You know these shows: They come into a new market suddenly, they use the cheapest methods to promote, they don't have any added value for either the exhibitor or the attendee and they work to sabotage what long-standing shows [like yours] worked their entire life to build. These crappy shows with benign names that mean nothing aren't taking over the home show industry, left to their own devices, we think they have the ability to destroy the home show industry.
Wow. Pretty strong assertion. But in our years of watching low budget enterprises like [you fill in the blank] slither into new markets, we've seen them take down long-standing tradeshow businesses. We've watched them seriously challenge quality home shows.
We wondered how they can harm shows so effectively. No question they are vastly different than their successful show counterparts.
Then it dawned on us: They do it by creating a home show that is completely value-less to everyone but themselves.
Opposite these drop-in-and-drop-outs, traditional consumer trade shows have a long history of making themselves a positive part of the business landscape in which they operate. They add substantial value to the small businesses in their community. They spend substantial dollars with local media. They give. We know shows that donate millions back to grass-roots programs within their communities. They are vested and are continually re-investing. They have Brand.
But the other shows - the thrown together vampires run by short-term capitalists - are none of this.
And sad reality for show managers hoping to be top-of-mind, is that the bulk of consumers have zero idea that Trade Shows are even an industry. The best that most consumers can tell you is there are "MAJOR" shows and "minor" shows in their city. And to them, a "MAJOR" show is reasoned to be the big show at the major convention center in town. But consumers have never thought that there is a third show in their market - the rival show. Like a young stallion staking out an established herd of mares, the rival show is small, inexperienced and is led not by its brains but its mojo. It challenges the MAJOR show - stupidly - and loses. But rival shows don't care because there are so many MAJOR shows to test across the country. And one day, some day, they will find an old stallion of a show that is feeble and weak enough to actually overtake.
Which brings us to the true reality that most consumers ending up at these rival brand-less shows do so completely by accident.
But once inside a low budget, no frills show that's sparsely populated with disappointed, often angry exhibitors (if they haven't packed up and left yet) - the attendee feels burned. Bad for the attendee, worse for you is that the burned attendee generalizes this lower standard as the new standard for the Home Show Category. Worse yet, those consumers' resistance toward attending another homeshow is so great, it would take a very expensive change agent (aka big advertising budget) to reverse their negative opinion of all trade shows.
Guess what? That low-budget, vampire show just lost you another consumer from your pool of potential show attendees.
But if they are so unsuccessful we wondered, why are these rival companies still around and able to continue to grow into new markets?
Well, what we think saves these brand-black-holes is that there are still awesome consumer trade shows like yours educating new consumers on what to expect from a GOOD home show. Think on this: Is it possible you're actually making consumers FOR these shows through your ad strategies with healthy budgets, your creative promotions, and your beautiful shows?
You bet you are! And [you tell us who] steals these wide-eyed, ready to buy, consumers away from you with their step ford wife approach: similar name, similar dates, same location, number one on Google...
The scales will finally tip against rival shows IF ever they find themselves in the majority - which we hope never happens.
As you can very well guess, WorldView is not a big fan of this type of show. But we absolutely watch them, study them. And we'll continue to keep our eye on them...
