Again I welcome back Michael Hart, the industry renown journalist and thought leader for his views on a recent twist on the competitive landscape in the events industry:
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What would the message to any business be if its best customers became its strongest competitors? And this has been happening in the traditional tradeshow industry for some time now.
In some golden age of tradeshow history, the ‘show’ was where buyers met sellers. Period. The exhibit hall was the best venue available for companies to present their products and services to potential customers and there were few other face to face options
Things changed. We cannot make a blanket statement that it’s all because of technology – even though we sometimes do – but that’s where it started. As opportunities to interact with customers went beyond the static showfloor and printed page, onetime faithful exhibiting companies began to see that show management was not the gatekeeper it once was. They discovered there were ways to go around the gate to meet the customer in ways that were more direct, more efficient and cheaper and gave more control to the exhibitor, over access and targeted messaging
With a little more confidence about doing things their way, corporations began developing their own events, then their own marketing apparatuses that could not only compete with the traditional tradeshow, but surpass them.
Case in point: Until 2010, Hexagon AB was a Sweden-based global corporation with 35 different brands, all marketing themselves to their audiences more or less independently. That meant 35 distinct tradeshow sponsorships.
The next year it launched Hexagon 2011 and invited a couple thousand of its best customers across all the brands. That was the first step in turning itself into a single brand – Hexagon Global Network – with its own event. Later this year, the company will invite 3,500 users and customers to Las Vegas for HxGN Live.
Before they get there, they’ll be able to get news, case studies and information about all its brands from hxgnnews.com. They’ll be able to listen to HxGN Radio and watch HxGN TV. The company found a way to allow its customers and potential customers to meet, read, listen and watch HxGN 24/7/365, all without that complicated, expensive tradeshow schedule for 35 brands.
What was once a valued exhibitor at hundreds of tradeshows each year now competes with them all.
It doesn’t have to be that way though.
Another case in point: A couple of months ago, the North American International Toy Fair drew 25,000 qualified attendees to a 421,000 net square foot exhibit hall at Jacob K. Javits Convention Center…in New York…in February. All the major toy brands were there.
But up until a few years ago, one of the biggest, Mattel, wasn’t. Oh, the giant toymaker had a nominal presence at the show, a booth, but the real action for Mattel was down the street where it set up its own massive showroom for retailers and distributors, sometimes even drawing attendees away from the show at Javits.
Show managers went to work on enticing Mattel to move from being a competitor to a customer. The recent renovations at Javits helped. Certain parts of the show had to be reconfigured to move what had once been a massive stand-alone corporate event into what was already the largest toy show in the Western Hemisphere. The show’s general contractor had to find ways to accommodate an unprecedented move-in and installation process; marketing calendars had to be adjusted.
But it happened. Today, to say Mattel is an anchor exhibitor at Toy Fair would be an understatement.
So it can go both ways. Our one-time best customers (think Hexagon AB) can become our strongest competitors (HxGN Live).
But if the Toy Fair can draw Mattel, one of the biggest brands in the toy universe, to the show, can’t you do the same thing with the biggest brands in your industry?
Michael Hart is a business consultant and writer who focuses on the events industry. He can be reached at michaelhrt3@gmail.com.