June 2004
Not your father’s exhibitor

Today’s corporate exhibit manager is MORE about STRATEGY, LESS about LOGISTICS, and ALL about BRANDING

By Cathy Chatfield-Taylor

To plan and execute Hewlett-Packard’s $350,000 presence at Networld+Interop, May 9–14 in Las Vegas, Kimberley Gishler worked with five HP business units, five exhibit contractors, a media agency, a survey research firm and MediaLive’s N+I team. The program went beyond the 2,500-square-foot booth to include four speakers on the conference program, numerous press and analyst briefings, and customer meetings with upper management. Success would be measured in sales.

“My main priority is not how much carpet I need or when my trucks will unload our equipment. That’s what my exhibit house is for. I’m concerned about what customers will experience when they walk up to my booth,” says Gishler, North America Marketing Communications Manager for HP’s ProCurve Networking Business, Roseville, CA. “Not only do you have to worry about your own goals, you have to make sure you get all the other messages in place for the other businesses, plus the overarching message of corporate. It’s broader and more strategic than it used to be.”

With seven years at HP managing trade shows and events and one year in her current job in marketing, Gishler is typical of today’s exhibitor — not working solo but as part of an integrated marketing team that shares responsibility and accountability for a show’s results.

“My No. 1 goal is meeting the bottom line. I’m being measured on the number of dollars I get out of that show,” she says. “We’re extremely accountable.”

It takes a toolbox full of marketing tactics to meet the strategic objectives for a national brand. The trade show is just one tool in the box. From companies like United Technologies, where one person plans six mega shows a year, to Coca-Cola, where six people orchestrate 150 events a year, exhibit managers are working across departments and divisions to deliver measurable results on the brand marketing investment.

That changes the dynamic for show producers, who no longer have one point of contact with a company and are under pressure to get cash commitments for space at next year’s event.

“They’re evaluating our show along many lines — other trade shows, their own corporate events, not doing the show at all and sinking the funds into other media, particularly the Internet,” says Dan Cole, Vice President of CES Sales and Business Development for the Consumer Electronics Association, Arlington, VA. “Our attitude is, let’s not make a customer service call. Let’s make a customer retention call.”

The sophisticated sales approach is to build personal relationships with these media-savvy exhibit professionals. Become a trusted consultant and advisor, then propose a marketing solution that the exhibitor can champion within the company.

Marketing teamwork
After advertising, trade shows and events are the second biggest line item in Gishler’s marketing budget. Every stakeholder in the outbound marketing message wants a piece of that pie. When her ProCurve Networking business unit takes the lead at a show like N+I, she manages the expectations of the other business units.

At United Technologies, a $31 billion aerospace technology company, each of the eight business units has its own exhibit managers. But for the Paris Air Show and five other mega shows that cut across multiple divisions, one exhibit manager plans the corporate strategy.

“When I look at my department, we’re less than half of what we were five years ago,” says Sal Cavallaro, CME, Manager, Marketing Support Programs for United Technologies, Hartford, CT. “We were three exhibit managers, and now there’s one — me. I can farm out the logistics, but I can’t farm out the internal work, the strategic planning.”

Before being downsized, Cavallaro’s department coordinated 20–24 events per year. Since UT has reduced the overall number of shows and the size of its presence at those shows, he now coordinates his show strategy with the other division marketing support people. “It’s a team effort in trying to work together to bring economies of scale and get the most impact for the dollar,” he says.

At Coca-Cola North America, trade shows are tucked into the Strategy and Planning strategic business unit’s Industry Relations and Events Group. As Director of Trade Communications, Rod Tabert overseas a team of five trade show communications professionals who focus on strategy and execution, while others focus on the exhibit design and production. From industry association events, such as the National Association of Convenience Stores Show, to customer-specific activities and community events, Tabert’s team makes recommendations to the division vice president, who approves the final schedule and budget.

“We have a portfolio of activities that we participate in,” says Tabert. “We decide what to do as a group, based on the recommendations of the team on the best places to communicate with our customers.”

Although his budget has been stable in recent years, the allocation among events, capital investments and expenses comes under scrutiny every six to nine months. In late 2003, the division instituted a formal return on investment (ROI)/return on objective (ROO) evaluation process.

“We evaluate not only the economic impact, but also whether we’re helping to facilitate relationships between our brand and our customer,” Tabert says.

Brand management is becoming an increasingly important function for exhibit managers. In 2002, Panasonic united the major marketing disciplines, including marketing communications, trade shows and Internet marketing, under one Brand Marketing Group to consolidate expenses and improve its return on assets and branding.

“We felt that the trade show area was a key branding as well as a key expense area,” says Terry Shorrock, Director of Shows and Events for the Panasonic Brand Marketing Group, Secaucus, NY. “We needed to consolidate our expenses and try to communicate better to share properties, products, vendors and suppliers.”

Now managing a group of 11 trade show people, including six exhibit managers, Shorrock coordinates Panasonic’s trade show presence with up to seven other divisions. All told, his group manages 125 shows per year, including NAB and International CES.

“We work with the marketing manager — the decision maker who has profit-and-loss responsibility for the show,” he says. “My position is to lend corporate branding and consistency to all the shows.”

Battle of the budget
With sales, product marketing, advertising and upper management all involved in the decision-making process, the dollars available for trade show participation can come from just about anywhere. Still, 72 percent of companies surveyed by The Freeman Cos. and Tradeshow Week report that corporate marketing distributes the budget.

