| July 2007 • Volume 27 • Number 7 • The Meeting Professional |
The New Exhibitionists
How the Show-Me Approach is Remaking Old Conventions
By Robert P. Farmer
Apple’s
innovative and impossibly cool iPhone was given its coming-out this
year with much fanfare, media hype and no shortage of techno-geek
gossip. But the real reason for the success of the introduction was the
stage upon which it was conducted—beneath the klieg lights and among
the shimmering technology on display at the Macworld Conference &
Expo in San Francisco.
Macworld
is seldom described as what it is: a trade show. But at its core it is
an exhibition of mammoth and cutting-edge proportions. This year’s
event featured more than 100,000 square feet of exhibit space
jam-packed with some 400 companies that serve the Mac community. But
the record-breaking crowd came to see the new phone, which was unveiled
in an immersive environment of not just display but of experience.
Attendees weren’t just shown the iPhone, they were invited to
experience it. On view in a hypnotizing glass case in which the phone
rotated, the display was part of the Digital Lifestyle Experience, a
series of exhibits that invited attendees to interact, test and train
with the new technology—from viewing photos, listening to music and,
yes, even making a phone call.
Like
an increasing number of trade shows, Macworld Expo has ventured
headlong into the realm of experiential marketing. And the results are
being seen at the turnstile. According to the fourth annual Index Report
by the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR), the exhibition
industry grew 4.8 percent in 2006 over 2005, marking its fourth
consecutive year of improvement. With nearly 300 events contributing to
the report, the overall view among exhibitors and attendees is that the
industry is vibrant, healthy and expanding. This, of course, has to do
with the economy; more industries are meeting their marketing
requirements in a growing and dynamic economy with assertive
business-to-business practices. But it also has much to do with the
shows themselves.
“I
believe we are in the Experience Economy, like [Joseph] Pine and [James
H.] Gilmore first wrote about in 1999 then subsequently published a
book with that title,” said Doug Ducate, president and CEO of CEIR.
“Young and old alike are looking to be entertained. Kids don’t just
have a birthday party. Instead they take their friends to McDonald’s or
Chuck E. Cheese’s. We don’t just go eat a meal. We go to the Hard Rock
Café or similar theme restaurants that entertain you while you eat.”
“Today
the most successful churches are not the small congregations that go
for a sharing caring worship experience, [they are] the mega churches
that have sanctuaries that accommodate thousands of people,” Ducate
said. “Service includes bands and videos and contemporary music. The
church entertains in hopes of also sharing a message of hope and
salvation. Experiential marketing is simply appealing to now
well-established human behavior.”
The Show Must Go On
It
appears—to paraphrase Mark Twain—rumors of the trade show’s death have
been greatly exaggerated. Despite the crush of recent reports
indicating trade shows are bound for extinction, the exhibition
industry continues to find new ways to thrive and to locate audiences
who validate their existence. The CEIR Index Report indicates that
between 2000 and 2006, several market sectors lead the way for the
industry by showing robust growth in exhibitions. Those sectors and
their percentage growth include building and construction (5.4
percent), sports and entertainment (5.3 percent), transportation (4.8
percent) and medical and health care (4.0 percent). Meanwhile, from
2005 to 2006, exhibition industry growth overall was led by
professional business services (11.1 percent), raw materials and
science (10 percent), transportation (9.4 percent), building and
construction (9.2 percent) and food (7.4 percent).
In
spite of the rosy figures, there is a widespread understanding that the
trade show industry is in flux. Although reasons for the change are
myriad, among the core causes are attendees themselves. Who goes to
shows, why do they go and what do they expect when they get there are
all questions that continue to shape the changing landscape of
exhibitions.
“Our
research shows the greatest concern in the industry today is the aging
attendee pool,” Ducate said. “Exhibitions must use channel marketing
and other techniques to reach the new-to-workforce younger demographic
and convince them they need to attend key events. Prior generations
wanted to go to events because of the lure of travel. Today’s youth
have already traveled—many internationally. Business travel is more of
a hassle than a reward.”
Thus,
in the estimate of exhibitors, there must be a greater incentive to
attend, and increasingly that incentive is provided by the promise of
experience.
The Experience Economy
“Humans
are hard-wired to be social animals,” said Stephen Schuldenfrei,
president of the Trade Show Exhibitors Association (TSEA). “We need to
touch, feel and be a part of the total environment. We have a strong
inbred desire to experience. The growth of this segment is most likely
due to better methods of reaching and enticing the audience.”
Reacting
to the real-world phenomenon of experiential marketing, trade shows are
more likely to be forums for presenting the hands-on selling of
products than of the meet-and-greet schmooze fests for business
associates that already know each other. Today it’s all about the
experience. From selling coffee to selling cars, customers have shown
that they are more likely to buy something that they can directly
experience first. Taking advantage of what might seem glaringly
obvious, marketers are providing experience opportunities to their
customer base and watching their sales increase as a result. Trade
shows have gotten involved in the trend and have actually proven to be
an ideal forum for this evolving and unavoidable marketing technique.
