AllianceTech Wins With Razzle-dazzle

It was a tough crowd at the Corporate Event Marketing Assn. Summit 2007 held at the Hilton La Jolla (Calif.) Torrey Pines July 22–24. After all, it was filled with suppliers and event planners from the information technology sector.

But on the event's second day, attendees applauded one new tech product. During the second annual Technology Shoot Out session, in which seven companies paid to have five minutes each to pitch their products, AllianceTech's president of sales and marketing, Roger Lewis, pulled out all the stops and introduced Smart Messaging. The audience used interactive voting to name it their favorite.

"Being a winner two years in a row shows us we have a huge value proposition," Lewis said. "These are event leaders in technology; they're not Joe Blow."

Last year, Lewis unveiled a new radio frequency identification tracking technology. This year, he took it a step further with Smart Messaging, which allows attendees to walk into an exhibitor's booth, stand in front of a product demonstration, have their RFID tags read and view a demo based on their specific interests.

To illustrate the point, Lewis put on a hat marked "Sales Manager" and described what an attendee would see on a video monitor in a booth. He also wore a hat shaped like a beer mug, saying it stood for event planners. Their video message had to do with the timing of happy hour, which got a laugh from the crowd.

Most attendees gave Lewis credit for showmanship, but they also took to the product itself, even without all the bells and whistles.

"I thought the presentation was good and made a lot of sense," said Kirk Landry, senior sales manager at the Metropolitan New Orleans Convention & Visitors Bureau. "From a tradeshow perspective and an attendee perspective, it looked like something that would be attractive as you're walking by. I thought the intuitiveness of that was good."

Matthew Hill, president of exhibit staff training company The Hill Group, thought AllianceTech's product was clever. "It would be unique and would attract people," he said.

Smart Messaging wasn't the only product that generated buzz among the crowd after the Shoot Out. Altus Learning Systems, in partnership with George P. Johnson, pitched a product that could make getting to an early-morning conference session on time a thing of the past.

Altus' Xtreme Knowledge Sharing Platform Release 5.0 allows attendees not only to watch conference sessions post-show online, but also to access accompanying slides that they can organize themselves using a searchable keyword database mixed in with Web 2.0 capabilities, such as wikis and blogs.

Sebastian Grady, COO of Altus, told the crowd, "Within 24 hours, we will all forget 66 percent of what we discuss." With this product, he added, conference attendees who, for example, learn about a product during a keynote speech and want to hear about it again after the event can log on and search for the exact place it was mentioned, play the video and refresh their memory.

Grady said the product had been used extensively for events as small as 25 people and as big as Intel's Developer Forum, which attracts thousands. He took part in CEMA's Technology Shoot Out, he added, because he felt event marketers that represent technology companies were the perfect audience.

"What they want to do is sell more at the end of an event," Grady said.

Erika Brunke, executive director of CEMA, said introducing new technology to the association's members was the inspiration behind having the inaugural Shoot Out last year.

"We as an association weren't utilizing the best technology for our own conference," she said. "It's a great way for attendees to get educated and, at minimum, introduced to seven new technologies."

Brunke added that CEMA has a strict no-selling policy at its summit, so the Shoot Out is one of only two opportunities for eager suppliers to strut their stuff.

"Any conversations need to be started by event marketers," she added. "Vendors are not allowed to ask about a company's RFP or budget." If an event marketer came to her and said he or she was being hassled, Brunke would have a word with the vendor. "We take it very seriously," she said.

So, any sanctioned chance to pitch products is golden.

The other opportunity to do that was on the second night of the summit at a Roundtable Reception, where attendees switched tables every five minutes to hear about products and services from companies that paid to take part.

Because AllianceTech won the Shoot Out, Lewis got another coveted chance to talk about Smart Messaging at the roundtable— except this time it didn't cost the company a dime.

Several other companies pitched their products during the Shoot Out:

• GES Exposition Services said its Intellikit allowed customers to streamline everything online.
• Unisfair talked about its virtual fairs.
• H.B. Stubbs showed off Exhibit Express, geared toward simplifying event planners' lives.
• ITN Intl. had cell phone technology that allowed people to swap information wirelessly.
• Opus Solutions highlighted its Event Resource Center that enabled companies to keep a global calendar of all their events online with corresponding information for each one.

"A half a dozen people came up to me afterward and said, 'Great job. We want to talk to you,'" said Mike Sorgani, salesperson for ITN Intl. "That was worth not winning ... almost."

And in case you were at CEMA and have forgotten about the new products already: Don't worry, Altus recorded it.