endless, so the best route to finding the perfect freebie is often to call a supplier. Catalogues generally only contain a very small sample of available merchandising, notes Glenister. But the most important thing is to ensure that the giveaway makes an impact: If you let people dip into your trough and then walk away, more fool you." A word of warning: there are just as many to comply with at a trade fair as in your everyday business, covering everything from to

on eBay for around 80 to 150. Many of todays successful trade shows take place in the . Visitors can log on to interactive talks and panel discussions online.

Case study: A good catch


Reel in your audience and maximise your chance of success by ensuring that your stand looks tempting and your message is crystal clear As a niche start-up, No Catch, a supplier of sustainable organic cod, could have been a minnow in a very large pond when it attended two huge shows in the B2B and consumer arenas respectively: Brussels European Seafood Exposition (the worlds largest seafood show) and the BBC Good Food Show 2006. Managing director Karol Rzepkowski explains that, at Brussels, No Catch was looking to make contact with retailers and multiple retailers. There were 1,800 exhibitors, every one of them selling fish. I knew we would have to do something special to stand out.

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15/7/2009 1:19

How to score a hit at trade shows - The Marketer magazine

http://www.themarketer.co.uk/articles/how-to/how-to-score-a-hit-at-tra...

No Catch came up with the idea of a stand based on a Caribbean beach shack, complete with graffiti, banana-leaf roof, beach balls, reggae music and a real barbecue cooking Caribbean-style organic fish recipes. And all of this despite being in the Scottish pavilion. They just know how to cook fish in the Caribbean better than in the UK, explains Rzepkowski. Staff wore surfer clothes to stand out from the majority of corporate exhibitors. At a lot of the stands you couldnt really tell if they were trying to sell you fish or a mortgage, he adds. We wanted to catch retailers attention and show them this a lively brand that will stand out on their shelves. Success was measured by the fact that No Catch made contact with every single European multiple at the fair. Months earlier, at the BBC Good Food Show, a similar approach won No Catch the vote of best product as voted by journalists and consumers. Rzepkowskis tip for novice exhibitors is to work out how many staff you need and then double it. Fresh, happy, buzzy staff really make the difference. Also, use a professional stand-building company. You need people who are doing this day in, day out.

Andy Allen is a freelance business writer for titles including PRWeek and People Management

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