Letters to the Editor

Ad Campaigns, Banding Together and Making Donations

Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 2/14/2005

A Jan. 24 opinion piece by Senior Associate Editor Heidi Genoist entitled "Pass the Buck, Literally" has provoked a response from several corners of the industry. Here are a few of those responses.

Dear Editor:

Your editorial in the Jan. 24 issue of Tradeshow Week makes interesting reading, but it's chock-full of faulty conclusions and lots of misstatements. More important, you have stumbled into the same trap that has been such a hazard for many, many others. That trap is the simple belief that if we spend lots and lots of money to support a brilliant industry promotion campaign, consumer behavior will change in ways that will inure to our industry's benefit.

If that logic were correct, we would all be consuming much more milk, beef and pork. Unfortunately, the statistics prove that despite exquisite, and now perhaps unconstitutional, funding mechanisms that have been used by some of these industries to fund their campaigns, consumer behaviors have not been changed at all. The same can be said about similar campaigns in other industries like cotton and wool. What these terribly expensive but unproductive campaigns do share in common is that the producers of all these products generally feel better when they see their industry advertising messages broadcast — even though they don't work to increase consumption.

I'll be the first to vigorously support an industry campaign that can alter consumer behavior and deliver more exhibitors and visitors to our events. Based upon the experience of other industries however, it is much more likely that changes in consumer behavior will be affected only by very specific product-related advertising. When Coca-Cola or Pepsi launch aggressive new advertising campaigns, and if they are effective campaigns, consumers will buy more product.

The same is true in our industry. When an exhibition organizer advertises her product — the event — one can measure the results in more attendance and more exhibitors. Of course, not all campaigns will work well; the underlying economic conditions of the nation or the industry sector affect response rates; and other factors come into play. But what remains universal is that specific product advertising campaigns can work much more effectively than generic industry-wide campaigns.

The Intl. Assn. for Exhibition Management and others will continue to consider industry-wide campaigns, but we must do so intelligently and only if we can realistically expect measurable results from the effort and the expense. In the meantime, don't expect any association in this industry to gut its most important membership events, and for many the greatest source of its operating revenues, by slicing 20 percent off the top to fund a "feel good" campaign, no matter how clever it might be.

So, I guess you could say, I'm literally passing this buck back to you.

Steven Hacker, President, IAEM, Dallas

Dear Editor:

The editorial by Heidi Genoist correctly highlights a major problem our industry has. Too many of the associations that represent our interests are "silos" who only consider their own needs and not those of the exhibition and convention industry as a whole.

Meanwhile, we continue to be very poorly represented in several areas: industry research; promoting face to face as an excellent marketing medium; and convincing politicians and government agencies that our interests are important. I think we need to finally get off the dime and undertake these steps:

1. Combine IAEM, the Society of Independent Show Organizers, Professional Convention Management Assn., Center for Exhibition Industry Research and Convention Industry Council, plus the convention council of the American Society of Assn. Executives, into one real powerhouse association called the Intl. Assn. of Event Organizers (IAEO) and locate its headquarters in Washington, D.C.
2. IAEO would generate $2 million per year to: undertake meaningful research that actually helps our industry; promote the benefits of exhibitions to attendees and exhibitors; and lobby our interests in front of politicians and government agencies like homeland security.
3. Raise this money via a voluntary "tax" on the profits of everyone who benefits from the exhibition industry: show organizers, suppliers, convention centers, CVBs, hotels, etc. I estimate that this tax could be set at 1/10th of 1 percent of profits. To illustrate, this would be about $75,000 for the largest organizer (VNU) and the same amount for the largest supplier (GES Exposition Services) — very fair and reasonable in my opinion.