EVENT AT A GLANCE Objective: Shorten the adoption cycle of new technologies for exhibit and event programs by increasing clients’ understanding of and comfort level with the innovations. Strategy: Showcase the functions and benefits of new technologies while letting attendees get hands-on to overcome their fears of investing in unfamiliar equipment. Tactics: Publish pricing for featured technologies pre-event to reduce cost-based fears. Showcase technologies by function or messaging capabilities, not cost or size. Results: Within four months after the event, more than half of the attendees had integrated a featured technology at an event or exhibit, eight months ahead of the target adoption time. Ninety-six percent of attendees reported that What2007 inspired them with new ideas for their events and exhibits.

t’s impossible to ignore the signs that technology is evolving at light speed. If you buy your kids cell phones or iPods today, don’t be surprised in three months when they’re begging for an upgrade. And if the transition to digital broadcasting has you considering dumping your TV with the bunny ears for a flat-screen LCD set, consider waiting a few more months — those hot-today LCDs will probably be “yeah, what else you got?” yawners tomorrow (and be discounted accordingly).

Just like consumer technology, the tools of the trade for the exhibit and event industries are advancing rapidly. Static signage and been-there-seen-that PowerPoint presentations no longer inspire exhibit and event attendees to take notice — they inspire naps. To get the attention of consumers accustomed to high-tech handhelds, high-definition TVs, and a saturated world of digital multimedia, dynamic technology is a must.

But while consumers clamor for the latest i-creation the moment it hits the shelves, exhibiting companies have been more hesitant to quickly adopt new technologies, and for good reason. Many of the technologies are significant investments, and aren’t available for a pre-purchase test drive at the local Best Buy.

And just like the average person, most companies also fear the new and unknown, and it’s hard to overcome that fear simply by talking about a new technology without showing it, explains Tom Frisby, vice president of strategic services for Orlando-based think(form), an independent creative arm of the Chicago-based event and exhibit firm Czarnowski. “Many customers who aren’t in the Generation X and Generation Y demographics are not as comfortable with technology,” Frisby says. “There can be a great new technology, but people are hesitant to invest unless they’ve had hands-on experience.”

A REFRESHING IDEA

Czarnowski sensed this hesitance when it met with one of its biggest clients, the Coca-Cola Co., in 2007. “Coca-Cola’s events had become a little stale, and the company wanted to use new technology,” Frisby says. “We’d been pushing Coke to use new technologies, but there was a lot of reservation because the company couldn’t see them firsthand. There is a big difference between seeing a video clip of a new technology versus getting up close.”

So when Coca-Cola’s reps asked Czarnowski to showcase the latest and greatest in event technology, the company jumped on what it saw as an opportunity to reach out to its other clients as well. Knowing many of them were also nervous about adopting new technologies, Czarnowski decided to hold an open-house-style educational showcase of the latest technical innovations.

Czarnowski’s goal: To ease clients past their fears about untested technologies by giving them firsthand, hands-on experience with the very tools Czarnowski believed would dynamically support each client’s brand and messaging objectives. David Frey, author of “The Small Business Marketing Bible,” and founder of www.marketingbestpractices.com, refers to this sales approach as “education-based marketing.” According to Frey, education-based marketing “uses education as the tool to get people to respond to offers and sell products and services,” and replaces “the selling pitch with an education pitch” to position the presenter as a consultative product expert, helping to overcome clients’ aversion to a straight-up sales message. “People sit up and listen when you share important facts and expert information that helps them make a good buying decision,” Frey writes.

SAY WHAT?

Playing off the question on its clients’ minds — What technology is on the market? — Czarnowski fittingly dubbed its tech academy What2007: Emerging Trends and Technologies in the Exhibit and Event Industries. Czarnowski reps would serve as tour guides, leading guests through a lab-like gallery of wow-factor tools and helping them to “go hands-on with technologies that are relevant to their audience,” Frisby says.

Partially an extension of a popular technology presentation Frisby gave at the annual EXHIBITOR conference in Las Vegas with Jim Milanowski, vice president and general manager of Czarnowski’s Atlanta office, the showcase would feature technologies large and small, from the emerging to the
established, and provide ample educational opportunities on using them to enhance events and exhibits.

