The Expo Monopoly: A Boardwalk Battle Cry
I’m gonna try and keep this short, maybe not as short as Expo West this year. ;) I actually do appreciate their decision to cancel this year’s festivities, even if my personal view is that better communication could have been led by the organizers and a quicker decision to cancel could have been had. It was nice to see Wayne Wu with VMG create the “discussion thread” via a post on Linkedin. (Thanks, Wayne!??) I do also realize that it can at times be easier to coach from the sidelines.
Since reading and responding to Chloe Sorvino’s post on LinkedIn, I cannot shake the feelings that there must be a better way. Probably very similar to when the first traveling cave man was in search of a buyer to assist him find shelf space for his club.
So glad times have changed and we’ve gone from draggin’ our knuckles and carrying clubs to throwing cash at tradeshows. Right? Look, don’t get me wrong, are there benefits to tradeshows like #Expowest? Yes. Can a startup benefit? Yes. As I stated in my comment within Chloe’s post mentioned above; the pre, during, and post show strategy for brands just needs to be intentionally executed. But, as Daniel Lubetzky so elegantly noted within his open and honest views concerning Expo West… at what cost? (Props, sir, appreciate your candidness in the article.) No matter the channel, platform or effort, the value of every penny is more crucial to startups and if they experience little or no return, it simply moves down the priority stack.
Like other marketing, advertising, and networking vessels, at some point in time trade shows were created to provide a valuable service and solve an existing problem of connecting retail buyers to brand sellers. But times they are not just a changin’, they’ve changed. The current tradeshow model needs to evolve. No different than how far other forms of marketing, advertising, pr, and networking have evolved so drastically in the last 5-10 years.
New web technology and services have brought with it the advancement of consumer behaviors and expectations. The same technology that is being utilized to market to our customers can also be leveraged as the building blocks of a new “trade show” era.
At the end of the day, trade shows are simply a way to network, provide education and connect retailers with buyers. Unfortunately, if the current model is not fixed by the current trade show providers, they themselves will be disrupted. No different than what has happened to the movie, ride sharing, travel or real estate industries.
There are some newer related options, such as ECRM with their Range.me platform (kudos to y’all, keep up the good work??) and member based associated trade shows like provided through SFA, which are typically more hyper-focused and don’t put such a large dent in the ol’ pocket book, however I do feel there is still much ground to gain.
The fact is, plenty of DTC brands like @Ghost, @Organifi, and many others have proven that you can go a long way these days without investing much into trade shows. A whole lot of brand and product vision mixed with enough social media skills to pay the bills can result in some staggering growth. Why? These brands have met their consumers where they are at - where it’s most convenient.
In a recent post, Arthur Gallego stated that it’s time to revisit the scale of these trade show events. I agree and would add not only in method but also in the platform application we should grow to expect. Wouldn’t matching retail buyers with brands be much more manageable and effective if the platform moved to digital where it was more easily accessible, less expensive, offered more benefits, greater flexibility, opened more opportunity for connections and education, listened to its members, and took action in real time? What I am proposing is not impossible, and in fact, I would argue would be much easier than ever before with the right amount of care, intentionality, proactiveness, experience, and commitment woven into its very architecture.
What makes me so sure? 20+ years’ experience as an executive and entrepreneur in the ad, marketing, and tech industry has taught me that when others identify something is broken it’s typically been long broken. However, because of the amount of planning, thought, experience, and proficiencies needed to make whatever the change, most decide it might be easier to just keep using whatever existing solution there is because someone else will eventually fix it.
Most trade show organizations, just like those in our industry, end up becoming monopolies and can lead to brands feeling like there are few alternatives and “squeezed” financially (thanks for the words again Mr. Lubetzky??.
We could probably all be in agreement in our distain for monopolies.
When speaking of competing against others in Monopoly, everyone’s first reactions are; it’ll take too long, it’s just a game of luck, there’s no use because so and so always gets boardwalk. To this is say, let’s take the game away from the board and create our own boardwalk by recreating something together that disrupts the very nature of what is expected from a conventional “trade show.” Something digital, something beautiful, something intuitive, a new experience, benefits for long-term participants, more cost effective, more real-time, more collaborative and easier to connect buyers with sellers.
The truth is that most of this tech exists and we use different forms of it already in our day to day. It simply comes down to getting the right people in the right seats and simply just get that dang proverbial bus to movin’.
So my solution comes in the form of a “boardwalk” battle cry, I’m calling on all of those who see something needs done, are willing
to bring their experience to the table and will collaboratively help to create a modern alternative to the current trade show. Said best by the one and only Jerry Maguire, “who’s comin’ with me?”