On any given day, you’ll find Gary Shapiro consulting with government regulatory agencies, lobbying legislators, testifying before Congress, commenting on consumer technology issues to the media, speaking about the value of trade show audits or attending a meeting for one of the many convention industry boards and committees on which he serves. Probably not a typical day for most show organizers.

As President and CEO of the Arlington, VA-based Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), Shapiro believes this tireless effort is what it will take to expand the $100 billion consumer electronics industry and, in turn, strengthen the association’s exhibitor base. Shapiro lives and breathes consumer electronics. And his intense emotional drive has propelled the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to the top.

Under Shapiro’s leadership, CES has been the largest annual trade show in the country for three years running, as well as the world’s largest trade show for consumer technology. The 2003 CES in Las Vegas had 2,283 exhibitors in 1.25 million net square feet and drew 116,687 attendees. The show attracts more government officials and more media than any other event except the Democratic and Republican national conventions. And the future looks promising, with 90 percent of 2003 exhibitors already signed for the 2004 CES.

As he’s led the association and grown the show, Shapiro has earned a reputation as an innovative leader and an effective advocate for both the consumer electronics industry and the exhibition industry. He was recently elected Chairman of the Board for the Exhibition Industry Foundation (EIF), which was formed last year when the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) and the International Association for Exhibition Management (IAEM) combined their foundations. And he rarely turns down requests to speak at industry events.

When Gary Shapiro talks, people listen.

“When you hear Gary Shapiro is on the phone, you take the call because he knows what he’s talking about, he knows the issues and he knows the industry,” says U.S. Congresswoman Shelley Berkley of Las Vegas, who formerly worked in the convention industry and first met Shapiro years ago at a meeting where they presented opposing viewpoints on an issue. “Gary is frank, earnest and dedicated. When somebody thinks of CES, they think of Gary Shapiro and they think highly of him. He’s great to work with, and he shares the credit,” she says.

So how exactly did Shapiro grow CES despite a business climate that hasn’t been good for the exhibition industry — especially technology shows? What’s the key to his success and how does he pack so much into his schedule?

For one thing, he got off to a running start.

Eager to work
In junior high, Shapiro lied about his age to get a job as a restaurant dishwasher. By age 19, he was managing a staff of 120 at the Jones Beach Theater Restaurant on Long Island, where Guy Lombardo played nightly. He remained a young man in a hurry, graduating early from both high school and college (Phi Beta Kappa in economics and psychology from the State University of New York, Binghamton), and moving on to be the youngest in his class at Georgetown University Law Center.

He became a lawyer at 23, but even before graduation began working for the defense on a case that would have made the VCR an illegal product. “It was Hollywood against the electronics industry,” says Shapiro, who became so involved in the issue that he ended up appearing live on the “Today” show.

He worked on Capitol Hill as an assistant to a member of Congress and then joined the firm of Squire, Saunders and Dempsey, counsel for the Electronic Industry Association, CEA’s parent organization from which it eventually split. Shapiro became in-house counsel in 1981, then group vice president. When it became the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association in 1995, he was named President.
In 2000, the Consumer Electronics Association became a separate free-standing association, and Shapiro became President and CEO.

Shapiro says it’s not only his legal experience that prepared him for show business. “Restaurant experience is relevant to trade shows in many ways. You have to understand and meet the needs of a large group of people to be successful. Everybody has to do heavy lifting, including managers. You have to be able to work on the fly, respond in a crisis, keep a cool head and be efficient,” he says. “When I hire people, if someone has restaurant experience, that’s a real plus as far as I’m concerned.”

CEA-CES synergy
Some would argue one of the key ingrediants to CES’s success is the unwavering support of the association’s membership and board. And if Shapiro seems more involved in his organization’s show than the average association executive, it’s because he doesn’t see CEA and CES as separate. “We have a view, supported by our board, that the show is not only a revenue source, it’s the most important thing we do to promote the industry,” he says.

“CEA’s vision is to be the vibrant, entrepreneurial trade association promoting industry growth and leading the consumer technology industry in events, engineering and standards, strategic relationships and technology policy,” according to the association’s 2002 corporate report.

How many associations strive to be entrepeneurial and see their events as the No. 1 way to achieve that goal?

