Face-to-face events are going through a revival as more brands seek new ways to leverage the digital world. Alex Blyth investigates
Given the rush over the past five years to all things digital, it seems remarkable that so many exhibitions, conferences and other events still exist. Yet they do. On any day of the year, up and down the country, you can find exhibition halls full of B2B companies talking face-to-face to customers or attracting new customers.
As Nigel Cooper, executive director at events agency P&MM Events & Communications, puts it, “Just as the humble piece of paper has survived successive challenges from the PC, email, web, mobile, BlackBerry and iPhone so events continue to produce results that marketers cannot achieve through any of those modern technologies.”
Even the Interactive Advertising Bureau agrees. Chris Probert, project manager, says, “Business buyers are only available nine until five, Monday to Friday, so B2B marketers have to work hard in that time to get their attention. That’s why events remain an important channel for them.”
That said, B2B marketers are increasingly discovering how integrating technology into their events can significantly increase the number of visitors, enrich the experience for those visitors and spread their message far beyond the exhibition hall. Here are seven of the most exciting ways this is happening.
1. Live tweeting
If you have been to an event recently you will have seen delegates tweeting away about the event and providing highlights to their followers. This is so far perhaps the most prevalent way that marketers are using technology at their events.
“We only work with B2B clients, and the most requested service is social media support around their events,” says Susan Chang, social media manager at agency Lewis Pulse. “Because live tweeting doesn’t require any additional technologies other than a smartphone and a Twitter app, B2B marketers have used this as an economical way to reach attendees and potential attendees to engage them in conversation.”
Her firm’s live tweeting efforts have resulted in SAP’s #SAPPHIRENOW event hashtag appearing on the Twitter trending list, over 7000 clicks to Twitter content to support the SAP Open Tennis tournament, and over 12,000 social media mentions about VMware during Mobile World Congress.
Chang continues, “You can use the channel to amplify traditional marketing messages and links, identify your audience by seeing who is interacting with your live updates, and conduct monitoring to see what types of conversations your attendees are having with each other. The best event tweeting programmes involve exclusive content that can’t be found on any other channels.”
2. QR codes
Quick Response (QR) codes are essentially barcodes that you can place on posters, leaflets, business cards and so on, and which the recipient can scan with their smartphone. They’ve actually been around for nearly 20 years and are very popular in Japan but have only taken off in the UK in recent years.
Charlotte Graham-Cumming, director at marketing and events agency Ice Blue Sky, says, “We use QR codes at our events in two main ways. Firstly to register delegates with pre-issued name badges, so telling us which stream they should be in, which pack they should receive and so on. Secondly, to generate feedback from delegates at the event. We place QR codes around the venue on posters, driving delegates to a website where they can enter a code for a prize, or download ‘secret’ content.”
Graham-Cumming continues, “Events provide a low pressure environment for you to meet key prospects, and we’ve seen spend on this area rise around 15 per cent so far on last year. QR codes allow our clients to be more effective at those events, finding out exactly what their customers want so they can tailor content to their needs.”
3. NFC
It could be that QR codes are already yesterday’s news. In March, Google stopped using QR codes on its Google Places ads in shop windows, and replaced them with near field communication (NFC). With NFC your prospects no longer have to scan in a barcode and wait for it to download. Instead they just point their device at the ad and the information is transmitted.
Neil Cartwright, head of digital at Media Junction, comments, “Admittedly, people today are not used to touching a poster to receive more information but this will quickly change as new phones have NFC in-built as standard. Smart posters are cheap to produce yet can create a very visual talking point and show delegates you are ahead of the technology curve.”
4. Augmented reality
“The term augmented reality has been with us for decades and can be defined as the meeting of two worlds: the real world and the shiny, bright and endless virtual world,” says James Loxam, chief technical officer at augmented reality platform Aurasma. “Augmented reality brings the two worlds together on the screen of a smartphone or tablet computer.”
B2B marketers are using augmented reality to turn one-dimensional print and display advertising or display stands into fully interactive sources of information. Loxam describes how this works. He says, “Imagine you are at a trade show and you walk past a poster. Just point your smartphone at it and it can come alive, showing [3D] video, audio, animations, or even the ability to click through or buy products or services. Point your phone at a product and see a demo of how it works or is assembled.”
Until recently, augmented reality relied on codes or GPS data that limited it. New versions now coming to the market mean marketers can start realising the potential of this exciting new technology. Indeed for many, the greatest challenge is now to develop creative concepts that make full use of the technology.
5. Mobile apps
Event marketers are using apps in two ways: to disseminate event content to those not able to attend, and to enrich the experience for those who are at the event. Doctors.net.uk is a network of 184,000 doctors, offering forums for discussion and education, as well as editorial, all to support them in the advice they offer their patients. It has recently begun to use mobile apps to provide its members with in-depth coverage of medical conferences.
“Doctors are finding themselves less and less able to get out to conferences,” says medical director, Dr Tim Ringrose. “Their employers won’t give them the time, and the industry is increasingly prohibited from funding their attendance. So, in June we took a team of journalists and cameramen to the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s 2011 annual meeting in Chicago. We then converted the conference highlights into an app. Of 1200 members in that therapeutic area, 750 have already signed up to the service.”
At events themselves, organisers are providing delegates with a free app where they can access information such as schedule, exhibitor lists and maps. Forward-thinking B2B marketers are beginning to use this new communication channel with event delegates.
“We estimate that less than five per cent of B2B exhibitions are currently deploying an app, but most event organisers are certain they will be within a year or two,” says Michael Douglas, marketing director of app development firm GenieMobile. “The demand is there. In June, we surveyed 1000 event attendees. Thirty two per cent told us they would use an event app.”
He continues, “Apps can be very useful for sponsors. At the 2011 European Wind Energy Association conference, 25 per cent of the app users clicked the main sponsor’s link and viewed a promotional profile of their latest product, linked of course to their position on the exhibition map and the times of their product demonstrations.”
6. Interactive games
When the Chubb Insurance Company of Europe had a stand at the Airmic Conference 2011, the events and marketing team wanted to do something to make it stand out. “You have buyers from Vodafone, Prudential, TalkTalk and so on, walking around deciding who to buy their insurance from,” explains Elaine Anderson, event co-ordinator. “You want to talk to them, but the competition is fierce. There are stands with towers of champagne bottles, sports cars as prizes, and so on. At Airmic, we wanted to do something different and eye-catching.”
The insurance company devised a game based around the board game Risk, which visitors played on an iPad for the chance to win one. Anderson worked with Nimlok, a company that specialises in interactive games for events.
“Too many organisations attend events because they always have done, regardless of the leads they generate,” says James Rook, MD at Nimlok. “Our games attract visitors to a stand, engage them with the company’s messages, and collect all-important prospect data.”
7. Slide design
Finally, marketers are beginning to bring cutting-edge technology to bear on that old staple of events, the slideshow. Timothy Bird is creative director at Knifedge, a creative agency that provides projection content for live events. He reveals, “We recently worked with P&G providing it with projection content for the Wella International Trend Vision Awards in Paris, a major global event for hairdressers and salon owners.”
He adds, “There is so much that marketers can now do with slide design. I recently saw a beautiful example of this at an event where a company CEO used projection and 3D visualisation to show delegates an architectural model of his company’s growth and how it would benefit its customers. It was informative, playful and congruent with the bold ambitions and friendly face of the company. I look forward to seeing more of this type of content in the future.”
