"Branding digital is different from branding a trade show,” says head of Messe Frankfurt’s new digital division Kai Hattendorf.
"You cannot touch or photograph the product. By the same token you cannot see our digital expertise product, Dexperty, because it’s not a physical thing. But we want to make sure that in all communication of our digital products we convey the message that it comes from Messe Frankfurt’s Dexperty.
“Digital business works just like the trade show business. We have a venue, which is the home for a product. But on the web the venue is not a hall; it is a web presence. Online, the exhibition becomes the business-matching practice. We’re essentially doing the same thing online, connecting supply and demand, only this time in a digital space and venue, as opposed to the physical marketplace.“
Hattendorf, whose background as communications chief at Messe Frankfurt, is busy adding Dexperty to everything that Messe Frankfurt does digitally.
“The reason we’re doing this is that presently nobody considers any of the trade show companies globally to be digital players.,” he says. “We are trade show companies and show organisers, and we operate venues. We are not automatically considered to be, by any means, competent when it comes to digital.”
He makes the point that at present, even at a company with a progressive digital mission, there is basically no connection between the brand Messe Frankfurt and digital expertise. The bind is that the company trades on its name and there is no option of launching an independent digital brand for short-term gain because it took Messe Frankfurt many years to build its brand on its name. It can however build a separate digital brand for Messe Frankfurt, linked directly to its shows.
“We’ll build the branding over the next couple of years, and see if this migrates over to the Messe Frankfurt identity,” says Hattendorf. “At the same time, it allows us to offer digital products that are not directly related to Messe Frankfurt shows – products such as our Productpilot portal. This product provides opportunities for Messe Frankfurt’s customers to be visible to their relevant peers throughout the year.
“Between two shows a buyer does not go to the show website for a supplier,” Hattendorf explains.
"They use a search engine. And they probably go to the most frequently used search engine – Google. So if we provide our exhibitors with the opportunity to be present on the first page of Google’s search results, we are providing them with the exposure, helping them to be found.
“So one way to make our customer constantly visible online is Google AdWords, and the other is our Productpilot portal. Here we can provide ever-better product matching opportunities and offer ever-more specialised products for our exhibitors to present themselves, with the data and the products all year round and the buyers to look for it.”
Keen to be seen
Messe Frankfurt provides an app for its shows, branded with the show’s name. It is availble on Apple’s IOS and Android’s mobile operating systems. Sixty per cent of visitors at the company’s Light + Building show used it.
“When our customers download it we let them know that this app is produced by Dexperty,” he says. “If they open the app they get the opening screen with just the branding of the show – in this case Light + Building – and on the top level, where you choose your functionality, we have the Dexperty functionality as well, where you can experience the Dexperty brand.”
To further raise awareness Messe Frankfurt is currently running an augmented reality competition there, a tool to get people engaged with the brand.
“So our trade show visitors perceive the digital face of Messe Frankfurt through the trade show website, they perceive us through the app, and through all the show-related digital services that provide information or further functionality,” says Hattendorf.
Crucially, beside the app, the trade show visitors also connect to Messe Frankfurt with the Wi-Fi services at the Messe Frankfurt Venue. This connectivity is the flip side of the digital coin, and a crucial part of the experience.
“If we give our customers an app during our shows, we must also give them the Wi-Fi access to use it,” says Hattendorf.
On creating a digital division – the practicality
So how best can an organiser approach digital business? In the last edition of EW, Messe Munich’s Stefan Rummel argued that as all digital development should be an integral part of a company’s respective products, it must be approached as such, without the establishment of a dedicated digital division.
Hattendorf says this is an interesting point of debate, and ventures there is in fact a third option, currently being exercised by Deutsche Messe. It has formed its own digital subsidiary, totally outside of the core business, free to act independently.
“At Messe Frankfurt we sit between these approaches. We have a separate division that drew up our digital strategy, where we have a target for revenue and profitability for digital products and services. So we can invest on the IT side according to the business plan.
“Is there a ‘best way’ to set up digital business in your company? It depends on where your organisation stands, but as the strategic importance of this digital conversion of our industry grows, everybody will have to do it.”
But while more and more trade show companies can now build worthwhile digital products, ultimately they to get them to our customers. The way to reach them is by working closely together with show teams, according to Hattendorf, because they are the touch points and the contacts for the customers.
“The success of digital business at Messe Frankfurt will partially depend on the people in the digital division doing a great job. It will depend on them coming up with the right ideas and execution, together with the IT department to deliver the products on time and to budget of course, but it will also depend on the operations and show teams to also tell the story and show the value of it to the customers.
“After all, this digital conversion will take years to implement, and our customers will experience it themselves in their own industries,” he says. “It will take quite a lot of communication to get a company as global as Messe Frankfurt to promote these digital opportunities to the customers.
“We don’t want to set up a different communication channel to our customers. We want to implement the story of the digital business into everything we communicate from Messe Frankfurt,” Hattendorf comments. “We decided a year ago to migrate some colleagues from the show teams to the digital division to run and maintain the web presences for our shows. These used to be run and maintained by the show teams, now they are run and maintained by the digital business division.
“Now we go back to the show teams and say here’s the traffic you’re getting and here are some recommendations on how to improve your website.”
So Messe Frankfurt strongly believes you need a separate division to come up with a designated digital strategy, working in tandem with management. While new ideas spring from within this division, as well as from the show teams, what is key to Messe Frankfurt’s – and all our – success, is that then we do it.
This article was first published in issue 4 of EW. Any comments? Email Antony Reeve-Crook
