The right people in the right place
Customer bonding begins with a good product. But must it necessarily also end there? Companies in the business of exhibition appearances are treading new paths to reach their clients and engage them outside the sales arena.
Global branding in Taunusstein. But this has nothing to do with international product campaigns. Not satisfied with simply assuring interested parties and potential clients that the company will offer its customers optimal support with their brand appearance at any fair, exhibition systems manufacturer Expotechnik went a step further. It is true that the Expotechnik products did play a major role, but primarily as the site and setting of the wide-ranging event "Future Trends in Global Branding". This was geared less to selling and more to engaging the right people and providing a new communication platform.
Some 60 guests made their way from Germany and abroad to the Taunus region north of Frankfurt/Main to spend a day that provided insights into new ways of thinking, with riveting addresses and a finely honed programme. A successful premiere, Anne Spielberg insists. As head of Global Marketing and Communication, she was the one who brought the guests and speakers together in Taunusstein. Along with managing directors Heinz and Peter Soschinski as well as Kristian Willand she was delighted with the thoroughly positive response, encouraging Expotechnik to take the event further forward. "It's just that we consider it important for the ‘right' people to learn more about us," Anne Spielberg says of the aim behind the event. The people in Taunusstein were also able to demonstrate that they are driven by more than exhibit building: "We want to stand for good exhibition construction, but also to prove that with us corporate communication and brand strategy can take place on a high level." This implies partnering with clients and not just supplying the goods.
What Expotechnik presented its guests and clients in the way of partnership was excellent edutainment: futurologist Matthias Horx showed how he believes economic activity will work on global markets of the future. Mega trends identified by Horx are headlong growth on Asian markets, product developments attuned to the emerging markets and the growing consumer needs of the people there, and most importantly the awakening of the weaker sex. Women, Horx maintains, are on the advance - not so much in the industrial world, but on markets where they have not played a part in public life at all so far.
The second part of the day was rather more down to earth, as an Expotechnik customer, in the shape of Anja Graulich, Director Marketing at Sabre Deutschland, took to the stage. With reference to the rebranding of Sabre, which stands for a worldwide hotel reservation system, she showed what stringent brand management can look like. Everything at Sabre is from the same mould, down to its exhibition appearance. Yet its visual language in particular respects the sensitivities of different markets and traditions in global trade.
Expotechnik managing director Kristian Willand rounded off the little series of addresses, presenting the results of a survey in which companies of all sizes had been asked in depth about their forthcoming exhibition activities. Here, too, it emerged for example that Asia is enormously important as a market for a wide variety of industries. Convinced of its success, Expotechnik definitely intends further to develop the event. On the one hand it is a good way of engaging corporate decision-makers, and on the other it sets out to deliver hard and fast solutions. For the next round, Expotechnik is eyeing the important issue of measuring the success of exhibition appearances, Anne Spielberg says.
Other companies have long recognised the value of these and similar events. Exhibition architects WengerWittmann from Haar near Munich, for example, plan to turn their customer meeting and brand presentation into a regular industry forum. The Orange Academy 01 in 2003 attracted some 80 clients, partners and agency staff to Munich, where they benefited from a number of interesting addresses as well as peer-to-peer networking.
In March 2004 WengerWittmann then launched the customer magazine "raumbrand". Linked to the magazine is the "raumbrand.Forum" scheduled to take place once a year and replace the Orange Academy. The forum is intended to invite dialogue between exhibition companies, marketing executives in industry, creatives and communication experts. It premiered May 2004 on the Praterinsel in Munich.
The Octanorm-Kompetenz-Forum is another in the suite of events setting out to add value for the customer. After four editions it is likewise an established communication platform for trade fair planners and designers, exhibitors, agencies and students. Satisfied with the way the event is progressing, Octanorm managing director Hans Bruder is determined to stage another competence forum, even though time constraints and other engagements meant he had to give it a miss last year.
Brand-new to the market, so to speak, is Nomadic Display from Heusenstamm, whose first "ExpoSuccess" workshop in Germany has just come to an end. This was also geared to exhibitors, who discovered there "right from the horse’s mouth" how exhibition management systematically leads to success. Strategy, planning, staff motivation, customer contact and exhibition follow-up were the focal themes of the one-day trade fair seminar near Frankfurt/Main, which had a strong practical slant.
m+a report Nr.2 / 2006 vom 24.03.2006
m+a report vom 24. März 2006