Who the Heck's in My Booth?

At any given time, during any given show, people drift in and out of exhibitors' booths. Some attendees allow their registration cards to be swiped, letting the exhibitor know they would like to hear more about their products. However, many don't, even though they might spend a significant amount of time in the booth and are clearly interested in the products available there.

Who are these unaccounted for people, and what were they doing in the booth? Until now, nobody knew for sure. They were able to remain anonymous, and even after a day in what seemed to be a packed booth, the leads collected often didn't reflect the actual booth traffic, or even the number of people truly interested in what the exhibitor had to offer.

With this quandary in mind, a new product to track more accurately what's going on in a booth, radio frequency identification-based Booth Traffic Analytics, will be tested at the Radiological Society of North America Scientific Assembly & Annual Meeting at Chicago's McCormick Place Nov. 25-30.

“RSNA is excited to offer RFID technology, as it will provide us with an opportunity to better understand our attendees' needs and preferences,” said Steve Drew, RSNA assistant executive director. So far, he added, between 10 and 20 of the larger exhibitors have said they might use the technology at the November show, but none of them have signed on the dotted line yet for the product developed jointly by Experient and Alliance Tech.

But Bob Lucke, Experient's executive vice president of product management, said after he and Drew recently gave a demonstration to some top exhibitors they asked a lot of questions and “expressed a desire to work it into their booth plan and work it into their budget.”

Here's how the technology works: Let's say you're an attendee who has wandered into a booth because a product has caught your eye. An exhibit salesperson happens to be doing a demonstration and you stick around to watch.

Luckily, if you're an exhibitor at RSNA who took the leap of faith, opted for the RFID technology and set it up near that particular product, a reader can scan the attendee's badge and send you a Smart Message, alerting you that a certain category of buyer is in the booth, allowing you to introduce yourself.

The technology also tracks general attendee behavior within the booth: What products are people most interested in? How much time do they spend looking at each one?

And for attendees who are concerned about being hounded post-show, no worries: The RFID chip in your name tag only has a serial number, not a name.

Drew said, “(RFID) isn't meant to replace lead retrieval, but to enhance it or allow an exhibitor to monitor traffic in and out of a booth.”

Experient does the housing and registration for the RSNA show already and has worked with the association for the last few years to deploy RFID technology to track attendees, detailing which exhibit halls or educational sessions are most popular, for instance.

“We've worked with RSNA for 20 years, and in the last several years they've come to appreciate RFID capabilities,” Lucke said.

With Experient's RFID technology in place, he added, it made sense to partner with AllianceTech, which makes its money measuring the effectiveness of corporate events and drawing conclusions related to attendee behavior.

The RSNA show will be the first time RFID technology has been used in a booth, primarily because until now the actual RFID-enabled badges were too expensive and not quite up to snuff.

“Part of the reason it wasn't employed 10 to 15 years ago was (RFID) wasn't easily managed, except in the manufacturing process where it's very predictable,” Drew said. “But for putting on a person, all bets are off. You never know what they're going to do with it.”

As an example, he added, the sensors can be thrown off by certain metals, and people sometimes carry a clipboard or notebook with metal spirals.

Plus, Drew said, the badges that once cost $3 apiece now are about 50 cents. “For 30,000 people, that's a lot,” he added.

There are approximately 700 exhibiting companies expected at RSNA this year but, even if only a handful of them end up using RFID in their booths, Drew thinks it's worth it.

“This is more break-even for us right now,” he said. “The goal is to evaluate this year and see how accurate it was. It could significantly add to (exhibitor's) ROI and could help them much better understand what they're selling.”

Lucke said the technology isn't for everyone. An exhibitor with a 10'x10' booth small enough to easily manage traffic, for example, wouldn't benefit from it. “It's a solution to a problem they don't have,” he added.

But, for a larger exhibitor like, say, Toshiba with its 80'x240' booth at RSNA, Lucke said, “They have a lot of customers in and out, and now they can know who they are and what they are doing.”