Cover feature
Aligning the message?
Organisers from Venus
and design agencies from Mars?
It was standing room only at
International Confex, Olympia
London, recently for a discussion on
whether organisers, stand design
agencies and their clients are
speaking the same language
oes anyone
in your
organisation
have a
meaningful conversation
about what the brand is
about with an organiser?
This was panel Chair Simon
Burton’s opening question
to the two organisers and two
agency representatives assembled to
discuss the future of stand design at
International Confex.
Design and event management
agency Ignition’s CEO Samantha
Rowe answered with the ‘C’ word: the
need for ’Collaboration’.
“The biggest issue between stand
companies and organisers is the
collaboration and communication
about what should happen pre-event,
post-event and creating some kind of
face time where we can get everyone
together to discuss what objectives
are for events.”
M-is agency’s John Young was
blunt in his answer to Burton’s next
question: “Are you regularly engaged
with organisers?” – “No”.
Elaborating somewhat, Young,
whose agency has worked with
brands such as Philips and Bae
Systems, added: “There is a view that
designers over-design, stand builders
take too long, while organisers cut
build up times; actually the attention
is very much focused on the exhibitor
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Issue 2 2019
while it is the
customer we are all trying to service.
“Face to face and exhibiting is one
of these brands’ biggest marketing
spends, so we need to work together
to make the most of that and we’re
not doing it well enough as an
industry.”
ITE Group’s Baris Onay noted,
tongue-in-cheek there was plenty
of communication around Health &
Safety standards and build up times.
“We’re missing a trick, however,”
he said, “in creating value for the
customer from both ends.” Neither
organisers nor design companies are
properly sharing with the stand and
design companies their knowledge of
the customer.”
“What agencies hear about what
clients experience could be hugely
useful to organisers,” Burton added.
Onay acknowledged the
Panel:
Chair: Simon
Burton;
John Young,
Executive
Creative
Director of
M-is agency;
Samantha
Rowe CEO
Ignition DG;
Lori Hoinkes
Fresh
Montgomery
MD; Baris
Onay Group
Marketing
and Digital
Director ITE
Group
relationship between the client and
the stand design company was a
more open one than with organisers.
Burton asked Fresh Montgomery’s
MD Lori Hoinkes, a relative
newcomer to the industry, what her
first impressions were, when she
walked her own show floors for the
first time, of the environment and
the architecture?
“Some tradeshows are
underwhelming and there is
clearly a big opportunity we are
missing. What struck me the
most was who in the organisation
is talking. We have an Ops
department and tell them the vision
and then they go and talk to the stand
contractor. Things can get lost in
translation.
“We try to sit all of the people in the
room together, so you can hear from
the person who is really excited about
the vision we are trying to achieve.”
Hoinkes also believed sales
personnel needed to get out of the
mindset of ‘I’ve got the sale, I’m off
to call the next person’. “We need to
coach them and get them thinking
about delivering excellent customer
service to the exhibitor.”
Young said it was time to change
the jargon, too, such as classic talk of
10 x 8s, etc.
Burton picked up the theme,
asking whether one of the main
challenges was, in fact, the industry’s
‘nomenclature’? “We know what
an organiser is, but we struggle to
describe what a ‘contractor’ is?” he
said. “Do we even use the word?” he
asked.
“Unfortunately, the industry has
this legacy and an old fashioned
feel to it, with old school production
houses and the feel of carpenters
w w w.exhibitionworld.co.uk