Customer Wishes: Good Buyers, Better Communication on Exhibitors' Minds

By Heidi Genoist -- Tradeshow Week, 3/14/2005

Who's going to be the next JetBlue? Who's going to be the one who comes up with a completely new business model that catches us all by surprise and takes away our customers?"

Margaret Pederson, CEO of Primedia Business Exhibitions, asked these questions in response to another put to her at Tradeshow Week's Fastest 50 event in Dallas last fall: What keeps you awake at night?

Pederson was encapsulating a worry collectively expressed by many show managers through interviews, white papers and conference topics over the last year. They all seem to wonder what their exhibitors want, and how they can give it to them.

They should be wondering. Since the economic downturn, companies are looking at their tradeshow exhibit programs differently. Study after study shows that exhibitors are weighing every show, and every dollar going to shows.

Eighty-four percent of respondents to TSW's last Corporate Exhibitors Survey said they set objectives before exhibiting in a tradeshow — that's up from percentages in the 60s and 70s during the 1990s.

Yet 62 percent said they didn't have better tradeshow results in 2004 than in 2003, and two-thirds said their company's opinion of show management hadn't improved.

The number of exhibitors and net square feet of exhibit space in the most recent TSW Quarterly Report of Tradeshow Statistics were flat, growing only 0.5 percent and 2.8 percent, respectively, compared to the same quarter in 2003.

What's more, exhibitors are increasingly aware of the power their ambivalence holds.

"I definitely think we're able to negotiate (with show managers) more than we could five or six years ago," said Jennifer Wong, marketing manager for Grace Note, a digital music products maker that exhibits in many shows each year, including Intl. CES. "Before the downturn, everyone used to exhibit. Then after the downturn, we had more of an opportunity to get what we wanted."

So, what do they want?

The answer, like that of any customer when asked what he wants from a provider, can be summarized simply under the heading of better service. Explaining what constitutes better exhibitor service, however, is a little more complicated.

According to TSW research, the top requests all involve attendance. A recent study of exhibitors asked how show management could help them be more effective event marketers, apart from lowering costs. Nearly 16 percent wanted higher quality or more attendees; 12.2 percent wanted a pre-show attendee list with detailed demographics; and 11 percent wanted more attendance promotion.

"Qualified buyers is a big issue," said Joan Fyk, president of children's clothing manufacturer Puddle Duds. Fyk, who exhibits in fashion-industry tradeshows in both Las Vegas and New York, said she often sees titles on badges indicating that attendees are from other professions, like the medical field.

Next on exhibitors' wish list for show management, according to TSW research, is better interaction. Following the top three items about attendance are four having to do with communication and professionalism.

Accounting for nearly 26 percent of respondents' answers to the survey, they included being more responsive and cooperative; providing more timely communication; being more professional and efficient; and being more idea-oriented.

Communication is the most serious problem, in Wong's view. "I think the biggest issue is the lack of adequate information."

Wong said, particularly at smaller shows, missing information that's difficult to get usually relates to the nuts and bolts of move-in — things that should be covered in one, coherent exhibitor kit — but can even extend to areas like sponsorships.

Still, the way TSW's question was framed (asking exhibitors what show management could to do help them, apart from reducing costs), it's apparent that money is a big concern.

More than half of participants in the last two years' corporate exhibitor surveys said they'd be working with the same budget or a smaller one than they had the previous year.

"Between the high cost of space, transportation and meals, shows are becoming prohibitive, especially for small companies," said Fyk.

She encouraged show management to "think of the exhibitors instead of what works for the show to make money."