Psychological games
A well designed trade fair appearance nowadays tells a story - something museums have been doing for years. There is common ground in the method of presentation but there are also differences. But in any case, there are mutual benefits.
Museums aim to provide long-term benefit while remaining flexible in the medium term, whereas trade fairs must respond quickly to current ideas, products and the market", Uwe R. Brückner succinctly explains. That determines the choice of structures, materials and media and how they are used. The basic difference lies in the intention of the communication. This is particularly apparent in the example of the brand museum, where the museum promotes the brand by raising to the status of an exhibit a product long since withdrawn from sale and therefore no longer available for purchase, thereby guaranteeing its claim to long-term quality.
"In a tradeshow appearance, the emphasis is always on the latest product ranges and innovations which are presented in the context of a current marketing claim in an attempt to influence the future purchasing decision of the visitor as much as possible." Brückner must know what he is talking about. Through his atelierbrückner in Stuttgart he has been successfully involved with various forms of presentation for many years. Under his management such projects as Haus der Geschichte in Stuttgart, the Titanic exhibition in Hamburg and appearances for Kodak at Photokina in Cologne were realised.
"The museum is a place for restoring the lost and forgotten context between objects and their functional and narrative potential and conveying their significance for society", explains the scenographer, architect and stage designer. "The museum's remit is therefore to conserve the historical legacy and convey its current and future relevance. That is why the museum has established an accepted permanent status in our society."
This potential for spatial design has also been put to successful use for image building in trade fair design - in some cases for decades. Trade fair stands must provide direct, immediately effective access to the product, the message and therefore ultimately to the brand. According to Brückner, this "intravenous" effect does not necessarily require a banal and obvious presentation. The more sustainable way is an associative point of access, an ingenious, wily, unexpected detour that asks the visitor to contextualise the appearance and brand, slogan (or motto), message and product, which when combined provide a sense of achievement that is easily remembered.
Burkhard Grünefeld, managing director of Heilmaier Messedesign, Munich, perceives a decisive difference between museums and trade fair appearances both in their visitor guidance and didactic approach. Whereas the singular objective of a tradeshow stand is to impart information and sell, exhibitions are intended to be perceived and "sold" in their entirety. The exhibition as a whole conveys a theme or approach whereas the trade fair stand operates at the level of an individual topic or product based on a psychological advertising or sales approach. "Trade fairs are marketing instruments."
On the other hand, an exhibition can be designed without advertising superlatives or "friendly" exaggeration, explains Grünefeld, whose company can turn its hand both to didactic and special shows and fair contracting - and has been doing so for no less than 60 years. There is no attempt to provoke responses or psychological advertising message beyond the basic idealistic stance of the artist. "Products for the most part suggest success, works of art don't."
The flexible, modular architecture systems of Burkhardt Leitner constructiv, Stuttgart, can be used anywhere where temporary space is needed - both in museums and exhibitions and at trade fairs. Managing director Michael Daubner above all understands exhibitions as travelling or temporary exhibitions, which once conceived can be presented at different locations, even abroad. For him, one difference between trade fairs and exhibitions lies in the duration of the visit, another in the content to be communicated.
Both help to define the concept: "Whereas artistic or didactic aspects are paramount for exhibitions, trade fairs are all about the three-dimensional presentation of a company and its products. In installation building, the most important differences are the longer planning, lead and conception times required for exhibitions. And the budgets for exhibitions - particularly those financed by public coffers - are even tighter than those for trade fairs. The number of people responsible for an exhibition is usually greater than that for a tradeshow stand: These include the artists/conceptors themselves, then the curators and the sponsors. But the requirements of the architectural systems remain the same: it's always about temporary, flexible and usually modular architecture."
This architecture then has to be as spectacular and memorable as possible which can result in losing sight of the real objective of the fair appearance in the process. Uwe R. Brückner's view on this: "There is no doubt that tradeshow appearances always include what you might call a deliberate overcommunication of redundant message, the most spectacular architecture possible and visually overloaded impressions. Neither a ‘more is more' nor a ‘less is less approach produces the desired effect in the long term, only integrative concepts and design. Nor does total reduction or a strong aesthetic bias necessarily produce better results because the message so often falls victim to the dominance of design, and then has to be supplemented by expensive but necessary explanation."
Can trade fairs learn from exhibitions? "The boundaries have become somewhat blurred", Daubner says. "Trade fair appearances staged by companies, the three-dimensional representation of their products and their philosophy have already begun to draw on artistic and didactic ideas. Exhibitions have looked to commercial trade fair appearances for their ideas for some time now - take the presentation of merchandise in the museum shops, for example: At tradeshows and exhibitions alike the client/visitor is encouraged to purchase and satisfy desires. Reduced to a single common denominator both forms of presentation make use of the three-dimensional representation of facts and values merged into a holistic experience for the viewer."
"Trade fairs also play psychological games!" adds Grünefeld. "Trade fair visitors (either professional or private) are looking for an experience. The thirst for excitement, events and adventure is growing all the time in our ‘over-emotionalised' age, and communication is taking on increasingly subtle forms. Every visitor has desires, needs, and demands of event concepts. They seek recognition and the reflection of themselves. It is important to hold attention and tell stories. That is not merely the domain of exhibitions. Companies and products can also tell their story, real or fictitious."
m+a report Nr.6 / 2006 vom 22.09.2006
m+a report vom 22. September 2006