RAI Amsterdam and Dutch media company Sanoma have teamed up to help you provide a better experience for your exhibitors.
Recognising a need for concrete information on the real impact of events, Finnish multi-channel media company Sanoma launched a large-scale research project in 2016. The approach was steered toward turning insights into practice. In 2017, Sanoma and RAI Amsterdam teamed up to action further research fuelled by the latest in technological innovations.
Sanoma and RAI Amsterdam conducted a range of research activities during the Netherland-based vt wonen&design exhibition in 2017; where, in collaboration with research agency Validators, five different techniques registering visitor behaviour were implemented.
The research, which included ROI analysis, skin conductance sensors, eye tracking, interviews and an implicit association test, revealed several immediately applicable findings.
Recommendations and insights based upon the results:
1. Remember the focus of the event; visitors mainly make decisions based on their own expectations.
2. Present inspirational and attractive products or offer an experience that seduces exhibition visitors. Make sure that products and activations are clearly visible from outside the stand.
3. Set realistic targets and expectations; the reach may be limited but the quality and impact is considerable.
4. Keep visitors at the stand longer; more emotions, more actions and a longer time spent at the stand increases the chance of brand memories.
5. Place the logo or brand name near the products for a greater chance of brand transfer; visitors mainly look at products, after all.
6. Clearly show what your brand and stand have to offer; focus and memory are mainly related to finding and seeing personally relevant products.
7. Provide a wide collection of products that appeal to various visitor types – this way the chance of visitors finding a personally relevant product is much greater.
8. Let visitors touch your products or generate an experience; in addition to relevance, touching and trying products stimulates physiological responses (arousal), which will help visitors better remember your products or brands.
9. Be informative and create tangible memories; the behaviour of visitors at the event is mainly focused on acquiring information about products.
10. Ensure good findability and follow-up online; for visitors the exhibition does not end when the event does – consumers carry out various actions after the event.
Exhibition organisers can apply these recommendations for success.
For more information on RAI Amsterdam and Sanoma’s research visit www.rai.nl and www.sanoma.nl, and to read the feature in issue 3 | 2018 of Exhibition World, click here.