“Marketing dollars are shrinking, so the marketing department is trying to find other dollars. They’re going to other departments that might benefit from exhibit marketing, to get the dollars from them,” says Carol Fojtik, CEM, Senior Vice President of Hall-Erickson, Westmont, IL, and managing director for such shows as The Exhibitor Show and MINExpo International. “That slows down the sales cycle. They’re making the decisions later in the game, trying to hold onto their money as long as possible.”

To make the case for spending their share of the marketing dollar, exhibit managers are getting more sophisticated about setting goals and measuring results — from post-show surveys that measure intangible results, such as brand awareness, to lead tracking that measures leads-to-sales.

Working with Caret Face to Face, Newton, MA, and Exhibit Surveys, Red Bank, NJ, HP’s Gishler tracks results for more than a dozen trade events per year in terms of lead generation, brand awareness, customer education, and press and analyst exposure.

“Our budget cycle is six months. We used to plan a year out, and even at six months it’s subject to change,” she says. “If you sign up for these shows, and you’re not getting anything, your budget gets cut. Then you have to find dollars in another place — you’re bartering within your group for money to go to the shows that do work.”

To improve ROI on trade events, Coca-Cola’s Tabert retained an outside firm to formalize the process of evaluating performance. “It starts with establishing goals and objectives before the show,” he says. “At the show, it’s transactional — did we advance the sale, who was it with? We interview more than 100 attendees to see if our message was clear, did they get the information they wanted, did they get a Coke or another product to sample? We measure a lot, then apply what we learned to the next show.”

The findings have led to changes in the way Tabert staffs his booth — replacing subject matter experts with sales associates — and the way they engage the customer. “They’re small nuances, but I think they’ll have a significant impact on the things we measure.”

Such enhancements can make a dramatic difference in exhibitor satisfaction and good will toward show management. According to the Trade Show Exhibitors Association (TSEA) 2003 Industry Trends Survey, 65 percent of exhibitors now measure ROI, and of those who do, 86 percent use feedback from the exhibit staff as the No. 1 measure of performance. The number of quality leads and sales from leads are the next most frequently used measures (83 percent and 56 percent, respectively).

“Companies are not hesitant to cut their losses. If a show’s not the right place to be, they’re willing to walk way from that investment,” says Michael Bandy, President of TSEA, Chicago. “You’re seeing much shorter time frames, in terms of making decisions to participate. They may not be willing to sign up a year in advance. They may wait. That’s smart marketing.”

Looking for love
In this tough environment, exhibitors are looking for some love from show management. They may fundamentally believe in the value of your show, but they have to prove it to the team. They want open and honest communication, collaborative planning and consultative selling.

“We get bits and pieces of the research they do, but we’d like to be more of a partner with the major producer,” says Tabert. “We’d like to get into additional depth and detail about, in our case, non-alcoholic beverages. Help me understand your research as it relates to my product line. Help us understand your objectives earlier, so we can tailor our message better.”

In the healthcare industry — where pharmaceutical manufacturers’ interaction with healthcare professionals is governed by voluntary guidelines such as the PhRMA and AdvaMed Codes, as well as guidance documents enforced by the Office of Inspector General — exhibitors want the chance to influence conference programming based on what they hear their customers want.

“We’re talking with associations further in advance to identify what their program content might be,” says a member of the Healthcare Convention & Exhibitors Association (HCEA) board of directors. “The program and educational sessions are what drive our participation.”

But decisions about trade show participation — from formulating the marketing message to hosting an educational seminar — must be approved by the marketing, legal and procurement departments to ensure they’re in compliance with these codes and regulations.

“Compliance is the top imperative,” says Eric Allen, Executive Director of HCEA, Atlanta. “The show organizer needs to understand that they may only see or talk to the exhibit manager, but they are really dealing with a team of people back at headquarters. Show organizers need to seek out partnerships and relationships with their exhibitors to deal with the changing regulatory environment.

“These companies are continuously tinkering with their marketing mix to make sure that they have the best mix, and to ensure that they’re compliant,” he says. “It’s not just the exhibit manager that you need to convince of the value of your show. It’s the product manager, even legal. They’re all thinking hard and asking, ‘Are we OK here?’”

Selling the value of a show to a marketing team means speaking their language — talking not about booth space, but about brand equity in the industry.

“Concentrate on the mindset of the decision maker,” Cole advises. “When we’re dealing with a high-level decision maker, we get out of the notion of talking about shows. In a strategic context, it doesn’t work to pull out a prospectus and a floor plan. You have to talk to them about what drives them daily — profit, loss, efficiency, productivity, market share, brand loyalty.”

Cathy Chatfield-Taylor is a freelance writer/editor. E-mail cathy@cc-tunlimited.com.

Sidebar: The average Jane’s reality
Life has not been rosy for the average exhibit manager. According to industry trend surveys, she:
• Earns less money — The average salary reported in 2003 decreased from $57,071 in 2002 to $56,394. (Jane earns about 20 percent less than her male counterparts.)*
• Has less help — The proportion of people running an exhibit program without any help increased from 37 percent in 1993 to 57 percent in 2003.**
• Has less budget — The average trade show budget decreased 28 percent, from $1.1 million in 2002 to $.8 million in 2003.*
• Does fewer shows — The average exhibitor participated in 60 shows in 2003, compared with 114 shows in 2002.*
• Displays smaller exhibits — Compared with two years ago, the size of exhibits has decreased for 43 percent of exhibitors, stayed the same for 31 percent and increased for just 26 percent.***

*Source: Trade Show Exhibitors Association 2003 Salary Survey of Exhibit Managers
**Exhibitor Magazine’s 2003 Salary Survey
***Trade Show Exhibitors Association 2003 Industry Trends Report