GSCs Expand Out From Core Market Sectors

If exhibitors need carpeting, a table set up or even a booth designed, they know where to go: to their general service contractor.

But if they wanted help figuring out how to establish a strong identity for their brand, or how to get the maximum return on their investment, they had to go to someone else – until now.

In the last year, the two biggest contractors in the business, Freeman and GES Exposition Services, have branched out beyond their core area of expertise with the acquisition of companies that specialize in marketing and measuring ROI.

Viad, GES' parent company, made the most recent purchase Jan. 4, when it acquired The Becker Group for $24.3 million. The Becker Group, according to Viad, is an experiential marketing company that specializes in creating immersive, entertaining attractions and brand-based experiences. Its clients tend to be retail centers, movie studios, museums, leading consumer brands and casinos.

How does all that fit into what GES – or even Exhibitgroup/Giltspur, another Viad company – does? For one thing, it may offer the two traditional companies in general contracting and exhibit design a whole new set of customers.

“Becker Group will be able to use the global resources and expertise of Exhibitgroup/Giltspur and the GES worldwide network for the fabrication, installation and dismantling of the environments and exhibits that it designs,” said Carrie Long, Viad's director of investor relations.

That's not all.

The Becker Group, with its background in brand marketing - which includes projects such as touring exhibits to promote animated films “Ratatouille” and “Cars” - will give GES and ExhibitGroup/Giltspur another service to offer tradeshow clients: agency-style marketing.

GES isn't the first general service contractor to spread its wings in this way. Last April, Freeman bought Chicago-based ProActive, a company that supports face-to-face marketing events.

“What we know is, the show organizer role has changed,” said Carrie Freeman Parsons, Freeman's chief marketing officer. “It's not just selling booth space and sponsorships and hoping the customers have a good experience. They need to be more strategic and consultative.”

Parsons said with ProActive, Freeman can better help its clients understand and enhance their brands. In the past, she added, Freeman wasn't at the table for discussions about topics like “how to bring a brand alive.”

Now, “we feel like we can bring value by being a part of the strategic level and a part of those discussions,” she said.

Freeman has several large corporate clients with multiple events, and some of them already have started working with ProActive on their marketing needs, Parsons said.

For now, the service is not available at the individual exhibitor level.

“We're not there yet,” she added, “but I hope (we will be).”

Tony Lorenz, who is still president, founded ProActive in 1992. It provides several services:

• communications strategy
• creative direction
• content development and production
• assessment and measurement of live events, meetings, tradeshows and corporate training

Parsons said Lorenz asks his clients what results they want to achieve. Whatever the answer, ProActive has a system for measuring the results, making changes based on the findings and then measuring them again to see whether the bar has moved. “It's not just about creative,” she added.

GES is also interested in going beyond its new marketing services to offer clients the ability to measure their ROI.

In November, Viad bought Ethnometrics, a company that gives exhibitors, show organizers and retailers a data-driven tool for improving ROI.

Steve Moster, GES executive vice president of products and services, said Ethnometrics uses video technology and six-sigma analysis. “For example, Ethnometrics measures the exhibitor's interaction rate with the attendees at the show, the duration of the interaction and the conversion to the sales lead,” he said.

To improve ROI, Moster added, exhibitors have to improve both their interaction and sales conversion rates.

Ethnometrics provides several specific services:

• consulation on exhibit design
• booth and sales training
• consultation on showfloor layout, key exhibition areas and registration

Moster said it “enables show organizers and exhibitors to make fact-based, informed decisions regarding their events.”

While GES and Freeman have made similar moves to new markets, it was Freeman that took the first step.

“It's obvious there's an appetite for expanded marketing services,” Parsons said. “Our competitiors have seen the results. I'm assuming that's why other contractors are looking at this too. They are seeing what we're doing.”