“Trade
shows have always incorporated experiential marketing to some degree,”
said Erik Hauser, founder of Swivel Media, a California-based company
that has been a thought-leader in experiential marketing and brand
recognition. “I think the traditional trade show model needs to be
abandoned and replaced by adopting an entirely new model that improves
the experience for attendees. The shows and those speaking should be
more audience-centric to provide real value for those in attendance.”
The
addition of experience to trade show floors is a logical extension of
the way companies are marketing today. It’s also a logical approach to
the way people react when being marketed to.
Those
methods have set the course for the new experience economy. Whether
selling airline tickets with guerilla marketers on the streets of big
cities or offering an immersive environment for interacting with the
latest technology in mobile phones (like at Macworld), today’s customer
is more likely to respond to a situation in which he or she can engage
with the product. It makes sense. Would you be more inclined to buy a
new product based on an article or review you read in a magazine or
based on the time—however brief—you may have spent holding it and even
using it in the purpose for which it was designed?
The
experiential marketing experts Jack Morton Worldwide have published the
results of numerous surveys that answer the question in no uncertain
terms. In a 2005 online poll of 2,574 people, for example, nearly
three-quarters of consumers said that participating in a live marketing
experience would increase their purchase consideration, and nearly 60
percent indicated it would result in a quicker decision to purchase.
“Just
about everyone is hitting the streets these days with experiential
marketing programs because they need to deliver their branding message
in a more intimate and less competitive, one-on-one setting,” said
Nicolas Nicolaou, director of sales and marketing for MDS Creative
Group, a leading full-service experiential marketing firm and custom
exhibit manufacturer. “Trade and consumer shows deliver major audience
segments, and they are the best way that we know to get in front of
semi-qualified potential buyers, but they have their limits. Go to any
auto or consumer electronics show and see how distracting the
electronic and visual media can be. There are too many messages, all
similar in scale and magnitude, fighting for your attention. So,
corporations have recognized the need to have some control over the
setting in which they present their branding message and thereby
improve their return on investment (ROI).”
Nicolaou says that another force shaping the segment today is the need for consumer feedback.
“Corporations
are using mobile marketing tours to test the water and see if customers
like their products and how they actually use them,” he said. “It’s
also an efficient way to do some additional market research.”
Making Cents of it All
The
experience economy, whether at trade shows or on city streets, can only
truly take a product or service so far. Once the decision is made by a
customer to use it, the delivering company must be able to track that
decision to its marketing method. We are, of course, talking about good
old ROI, the most compelling reason for doing anything in today’s
marketplace.
Trade
shows have long been useful for establishing metrics. Attendees
outfitted with RFID tags or standard business cards could be directly
tracked on follow up and follow through after visiting a show booth.
Although it’s part of a new marketing approach, experiential marketing,
generally more cost-intensive than a typical show display, is still
beholden to ROI.
“The
primary concern is to have very clear and attainable goals for
participating in a particular trade show,” Schuldenfrei said,
suggesting that even with a well-crafted experiential campaign in
place, it will sail wide of its mark if not sufficiently reasoned. “So
many exhibitors participate with feeble reasons such as ‘we’ve always
been there.’ There is no way to measure ROI and return on objectives
(ROO) without knowing what exactly the exercise is trying to
accomplish.”
If
experiential marketing is a foregone requirement in trade show
displays, the old metrics still apply. The contemporary marketplace, it
appears, continues to answer to the old-guard system. Experiential
marketers must still, according to experts like Schuldenfrei, operate
within a system of stated objectives and match those objectives to an
audience. They must engage in sufficient pre-show marketing and
promotion and employ a well-trained staff. But above all, exhibitors
must attract a qualified audience.
“Qualify,
qualify, qualify the visitor,” Schuldenfrei said. “The purpose is to
attract an already stressed audience—who already have too much to do
during the event—to the booth. But the trend is towards accountability.
Each event has to have ROI and ROO.”
Showing The Way
Although
the ROI emphasis remains steadfast, experiential marketing is the
undeniable future of trade shows. The results from experiential
marketing may be less quantifiable in some instances, but the need to
implement them is undeniable. Reasons for the marketing shift are far
ranging, but most address the underlying trend of a shift in the market.
“Younger
consumers—people like to call them Echo boomers and Generation Y,
but I just call them ‘people under 30’—are savvy and a little bit
cynical when it comes to marketing,” Nicolaou said. “You add the
corporate scandals we’ve had recently to this equation and delivering a
branding message and the pervasive air of mistrust makes marketing a
more difficult task than it used to be.”
Both
the marketer and the marketee yearn to feel as if they are operating
outside traditional lines. And, according to Nicolaou, even the most
button-down companies are thinking differently about how they are
positioned and perceived in the marketplace.