To that end, the entire staff works on both CEA and CES and they’re incentivized based on both (see sidebar). “Employees know where we stand in terms of goals for membership, the show, promotions and legislative issues. They all get a daily e-mail called the Flash Report with sales figures from the previous day for membership, products and CES, broken down by salesperson and where they are against the goal,” says Shapiro. “We’re a selling organization and a service organization at the same time.”

Guided by this philosophy, CEA has become one of most powerful associations in the country. The show represents 90 percent of the association’s revenue. A good portion of that money is put back into the show, but the majority is used to support an array of member services.

“We do a tremendous amount of market research, which is available free to our members, on what consumers want to buy, what type of product features they’re looking for, things like that,” says Shapiro. “We also do a tremendous amount of promoting the industry to consumers. We have people who go around the country talking to the media, demonstrating our products. We have all sorts of promotion campaigns, education campaigns — for high-definition television, car stereo, you name it. The show proceeds also fund our lobbying activities and our public policy activities. We set about 20 different electronic standards a year.”

From better to best
In addition to the association’s support of the show, Shapiro has championed some key initiatives to grow the show. Repositioning CES as an international event was a major spur to growth. One way the show accomplished that initially was to only have keynote speakers with international responsibilities. So, for example, Bill Gates spoke because of his international role with Microsoft. But the Worldwide President of Sony was asked to speak instead of the President of Sony in the United States. And the strategy is working. In 2003, the show drew a recording-breaking 16,606 international attendees from 128 countries.

Flexibility is vital in the face of a cutting-edge market where new product introductions are the norm. CES stays agile by dividing the show floor into more than 25 pavilions for different product categories, which not only makes it easier to navigate, but also helps grow the industry by defining and promoting new product categories. Among the most recent additions are broadband and wireless. “Companies have more confidence in exhibiting if they know other companies like themselves will be there — even if they’re competitors. And when there are multiple companies in the same pavilion, it gives buyers a reason to go to the show,” says Shapiro.

Partnerships have also helped grow the show. CES has more than 25 strategic partnerships with companies, associations, magazines and show promoters. For example, CEA merged with the Home Automation & Networking Association last year and created a new TechHome Division for its 500 members. At this year’s show, the TechHome demo featured 19 exhibitors debuting the latest products and technology for the modern home.

“It may sound trite, but customer service is the biggest reason for our growth,” says Shapiro.

“Gary takes ownership of every company that is a member of CEA,” says Darrell Issa, U.S. Congressman from San Diego, former Owner of Directed Electronics, Inc. and Chair of the CEA board from 1999 to 2000. “He thinks of himself as an extension of that company.”

Kathy Gornick, President of Thiel Audio, agrees. When she launched her business in 1977, Gornick was so careful with her startup capital that she and her three employees took their own food to their first CES that year. She also took advantage of every exhibitor training tool CES provided and credits the success of her business to the show. “As a fledgling company, we launched ourselves into an international marketplace by exhibiting. To this day, I believe the money we spend on CES is the best return for our marketing dollar,” says Gornick, whose exhibit grew from a small hotel room in 1977 to 3,600 square feet this year. With Shapiro’s encouragement, Gornick’s participation in CEA also grew over the years, and she is currently Chair of the CEA board.

“Gary is a rare leader. His enthusiasm is palpable. It’s hard not to be infected by his interest in the big picture. It’s self-interest that drives people to participate in CEA and CES, and it takes a strong leader to harness that self-interest in a constructive way to benefit the industry as a whole. Gary makes it fun — he’s enthusiastic and focused and he loves what he does,” says Gornick.

“Our major strength is that we have enormous breadth and we’re flexible and we partner. Our weakness is that anyone can come along and try to chop off a
vertical segment of our market and start a small show,” says Shapiro. That’s how CES lost the video game segment a few years ago to a new show, E3, which moved in to successfully capitalize on that market niche. “I think we made a mistake by not paying attention to our customers in that segment of our show. The lesson learned is: Stay close to your customers.”

Innovator and more
Sam Lippman worked for CEA from 1985 to 1995, the last five years as Vice President in charge of CES. He’s now President of integrated show management & marketing. “The one constant of working for Gary was the attitude that we should improve everything we do. That’s what made it exciting and that’s what made it worth putting in the long hours,” Lippman says. “We looked at all aspects of the show and how we
dealt with our various constituencies. And if anyone had a good idea, we made it work. It was challenging, invigorating and exhausting. Most of my gray hair I got at CES — and I say that with pride!”

