You’ve heard it: “never let a serious crisis go to waste.”
This certainly applies to the COVID19 crisis…its impact on the world, our industry, our business, our families, ourselves.
But unlike other disruptions (9/11, 2008 economic crisis), COVID19 is more difficult. It’s an invisible disease without a cure that shuts down how we live, work, recreate, and engage others. In short, it causes paralysis of “doing what we do every day.”
During these times, isolation reminds us that human connection is essential to our well-being and can’t be replaced by Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or other technologies. These digital tools are certainly nice to have, but don’t fill the human void of separation and desire for engagement. However, this crisis is a stark, and important reminder, that the traditional design/build/service business model of the EDPA community is primarily focused on F2F shows-events, meaning we are vulnerable to postponements and cancellations for the foreseeable future. How will we respond?
Time to evolve
Our industry has always evolved to better serve the exhibiting community. For example, we’ve innovated new products/services to lower the expense to exhibit (portable-system-tension-fabric exhibits), up-leveled labor services (introduction of independent I&D companies) and optimized exhibitor performance (engagement marketing, staff training) to name a few. Looking to an uncertain future, brand-side marketers are evaluating and revising their F2F playbook to include “omnichannel” marketing, another challenge and opportunity for our community
Omnichannel. New buzzword?
CEIR research has consistently documented that we live in an omnichannel marketing world. First documented in the 2014 Marketing Spend Study and again in the 2018 report, 68% of brand marketers that exhibit also use one or more digital channels in their marketing mix.
“Omnichannel” defines a strategy…the integration of “Live” + “Digital” to create a unified message, voice, and brand. It’s where "live" and "virtual" shows/events coalesce to deliver engaging brand stories for audiences everywhere they meet, day in and day out.
For brand-side marketers, omnichannel is about content: how to leverage it, package it, and present it for consumption in both “live” and “virtual-digital” spaces.
The benefits are many:
· Repackaging content is smart: converting existing show content into consumable digital content optimizes time and expense.
· Unlimited creative opportunities: content can be hosted on interactive microsites using demos, simulations, gamification, polling, live feeds and more. Or, entire shows/conferences can be hosted on mega-portals with capabilities that “mimic” live shows.
· Reaches new audiences: amplifies content to reach larger, more diverse audiences who can’t attend a physical show/event.
· Extends shelf-life: content can live and be accessible 365/24/7.
· Easily adaptable: content can be revised in “real-time”.
· Protects against future interruptions: ensures the steady flow of audience engagement regardless of future interruptions.
· Diversifies revenue: creates new opportunities to monetize.
Is Omnichannel for you?
For the EDPA community, omnichannel is more than a buzzword. It’s a business pivot that raises a series of questions that each exhibit firm owner/operator needs to reconcile:
· Is there client-prospect demand for virtual-digital capabilities to suggest an investment in talent, overhead, equipment?
· What’s the expense and potential ROI of adding this capability?
· Can my sales people adapt to selling these services? How?
· What’s the cost in lost sales if I don’t add this capability?
· Given demand and expense to build my own internal capability, am I better to partner with an outside firm to deliver this?
A quick website search suggests that at most, 40% of EDPA members offer omnichannel capabilities (called Digital, Virtual, or other). The most frequently reason for doing so:
· Expands expertise.
· Diversifies revenue.
· Up-levels strategic discussions.
· Creates point of difference vis-à-vis competitors.
· Create new source of revenue.
· Appeals to new generation of tradeshows/events managers.
What Digital Services are Omnichannel?
The digital suite is a “living laboratory,” turbocharged each day by organizations introducing new capabilities.At this point, digital deliverables, in order of complexity, look like this:
Most Complex: Virtual Conference-Expos. Online simulated tradeshows-conferences, A powerful software backbone supports multi-track session agendas with live video-audio, on-demand sessions, streaming keynotes and interactive floor/expo with attendee matchmaking and networking.
Complex: 3D Immersive Environments: Virtual exhibits and expo floors, product explorers, augmented or virtual reality.
Simpler: Livestream-On-Demand Videos: Live speakers, product launches, and other embedded website content.
Simplest: Event Hub: Static or interactive site with exhibit fly-throughs, product information, interactive simulations, quizzes, gamification and other.
Now What?
Former CEIR President & industry veteran, Doug Ducate, CEM, CMP shares in a recent blog that “creativity and new ideas are not just the purview of the organizers…and that suppliers of the goods and services needed to successfully produce the events possess a wealth of information on how things come together, and they should be included in the dialogue.”
The COVID-19 disruption is forcing a conversation that had already been a whisper. Now is the time for our industry voices to corral the chatter, define the moment and reshape the event world.
