Conferences and exhibitions - Telecoms reveals its future agenda - Bhavna Mistry takes a look at how the telecoms industry approaches exhibitions

Mobile phones were the best-selling gift item in the UK last year,

even surpassing kids’ favourites Furbies and yo-yos for unit sales.

About 2.5 million were sold in the last three months of 1998 and the

sector continues to burgeon; about 16.7 million Britons currently have

mobiles and experts anticipate a repeat of last Christmas’ sales

surge.

The global picture is much the same, albeit on a vast scale: figures

from the International Telecommunications Union, the United Nations

agency for the telecoms sector, show there were 319 million subscribers

to cellular phones in 1998. That figure looks set to top 550 million by

the end of 2000.

With the market opening up at an escalating rate, competition is

fierce.

The key players are on a par in terms of technology and product

similarity, so branding and service are the buying deciders. The sector

relies heavily on face-to-face routes to communicate points of

difference on service, so exhibitions score highly, especially when it

comes to reaching the trade.

’We network, meet and greet on a face-to-face level. In an industry that

changes almost daily, personal contact is important in generating

business and sustaining the right messaging,’ says Ross Ivett, technical

director for Nortel Networks at Telecom 99, the biggest event in the

sector’s calendar.

Nortel added 4000 names to its customer database, hosted over 800

customer meetings and had 9000 enquiries through its customer

registration system at the show in October.

Ivett’s views are echoed by his peers throughout the telecommunications

sector, especially with regard to the Telecom show, organised every four

years by the ITU in Geneva.

Industry showcase

This year’s event boasted the latest technology and services from more

than 1100 exhibitors, witnessed by around 200,000 visitors. ITU says it

was its most successful event ever, not only in terms of exhibitors and

visitors, but also in terms of the high calibre of attendees.

As well as being a showcase for products from the telecommunications,

information technology and audio-visual entertainment fields, ITU says

the event sets the agenda for the future of an industry that is now

worth about dollars 1000bn a year.

Exhibitors agree with ITU’s claims. Nokia exhibits at more than 50 shows

a year but, exhibition manager Paivi Tuohima says , Telecom is the

sector’s ’most complicated show’. ’This is where you launch new

products, where you show what you’re working on for the future,

presenting in front of top management from your own company, but also

among your competitors,’ she says.

Ericsson not only had a stand at the event, created by Imagination, but

sponsored the opening ceremony, put together by HP:ICM. ’It was both an

artistic and strategic chance to raise some of the issues highlighted

throughout the show,’ says Mats Ronne, Ericsson’s director of brand and

marketing communications. ’We had a lot of positive feedback which

related to the stand.’

David Tarsh, director of sales and marketing for HP:ICM, the agency

which also designed Nokia’s Telecom 99 stand, says: ’It’s a show where

future visions are fuelled, and most of the exhibitors are trying to

achieve the same impact. This year, the message was about convergence,

internet wireless application protocols, bandwidths and such. These are

all companies which are thinking ahead.’

For Roger Wilson, director of brand and communications, Europe, at

Hewlett-Packard, the reasons to exhibit at Telecom are numerous. The

firm’s biggest market sector is telecoms and its customers include

Ericsson, Nokia and Alcatel. ’Telecom is unique in that it’s a place

where the top level of the top firms meet. You can’t put a figure on the

return. Millions of pounds worth of business is potentially done at some

level through the quality of meetings. You rarely sign orders on stand,

but you do shake hands on deals,’ he says.

Hewlett-Packard had a record 5000 leads on a stand designed by FKICP in

partnership with Caribiner, which was responsible for messaging and

overall project management at the event.

Keynote show

FKICP was one of the most prolific agencies at Telecom 99, having a

design input in 11 stands. Willem Eksteen, the agency’s group managing

director, reiterates that while regional shows, such as TMA in Brighton

and Asia Telecom, are significant, Telecom is ’unlike other shows in

that it is a meeting place for CEOs to forge business strategies and set

agendas for the next four years’.

These strategies extend beyond the show, shaping growth in the medium -

term, he says. ’It’s an investment in brand and positioning statements,

and often marks the keynote in their future strategy.’

But Eksteen knows exhibiting isn’t cheap. Firms communicate on various

levels, but the most important element at any show is the stand - how it

delivers your message, caters to your marketing and meeting needs, and

presents a consistent image of the brand. It must also stand out for its

client, attracting attention through differentiation, without

misinterpreting the client’s brand values. Stands for shows such as

Telecom are custom-built, so costs mount.

Exhibiting expenses

Marketers won’t confirm or deny any figures about the cost of exhibiting

on this scale - it would be market-sensitive to divulge that sort of

information, says Nokia’s communications manager, JP Sipponen.

Indeed, many are irritated by the constant reference to stand-spend that

surrounds the show. ’A lot of the numbers are grossly exaggerated, big

companies spend more than little companies - there simply are no

ball-park figures or models,’ says Hewlett-Packard’s Wilson.

Caribiner’s senior account director on the Hewlett-Packard project, Jane

Gray, agrees that there is a ’huge amount of hype over spend at Telecom,

but it’s not spend for spend’s sake. Companies with a clear, integrated

message allocate budget very carefully and accordingly.’

Still, figures bandied around range from pounds 1.5m - which Nortel is

rumoured to have paid for its design and build alone - to upwards of

pounds 4m. HP:ICM’s Tarsh guesses that anybody who built a 500m2 stand

on more than three levels, with air conditioning, is unlikely to have

spent less than seven figures.

