Feathr has piqued the interest of the exhibition industry’s upper echelons. Its co-founder Aidan Augustin explains why.
- Interview by Tom Hall
What’s your background and why events?
Our history starts outside events. (Co-founder) Alexander Levantal and I were students at the University of Florida from 2009.
I had an internship, surrounded by start-ups, during which I first properly encountered professional networking. Like many, I found business cards to be a pain and, with smart phone use rapidly increasing, at 25 per cent adoption, I figured we should make an app to make that easier.
How did this project evolve into Feathr?
I created the business card app as a side project, then Alexander and I decided to drop out of University to focus on it full time. We realised that, because so much networking takes place at events, we should partner with trade shows and other gatherings. That led us to chapter two of Feathr: building event apps. Customers began to request a custom-branded version for their apps. Then later they wanted a schedule, then maps and it soon became a full featured event app.
What was the event app landscape like at this time?
Cvent had bought Crowd Compass, and we were now working at over 300 events in the US. We felt networking was a USP for us, but we wanted the app to be able to grow attendance and grow sponsors.
We wanted it to be useful after the event was over. That led to chapter three, which directly came out of the feedback from clients. They wanted to leverage online reach and promote sponsors and exhibitors. Now we have the website analytics.
How has Feathr changed exhibitions?
By showing the right advert at the right time, on a section of a trade show website we are able
to personalise the experience. For example, MCM Comic Con’s website has one section talking about Marvel superheroes. Here
we can show the user ads about The Avengers, and use bespoke messaging. Then we can send personalised emails and social to the user, with landing pages.
AIDAN AUGUSTIN OVERVIEW
Industrial Engineering Intern
Space
Systems Loral 2011 – Aug 2011
Co-Founder
& CEO
Feathr
Sep 2011 – May 2015
Co-Founder & President Feathr
June 2015 – Present
We also added a chatbot to the site to ask questions with the goal of providing another source of information. Chatbots feel more interactive and answer the same questions that a tedious survey may not yield.
Does this improve exhibitions’ interactivity and longevity?
The idea is to add more integration on the data side. An event experience is year round, so gaining interaction with that event brand after the venue closes is cricual. There’s things like blogs, newsletters and supplemental content which are all part of the broader event experience.
We read a lot of research, like the Explori papers about improving attendee acquisition. We strongly believe there’s an opportunity to use the digital breadcrumbs to improve an event. An organiser can use the data in creative ways. For example, at The National Hardware Show, by Reed, there are 14 categories of hardware suppliers, therefore 14 types of buyers of everything from palettes to nails. You can track what they want by what they have visited and maybe give them different printed guides and different paths around the event.