“We wanted to highlight new technologies, but we also couldn’t make the assumption that everyone was aware of what’s been out there for the last five years,” Frisby says. “We also wanted to make sure that we brought in technologies to handle everything from a small-scale space to a large environment.”

Czarnowski assessed the messaging opportunities for each technology, and brought in a variety of devices that could deliver visuals, text and information, sound, and interaction, allowing the company to match the right technologies to its clients’ wide variety of brand identities and communication objectives. “Showcasing all these technologies in one venue at one time allowed us to explore the best way of articulating each client’s messaging,” Frisby says.

While planning its hands-on, event-tech imaginarium, Czarnowski established a comprehensive set of goals. The company aimed for 50 attendees, of which it wanted at least 90 percent to report the event was a good use of their time and a source of inspiration for new ideas for their events and exhibits.

The company also hoped to influence 75 percent of guests to seriously consider adopting one or more of the technologies within a year, and prompt 50 percent to actually do so in that timeframe. While normal technology-adoption cycles vary based on a company’s size, budget, and messaging, Frisby says that adoption within a year would be considerably faster than normal for many companies.

PLANNING IN HYPER-DRIVE

With Coca-Cola’s request behind the genesis of What2007, Czarnowski wanted Coke to agree that this kind of showcase would be the right way for its staff to learn more about event technologies before forging ahead with logistics and execution. Coca-Cola green-lit the plan, but just four weeks ahead of the dates Czarnowski had targeted for the event. To pull it all together, Czarnowski dedicated six staff to full-time event planning and execution, and partnered with outside vendors to bring in the wide variety of event and exhibit technologies.

While design staff worked to transform Czarnowski’s Atlanta facility into the technology showcase, the company sent 150 open-ended e-mail invitations to prospective attendees in the region. But R.S.V.P.s were not limited to e-mail invitees. “We asked recipients to invite other members of their staff and friends within the industry,” Frisby says. Among the invitees were also new prospects the company met at the EXHIBITOR conference. “This was an opportunity for them to come see the technology we talked about at the conference,” he says.

The e-mail invitations linked recipients to the What2007 Web site, where they could register for a morning or evening event session, and view a “CliffsNotes version of the event presentations, including pricing of technology and rental options,” Frisby says. Sharing the pricing ahead of time was a strategic choice: Czarnowski hoped that laying out prices and rental options before the event would show smaller companies that new technologies didn’t require a loan from Warren Buffett, alleviating fears about cost that might prevent them from attending the event.

The online registration, along with a pre-event call-center effort, allowed Czarnowski to gather information to customize the event experience to attendees’ needs. Attendees responded to basic questions about the kinds of technologies that interested them and how they hoped to use these tools to enhance their company’s brand messaging. Czarnowski account executives reviewed registered attendees’ answers to customize the guided tours, and to help glean which of the featured technologies would be of highest interest to them.

RED-CARPET-ROLLOUT

Beginning the evening of Sept. 18th and continuing into the following day, attendees arrived at Czarnowski’s transformed Atlanta facility to find a luxe red-carpet welcome complete with valet service. Four large red and white letters on the overhang above the building’s entrance spelled “what,” piquing guest interest by inspiring a stream of questions: What was new and hot in event technology? What did it look like? What did it do? What could it do for me?

A large LED screen played a welcome video outside the building entrance — a sleek and simple technology to whet guests’ appetites. At the reception desk, each visitor received a nametag. But they weren’t just laminated printouts on a safety pin; these nametags held an embedded RFID chip. One of the featured technologies, RFID allows exhibit and event hosts to track guests’ movements throughout an environment and the amount of time they spend at a display — valuable measurements that can help improve future events.

Next, attendees paired up with their Czarnowski account-executives-turned-tour-guides as the techno safari began. The RFID nametag chip triggered an electronic audio system at the tour’s start that greeted each guest by name, while a welcome screen simultaneously displayed information on technologies of interest to the guest, based on his or her pre-event input. During the tour, account executives paid special attention to those technologies of interest, and provided relevant information on how they could be used to enhance brand messaging.