“Companies
and even non-profit organizations need to find ways to break through
the wall of skepticism by delivering branding campaigns to consumers
where they are open, relaxed and ready to try something new,” he said.
“Malls, county fairs, concerts and even parking lots of large chain
stores like Home Depot all can work, but the only real limitation on
venues for [this type of] marketing is our imagination.”
Though
the jury may still be out on genuine ROI from experiential marketing,
some of the best evidence of its effectiveness is the translation to
direct—and immediate—sales. Events that integrate the opportunity for
experience into their product pitches are more popular than ever.
According to the previously mentioned Jack Morton survey nearly 85
percent of female respondents said they would bring family or friends
to a live marketing experience, while 75 said they’d tell others about
it. In other words, the event itself becomes secondary to the product
on offer. This in turn has fomented the ongoing transformation of the
trade show model.
“We’ve
seen a shift from large horizontal events to smaller vertical and
boutique events,” said CEIR’s Ducate. By implementing a more nimble and
elastic show type, exhibitioners are better able to succeed. But the
experiential booth is still only as effective as those within it.
“Effectively
communicating simultaneously to such a disparate audience presents
a real challenge,” Ducate said. “Understanding how to reach a
predominantly verbal group while also reaching a predominantly visual
group is not easy. There is a big difference between, ‘Hello my name is
… welcome to the ‘x’ company exhibit’ and ‘What’s up?’” TMP
ROBERT P. FARMER is a freelance writer based in San Francisco.
Sidebar: The Next Generation’s Experience
Much
has been reported about the changing demographic of the meetings
industry and, as an extension, the trade show industry. The prospect of
experiential marketing is becoming increasingly viable for attracting
the next generation. Generation Y (including sub-generations such as
the Echo boomers and the Internet Generation) has proven the best
audience for experiential marketers. In a survey conducted by the Jack
Morton Worldwide marketing agency, it was revealed that Gen Y consumers
prefer live marketing to television and even Internet advertising.
Among respondents aged 13 to 23, 70 percent said experiential marketing
is extremely or very influential on their opinion of a product or
brand. Sixty-five percent said participating in an event would prompt
them more quickly to buy. And 74 percent said participating in a live
marketing experience is something they would tell a friend about.
Although that age group is still young in terms of show-attendee
potential, it won’t be long until they’re entering the fray en masse.
So it’s critical that trade shows grab hold of the experiential concept.
“I
think that experiential marketing is shaping more trends than trends
are shaping experiential marketing,” said Erik Hauser, founder of the
experiential marketing firm Swivel Media. “Corporations are just
beginning to truly understand that they need to personalize their
messages and make them more customer centric and less product centric.
That’s the major shift shaping the new marketing paradigm. The days of
monologue marketing are over, and the days of dialogue marketing are
just getting started.”
That
dialogue comes in many forms, and it is indeed changing the way shows
are marketed. Because Gen Y is the most media-aware in history, they
are not easily swayed. Cynicism and apathy are enormous obstacles in
the business-to-business path. Gen Y places a big emphasis on
authenticity—real or imagined—and experience is an essential means to
provide it. The trick is in the delivery. And since the demographic is
also the first to be online all the time, the Internet is a natural
platform for them.
Relationships
with this base stretch beyond show time to include all the time.
Integrated marketing is essential to keeping the audience tuned in and
interested.
“The
Internet brings the consumer access to a wealth of information,” said
Nicolas Nicolaou, director of sales and marketing for the MDS Creative
Group. “This has made the consumer more demanding and precise. More and
more, companies can’t just market their way to a sale. They need to
prove to consumers that their products are valuable and deliver a
quantifiable advantage over the competition. Today’s consumers,
particularly the younger ones, are not about product or brand loyalty
anymore. They are about, ‘What can a product do for me and my
situation?’ That’s why many corporations are making large investments
in mobile experiential programs through which they can control the user
experience and get their products directly in front of buyers.”
Integrated
marketing has also let marketers work in real time. Without downtime,
the show is just part of the equation. Now exhibiting is
all-encompassing, from pre-show e-mailing to post-show downloading and
everything in between. The sales cycle has shortened but the trade-show
cycle has expanded—indeed it is virtually never ending.
It’s
all very next-big-thing. But prevailing wisdom still maintains that in
spite of a new incoming generation and a sea change in marketing to
that group, the advantages of experience will never be replaced.
“The
Internet is another arrow in the marketer’s quiver,” said Stephen
Schuldenfrei of the Trade Show Exhibitors Association. “It has added
another element, but has not in the least replaced face-to-face
marketing. It brings visitors, pre-qualifies prospects, adds product
and company information and the like. But, as a friend of mine
likes to say, ‘The Internet will supplant the trade show when I can
taste a virtual beer!’”