The 2020 China International Fair for Trade In Services (CIFTIS) welcomed 18,000 companies and organisations to Beijing in September under the banner of ‘Global Services, Shared Prosperity’.
The organiser’s aim was to create an effective platform for exchange and trade, with a hybrid approach offering the advantages of both offline and online.
Brand activation specialists Pico’s digital arm, Action One, was entrusted with creating an immersive cloud exhibition – the largest of its kind – which could give participants around-the-clock access to the sourcing tradefair’s most essential attributes.
Insights
The brief was to use a cloud platform to realise an interactive exhibition allowing exhibitors and visitors who could not participate in person to still enjoy their own immersive experience and access to smart services, regardless of their physical location. The platform was also used to demonstrate the future of online exhibitions and help innovate and explore the value of hybrid exhibitions.
Solution
The Action One team created a virtual environment to mimic a physical event, as far as possible, including booth structures, their forms of display and visual sensations. Companies could select their preferred virtual booth from templates provided after registering an account on the platform. The platform also allowed for exhibitors’ own customised virtual models to be blended in.
The virtual booths were designed to open a new avenue of business negotiation for companies in China and abroad. Inside, users could browse through exhibitor displays while enjoying easy access to services such as private chats, live broadcast and intelligent customer service.
During the fair, the virtual exhibition platform and booths automatically collected visitors’ browsing and interaction data, and transmitted exhibition transaction and interaction information to the back end in real time. The client was able to get breadth-and-depth data assets by the end of the event.
Results
• More than 2,000 companies had set up virtual booths
• Nearly 100 conferences and forums were broadcast online
• More than 140,000 visitors took part in trade negotiations and deals.
Image courtesy: 2020 China International Fair for Trade In Services