“We wanted to create a very logical journey and transition from one technology to the next,” Frisby says of the layout of technologies on the tour. To that end, Czarnowski arranged technologies by their function or messaging capabilities, not their size or cost. For example, small digital picture frames sat next to large-scale plasma screens — two very different means of conveying a visual message. This strategic arrangement, combined with the pre-event feedback, allowed account executives to give guests a personally relevant tour.

Attendees also received ample time to break away from the tour and explore the dynamic showcase environment on their own. “The lighting, movement, and interactive mediums were impressive,” notes attendee Gina Schutte, the marketing events supervisor for Covington, GA-based Bard Urological, a division of medical product and service provider C. R. Bardly Inc.

Dim-lit rooms with vibrant installations of large-scale visual technology like MiStrip and Steal screens (lightweight, transparent, and shapeable LED video displays) entranced visitors. A refreshment bar adjacent to one large LED structure facilitated extended oohing and ahhing. These immersive environments gave way to displays with interactive technologies such as touchscreens and GroundFX (a system that lets guests manipulate a visual or display projected onto a floor) to allow for hands- and feet-on playtime. “I was like a kid in a candy store,” Schutte says. “There was a different ambience around every corner.”

Each of the two, three-hour events also included a 20-minute presentation from Frisby and Milanowski in a futuristic theater, which was decked out with cylindrical white chairs and disco-inspired lighting. The presentation — given on a Plexiglas-coated LED floor while binary-code animations ran on a large background screen like a scene straight out of the movie, “The Matrix” — featured examples of how the various technologies have been effectively used in actual events and exhibits. “We wanted to demonstrate appropriate uses of the technology, not just using technology for technology’s sake,” Frisby says.

A local jazz band entertained guests after the tour and presentation, while account executives chatted with each client to answer additional questions and suggest ways to incorporate featured technologies at a future event or exhibit. If clients expressed interest in a certain technology, account executives pushed them to think about how or if it could effectively communicate their brand. “For instance, if the clients were interested in Stealth screen, why were they intrigued, how would they use it, and what messaging would they put on it?” Frisby says.

HIGH-TECH DIVIDENDS

The lure of the eye-popping technology paid off, as Czarnowski drew 69 guests to What2007, 39 percent above its goal of 50. Even after the red carpet was rolled up and the plasma screens packed away, Czarnowski kept the What2007 Web site live for four months after the event to encourage the spread of information on the featured technologies, and to administer a post-event survey for event attendees.

The survey revealed that What2007 exceeded all pre-event goals. Ninety-seven percent of visitors reported the event was a good use of their time, and 96 percent felt inspired with new ideas for using technology in events and exhibits, both above the 90 percent pre-event goals.

“The event gave us an idea of what technologies were out there,” Schutte says. “We want our exhibits to reflect the innovative nature of the products we sell, and this kind of technology can help us do that. Time after time, we refer back to the information on the technology they showcased at What2007.”

More importantly, within just four months, 57 percent of attendees had already incorporated one of the featured technologies at an event or exhibit, and 79 percent were seriously considering using one — adoption trends running eight months ahead of the pre-event goals.

Schutte, for example, says Bard Urological plans to incorporate the Stealth screen technology she saw at What2007 at its events in 2009. “This technology can integrate with the current booth structures we own, but will bring life and movement to our environment,” she explains.

The success of What2007 inspired Czarnowski to reprise the event in 2008. What2008: What is New in Trade Show and Event Marketing, was held Oct. 9, 2008, at Czarnowski’s Hayward, CA, location. The company tailored this event’s content to focus on scalability and cost reduction for events and exhibits, showing attendees how they can strategically plan and maximize their exhibit and event programs in the midst of an uncertain economy. Frisby says similar events are also on the docket for Los Angeles and Chicago in 2009.

Like your soon-to-be-outdated MP3 player and so-yesterday laptop, current event and exhibit technology will no doubt die out as the next generation of gadgets comes around. But while what’s new and what’s now is always changing, Czarnowski’s What events will undoubtedly continue to help its clients see what’s next. e