AEO Forums offer new look at exhibition industry
The future of e-mail marketing, the purchasing power of millennials and the challenges of big data were just some of the topics of discussion at the AEO Forums held at The Crystal in east London on 8th October.
The forum's keynote session came from writer and futurist Mark Stevenson, author of An Optimist's Tour of the Future, who spoke about the definition of wealth and the huge technological changes posed by 3D printing.
Clare Puddifoot, as chair of the Marketing Forum spoke about her work with UBM Live, while Kimberly Kriss, senior vice president of marketing at AEG Europe, detailed how to target millennials, who have a birth date from the early 1980s to the early 2000s. Millennials, raised on the internet, represent the biggest challenge to marketers with their marked difference in consumption of digital technologies and devices.
In addition, AEO deputy director Jim Curry gave an insight into the latest FaceTime research on visitor profiling at B2B trade shows with the help of N200 research specialist Richard Montanus. FaceTime analysed the profile of more than 800,000 B2B show visitors across UK shows in 2012 and 2013.
In the marketing forum’s afternoon session, Brand Events event director Nicola Meadley and marketing director Gemma Courtenay gave an insight into the launch of CarFest backed by Radio 2 DJ Chris Evans. Parry Malm, account director at Adestra, extolled the virtues of targeted email marketing, Explori CEO Mark Brewster presented his findings on quantitative event research and Adi Clark, owner and consultant at Reveal Insight, spoke on data trails.
A key topic from the Ops Forum was the pending introduction of new catering regulations in December 2014, where providers will have to provide fuller details on the potential allergens in its food.
In addition the forum heard about validity scanner technology, which provides a live link to a database rather than simple unsynced entrance scanners, a live dashboard showing live ingress/egress from each entrance based on scans and allowing live CCTV feed from a web portal, and SMS alert systems.