Agencies and Exhibitions - The Missing Link

The classroom dunce in the media mix schoolroom, Exhibitions are forced to sit in a corner and remain largely ignored on a day to day basis, whilst top-of-the-class media such as out-door and radio continue to receive Miss Agencies attention.

The irony in this very local approach to an extremely powerful medium is that should the creative in question stop to view exhibitions through a new pair of rose tinted (or whatever the latest fashion is) glasses he would find a playground for ideas and innovation capable of delivering true and tangible value back to the client whilst adding true depth and scope into the marketing mix.

This does not happen in local agencies for one simple reason. Perception.

No one is to 'blame' for this unique situation, rather we have fallen foul of our own perceptions of the medium, themselves a product of several factors that have materialized in the industry over the past years. To analyse this in more detail we need to travel back to the beginning of the trade show boom in local markets, some 10 years ago. Due to an exponential growth rate in the early nineties, literally everybody who was anybody was into exhibitions. Ad agencies started designing stands, PR companies started organizing shows and Back Yard Carpenters became stand builders overnight.

Over the space of three years, the amount of Computer and IT shows quadrupled whilst the number of potential exhibitors remained relatively constant. Bombarded by unproven organizers with little or no experience, the SA corporates adopted an approach of "We Must Be Seen" and to a large degree exhibited on anything that moved. Huge sums of money were literally thrown at unproven shows with little to no focus on exhibit goals, nor on synergising exhibit promotions with existing marketing campaigns. Through its regulatory body The Exhibition Association of South Africa, the vast majority of these rogue operators are thankfully no longer players in the industry and the active participants today are trustworthy and honest.

Be that as it may, the age of ad-hoc exhibiting was borne, and some will argue has never really left us.

The perception of the trade show medium locally is therefore not exactly a very positive one in most media circles. Clients, Agencies, Media Planners and even Strategists will all brush right past the exhibit medium in their planning. They all assume exhibits don't work because of the medium, no-one stops to think it could be the way they have been doing exhibitions that is the actual problem!

Looking around the marketing industry it is even more apparent as to why the mis-perception propagates unchallenged. Through Europe and the USA, the exhibition and trade show environs continuously rates as one of the most successful marketing mediums with the highest successful conversion rate of contacts to deals at the lowest cost per lead. Yet the IMM Diploma in marketing has two paragraphs on exhibitions in a three year course! (A situation being rectified by E.X.S.A as we speak.)

Analysing the Fortune 500 companies in the USA, over 95% rate exhibitions and trade fairs as their single biggest method of closing business deals. In a survey of the same companies over 90% spend more on trade shows and exhibitions (estimated at $60 billion per annum) than on Magazine, Outdoor and Radio advertising combined yet we don't even rate exhibits big enough creatively to warrant a mention (let alone a category) at industry awards such as The Loeries?

Whilst it is neither my intention nor indeed feasible to try to compare the SA market to one as large of the USA my message lies in the importance with which countries such as the USA place on exhibiting in the marketing mix.

Creatively few media can match the challenge to an account team of complete brand integration that exhibitions offer. Audio Visual, Graphic Design, Below-The-Line campaigns, Pre and Post event advertising in the good old traditional 'safe' mediums, Mail Shots - the scope for effectively implementing a creative concept across multiple platforms is endless. By embracing this exciting medium the floor is open for agencies to continue delivering excellent creative.

Initiated at agency level or integrated into a media strategy from the start, clients can approach exhibitions with the correct level of professionalism and integration needed to elevate this medium from the dunce in the corner of the room to the apple of the teachers eye. The responsibility for unlocking this value however rests with all players in the marketing mix.