The very entertaining MC, James Valentine introduced the conference as an analysis of the media all around us and how it impacts and interacts.
Joyce DiMascio has been with EEAA for around five months now and sees her role as building a stronger voice with a more compelling story for the association.
DiMascio reiterated that “the power of face to face meetings is more compelling than ever”.
Matt Pearce (EEAA Chair)
Traditional media audience is getting older – Gen Y do not consume in the traditional manner. We must embrace social media.
The GFC is here to say – it’s up to us as to how we deal with it.
Renewed interest by governments in exhibition space. Victorian government understand that exhibitions drive business
IN 2012 EEAA will be launching Market Monitor to be delivered very six months. Aim to build a portfolio of evidence on how exhibitions deliver and to provide statistical information that supports marketing efforts.
Dr Adam Fraser
Another excellent presentation from Adam – I’ve seen him a couple of time before and I always get something new from his presentation.
“Multi-tasking is actually switch-tasking. You are not actually doing many things at once but rapidly shifting between them”.
Heath Campanaro – Imagination (Australia)
Heath is General Manager of Imagination Australia and he spent over half his presentation telling us the history of the company (started in London in the mid-70s) and how wonderful Imagination are before finally getting to a case study on how they deal with the Ford Motor account.
Imagination are the creative team behind this year’s Sydney New Year’s Eve celebrations – but we got no insight into what is being planned or for that matter why they were chosen for the event. Just that they are fabulous.
Dustin Lockett – FremantleMedia Enterprises
Dustin looked at the trend of turning TV shows into very successful live experiences without really going into a lot of specifics.
His company are targeting a demographic that I certainly do not fit into. I’ve never watched most of the shows he mentioned and so I am certainly not familiar with shows such as Next Top Model, MasterChef, X factor, et al. so I really don’t know how the “Live Experiences” offered would work, but apparently they do.
Dustin’s main case study was of Grand Designs Live , launched in London in 2005 with 391 exhibitors, which has grown to 608 in 2011. GDL has now expanded to Birmingham, South Africa and Australia. Although I’m a huge fan of Grand Designs the TV show, I can’t see the appeal of a home and lifestyle tradeshow branded as a Grand Designs experience. But then again they pull the crowds in so they know their market and as Dustin said “get the content right and the price right and the people will flock to it”
Dustin then touched on why Next Top Model and Masterchef Live have been so successful. It’s all about being interactive – static displays will not cut it anymore.
Bernie Johnson – Adrenalin Media
For those still trying to come to terms with just how online marketing works, Bernie’s presentation gave plenty of insights. His presentation was based around what he calls the Loyalty Loop which focusses in particular on how to get customers back and how to use their feedback to encourage other customers into the loop.
A very useful presentation.
Rob Manson – MOB
Rob gave an extensive presentation on “augmented reality”. I thought this related to gen y kids at a concert watching the entire performance on the screen of their phone.
But no. This is really cool stuff and he had plenty of video clips to show it all in action. Essentially this is technology reacting with a human interface. The first time I encountered this was in the 1990s in the TV show Red Dwarf which featured the VR game “Better Than Life”.
Well the technology is not all that much different to what was envisaged by the writers of Red Dwarf but it is certainly now much more refined and could appear in a trade show situation or pretty much anywhere.
The Great Debate – Exhibitions will be a redundant channel in future.
A lively debate between the protagonists – David Sherlock (Tradevent), Shannon Hocking (Sydney Showground), Frank Matus (Diversified Exhibitions) and Kioron Haycock (Reed Events), Rod Peter (FabFrame), Mark Magennis (Decorative Events)
SCEC
Noted just how much effort SCEC put into this event – technical production and catering. They were out to impress (and I was impressed)
SCEC chef Jason and Executive Chef Uwe