Cost is one of the factors that puts companies off exhibiting at

Telecom.

As well as stand design and build costs, there is also the expense of

hosting staff and invited audiences - Geneva is an expensive city. Add

to that the fact that capacity in the city is full to bursting over the

show dates, meaning that accommodation has to be sought as much as a

90-minute journey from the exhibition centre.

’It’s an expensive exercise. We’d probably cover our costs, but we took

the view that the money we would have spent at Telecom was better

deployed closer to our customer base,’ says Jeremy Morgan, UK spokesman

for MCI WorldCom. ’That’s not to say we won’t be participating in

regional shows, and we’re not ruling out Telecom in four years’ time;

it’s just a matter of practicality.’

Strategic approach

Those who do go have a very targeted approach to exhibiting, and most

exhibitors have senior marketers dedicated to the Telecom project. ’Two

or three people are put together to form a team with complementary

skills, so one may have a strong strategic background, while the second

will be an operational person,’ says Andrew Reed, account director in

Imagination’s Ericsson systems division.

The emphasis is on integrating the show programme into the firm’s

overall marketing strategy and creating the need for a more strategic

approach to exhibitions than in the past, he adds. It’s a methodology

that brings cost savings, as exhibitors can reuse stands for other shows

and retain old infrastructures to build on for future events.

And Anton Jerges, director of Qudos, which designed the stand for

Concert, a joint venture between AT&T and BT, predicts that the sector

will become even more sophisticated in the way it exhibits in the

future.

’Telecom in four years’ time will be a very different show. A lot of

firms this year still focused on the theatrical elements that had

nothing to do with their message. But this is changing as clients

reassess what they do there, and concentrate on objectives,’ he

says.

FKICP’s Eksteen adds that as well as losing the theatricals, clients

will concentrate less on product and more on service-driven messaging,

through electronic demonstration.

Differing approaches

Can other sectors learn from the sophisticated approach telecoms invests

in face-to-face marketing, and can they achieve similar results?

Surprisingly, a lot of commentators in the field are wary of advocating

this route to all and sundry.

Nortel’s Ivett makes the point that some sectors, such as automotive,

already have a pretty polished approach, but for others, such as those

in FMCG, exhibiting is not as effective as other, more widespread

communications channels.

And HP:ICM’s Tarsh warns: ’There are arenas where face-to-face works -

at trade fairs, it’s a cost- and time-effective way to meet serious

customers, and you can get a lot of press coverage to help you reach the

consumer if you do something that’s new, radical, photogenic.

’But it’s much harder to justify with a consumer show for a consumer

brand. You have to choose your exhibitions carefully and focus on those

shows which are going to get you the best coverage for effective

results.’

Ultimately though, actions speak louder than words. In telecoms,

exhibitions are an extremely powerful tool at many levels.

Nortel’s Ivett and Hewlett-Packard’s Wilson aren’t alone when they

confirm that they’ll be back for more at the next Telecom.

And it’s likely that their employers are already thinking about their

presence and strategy to deliver tomorrow’s brand, message, or product

at Telecom 2003.

CASE STUDY: NOKIA

The Nokia Corporation is the star of the Helsinki stock market. Last

year the Finnish firm took pole position as the biggest manufacturer of

cellular telephones, with an estimated market value of dollars 114bn

(pounds 71bn). Yet its stand at Telecom 99 was middling in size,

occupying around 1000m2 over three levels.

Nokia’s communications manager, JP Sipponen, is coy about revealing his

spend to exhibit, but the seven-figure sum being bandied around the show

wouldn’t have been far off the mark.

So what did Nokia get for its money? To answer that fully, you’d have to

first look at the objectives, says Sipponen. Primarily, Nokia’s

marketing aim at Telecom 99 was to present an accurate public statement

of what the brand means within a rapidly changing industry.

Feeding back into this rather nebulous core were firmer secondary aims:

high-level networking and customer care came high on the list, as did

communicating Nokia’s increased emphasis on products’ end-user

benefits.

Strategically, the project was led by Sipponen, with operational

management handled by Nokia’s exhibition manager Paivi Tuohima. The

stand, through HP:ICM, was seen as a major aid in achieving these aims,

acting as a home-from-home headquarters.

Amid a fiercely competitive environment, differentiation was key. ’We’re

a young company, but we’ve been to Telecom before - we know what it’s

about and we wanted something different to the rest,’ says Tuohima. So

fun and quirkiness were the order of the day, on an exhibition floor

where most tended to focus on their technological capabilities.

’As our physical statement, the stand had to embody certain Nokia

traits. It had to show we are technologically advanced and innovative,

but at the same time, fun, humane and welcoming.’

The solution was an inflatable structure that formed the walls of the

stand. Life-casts of people holding onto ropes to prevent the stand

taking off suggested that Nokia is full of energy. ’It made visitors

smile,’ says Tuohima.

There was an intentional absence of flat-screen monitors and

video-walls. Nine demonstration areas plus three main new product areas

took up the bottom floor, with the other two levels accessible by

invitation only and dedicated to meetings and hospitality. There was a

small demonstration space on the middle floor.

Nokia attends more than 50 trade shows a year, but for Telecom 99,

special benchmarking research, to measure shifts in visitor perception

of the brand, complemented other quantitative and qualitative research.

Final findings are being compiled. But if the ultimate return is

measured by real business done, Nokia had its money’s worth - it is

rumoured to have made its biggest single sale ever at Telecom 99,

signing a pounds 200m contract.

This article was first published on Marketing