AEO conference: A window on the future

In the past, predicting the future at the Association of Exhibition Organisers’ (AEO) conference meant pinpointing which delegates would still be propping up the bar in the early hours or guessing how long it would be before former NEC chief executive Andrew Morris took a swipe at industry practices. But this year’s conference was to prove different. For a start, the event had only a single day of sessions, negating the need for hungover delegates to rally themselves for the traditional second day of presentations. More importantly, though, this year’s AEO Conference – held 7 September at the Brewery in London, and entitled ‘The Future Forum’ – took a radical step in terms of content. Instead of speakers from the industry addressing the industry, a day’s programme made up almost entirely of ‘futurologists’ predicting cultural trends was designed to inspire lateral thinking and arm delegates with the information required to help them tailor their business plans for the years ahead. This change in approach drew some interesting dividends. For example, Matthew Mee, managing partner of media buyer MediaCom, informed delegates that experiential is now becoming the medium of choice among client marketers. In the past, the exhibition industry talking amongst itself would question why a larger slice of the marketing pie could not be obtained. The answer was always because experiential marketing through the medium of exhibitions always flew under the radar of media buyers. This year’s AEO Conference may now go down in history as the moment exhibitions were first fully recognised by the media buyer. Mee went on to explain that greater returns on investment were being achieved by placing clients’ advertising and marketing budgets across a combination of digital with experiential. The significance did not escape delegates. The Future Forum kicked off with Clarion Events managing director Simon Kimble suggesting to delegates that if they were confident that they already knew how the future would pan out, then they could all go home. Since many were questioning how a speaker programme that had seemingly little to do with exhibitions could benefit them, this was a bold statement. Chief executive of the Global Future Forum, David Smith, began by giving delegates a glimpse into the future based on drivers of change. “People are living longer and having less children. This will result in 65% of the wealth in the UK being held by the over-65-year-olds and the majority of those will be women,” he said. “We are a society that has lost faith in institutions, seek life experiences over past, post-war security and need the help of guides and coaches to meet our goals. Our emotions are moving from the brain to the heart and our decisions will be made increasingly on experience, impulse and identity.” The speakers then turned to the subject of inspiring change. Fast Futures chief executive Rohit Talwar set out the case for a change in mindset: “There are people betting the ranch on event activity around the 2012 Olympics. But what if there occurs another tube bomb or a chemical explosion at an exhibition? You need to make time to plan alternatives based on tomorrow’s society.” Matt Hart, an ideas consultant from Industry Approved, then told delegates how Radio 1 had been struggling to hang on to its listeners in 2003, with figures plummeting to 7.2 million. “Change often stems from a position of competitive pressure. Once we removed the barriers to ideas, which are often the organisation’s culture, we were able to get to the root of ideas that would resonate with a wider audience,” he said. “Replacing Sarah Cox with Chris Moyles and gaining a deeper understanding of what music resonated [with the audience] saw the station reach 10.5 million listeners at the last count. What would the equivalent of 3.3 million extra visitors mean to your business?” There were two moments during The Future Forum when the subject matter returned to exhibition organisers talking about exhibitions, as if to keep happy those that still doubted the validity of the programme. But, even a question and answer session with Grand Designs Live managing director Lee Newton, plus a session on ROI from VNU Exhibitions UK managing director Fedde van der Woude, maintained the futuristic theme of the day. “We’ve found that 40% of exhibitors don’t set targets, 20% don’t even send out invitations to potential clients, and 50% of visitors never receive a follow-up call from an exhibitor,” said van der Woude. “Knowing these statistics represents a huge opportunity for organisers. The influence an organiser with knowledge can have on individual exhibitors is unlimited.” Delegates then broke for lunch which came in the shape of picnic hampers in a forest-themed restaurant. Dr James Bellini, a self-styled ‘historian of the future’, took the speaker session straight after lunch. “The future is history, tomorrow is both the past and the present,” began Bellini. “The future is a way of seeing the present and by seeing yourself in time you can apply the lessons of history.” He went on to explain how future business could be shaped by applying the lessons of history. “Today’s ‘blogging’ is no different from the meeting areas of yesteryears. By swapping the church for the internet there remains the idea of communities. A good understanding of history sees very few surprises waiting in the future,” he said. Hearing the brutal truth about why exhibitions don’t match up to other forms of media at the AEO Conference is something that delegates have come to expect. Organisers didn’t need to be futurologists to know that O2 head of interactive partnerships, Paul Samuels, was about to unleash criticism wrapped up in a case study on why O2 has rejected partnering with traditional exhibitions in favour of sponsorship and its own branded Wireless festival. Samuels began by praising the innovation of events such as Brand Events’ Taste of London, but it didn’t take long for the brutal truth to out. “Is anyone here from Earls Court? I don’t care, you can sue me, the food’s poor, it’s full of concrete and the sound bounces all over the place. I still have organisers trying to sell me a logo on plastic bags or the branding of a show’s internet café. Brands like ours want to connect emotionally with our target consumer and we won’t consider activity that doesn’t enhance the brand,” he said. For those that attend the conference purely to hear that brands won’t take the traditional make-up of an exhibition seriously while it remains a badging exercise, this was their pay off. But for those with an interest in the future of brand marketing and cultural trends, the broader content proved to be gold dust that, if applied to the discipline of creating experiences via exhibitions, could result in more media buyers opening windows of opportunity. Want to give your opinion on this feature? To submit a letter to the Editor, simply click here.