One example of innovation is CES’ early adoption of Web-based marketing and registration. “Our advertising and marketing strategy is to drive people to our Web site. More than 90 percent of our registrations are on the Web. And we use e-mail to target market based on people’s interests,” says Shapiro. (See “Moving at Web Speed,” EXPO November 2001.) CES also advertises in more than 100 magazines.

Shapiro is also an innovator in the consumer electronics industry. The regulatory issues that drew him to the industry

initially have held his interest ever since. As chair of the Home Recording Rights Coalition for more than 20 years, he’s worked to keep recording technology legal and ensure the growth of markets for VCRs, home computers and audio-recording equipment. He’s a frequent conference speaker and writes articles on legal issues and consumer rights.

“One of the things I spent an enormous amount of time on in the last 10 years is making sure HDTV became a real product” says Shapiro. “And I was thrilled this March to be given an award by the Academy of Digital Television Pioneers. They voted me the most influential person in the industry for 2002.”

In addition, Shapiro has dealt with some of the scientific issues facing the consumer electronics industry. He was recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a “mastermind” for helping create the Industry Cooper-ative for Ozone Layer Protection, founded to foster industry cooperation in eliminating the use of ozone-depleting solvents by finding viable manufacturing alternatives.

Speak your mind
When he’s not leading the charge for consumer electronics causes, somehow he finds the time take an active role in the exhibition industry.

While Shapiro is enthusiastic about the show industry, he’s also realistic about its shortcomings and challenges.

He received IAEM’s 2002 Pinnacle Award for outstanding service to the industry. “In his acceptance remarks, in the midst of a feel-good session, he was the voice of concern for the industry, it’s future success and what we should be doing to promote the value and benefits of trade shows as a marketing strategy,” reports Doug Ducate, President and CEO of CEIR.

For one thing, Shapiro believes independent audits are critical to the future of trade shows in a market where exhibitions face stiffer competition than ever for corporate marketing dollars. “Gary deserves enormous credit for being an early and enthusiastic advocate for independent show audits. The absence of universal adoption of auditing is the industry’s greatest weakness. It speaks volumes to the credibility of show organizers when they have an audit,” says Steven Hacker, CAE, IAEM President.

CES started verifying attendance in 1989 through its registration company. When IAEM offered auditing through ABC Expomark, CES was the first to sign up. “When ABC Expomark stopped doing audits, we contracted with Veris Consulting to audit our show,” says Karen Chupka, CEA’s Vice President of Events and Conferences. “Our own market research group, eBrain Market Research (www.ebrain.org), which publishes our industry research and market data, is going to expand into show audits. But eBrain won’t audit CES because that wouldn’t ethical,” explains Chupka.

Audits aren’t the only area where the trade show industry falls short, according to Shapiro. “One of the challenges I see for the trade show industry is that the senior leadership needs to get together and figure out a strategy for promoting the industry,” says Shapiro. “The amount of time and money industry organizations invest in educating people in the profession is disproportionate to what’s being done to promote exhibitions and ensure that those same people have jobs in a few years.”

Partners for the long haul
That same eagerness that prompted Gary Shapiro’s early start in the working world, continues to propel him.

“A lot of show executives rest on their successes. Gary is never satisfied,” says Congressman Issa. “He’s naturally aggressive. He’s always looking to innovate. Always looking to motivate people. He keeps trying new things.”

Just three months after the largest CES ever, Shapiro sent a letter to 1,200 top executives of CEA’s corporate member companies soliciting feedback on how the association could be “more accountable and responsive during this difficult time for our nation, our economy and our industry.”

And what does that mean for the show? “The International CES remains our industry’s biggest marketing investment and industry promotional opportunity,” wrote Shapiro. “We are proud that for three years in a row, International CES has been the nation’s largest event, but we will not rest on our laurels. We will increase the value proposition, identify opportunities to reduce your costs and make it a better investment for you. Our goal is to get every qualified buyer, reporter and financial analyst to be in Las Vegas for CES.”

If anyone can achieve this, it would be Shapiro. After more than 20 years at the association, he’s still striving to do more. Stay tuned to find out what’s next.

Martha Collins is a freelance writer/editor who has covered the exhibition, convention and meeting industries since 1993. She can be reached at mccwriter@aol.com.