To IBC or not to IBC - that is STILL the question.

Whether or not to exhibit at IBC has been on the minds of many vendors in the media technology space for much of the last 12 months. I’ve been involved in a few panels/events/webinars/discussions in the last month or so and having promised to write them up I think I can roll them all up into this one post (albeit a long one).?

• Three weeks ago I chaired a Marketing Leaders Circle event that discussed how, after 2 years of an almost all digital approach, we marketers should balance our budgets as in-person events, and specifically trade shows, return in 2022.
• Two weeks ago, IBC 2021 was cancelled
• Early last week, Bubble Agency and Caretta Research published a report on Marketing Media Technology that, among other things, identified trade shows as still being a top source for buyers to research the market and products.?
• At the end of last week the CEOs of IBC and the IABM hosted a candid Q&A on the cancellation and future of IBC.?

There’s a thread through all of these things and there’s also been common themes throughout, so it’s worth examining as a whole, but first, a short recap of the last 12 months.

This time last year, as we headed towards a rather unusual holiday season, we knew that it would be a tough winter, but there was a sense that by spring, things would start to return to “normal”. NAB had already announced that it was moving to October in 2021, but it was looking like in-person events would start to return in May and in the UK there was optimism that MPTS would be the first trade show to return.?

The winter restrictions across Europe were lifted more slowly than originally expected, and MPTS moved online but it was also clear by late spring that, although not at pre-pandemic scales, the autumn would have a busy line up of events. It was around this time that IBC announced that it would be moving to December.?

Do or Die

Five or so years ago, exhibiting at IBC (or indeed NAB) wasn’t a choice. Any suggestion that “marketing” had decided not to exhibit at the show would be met by fierce opposition from sales representatives and, if followed through, rumours would be rife in the community that the company was in trouble or no longer committed to “the industry”.? I think it’s fair to say that for many marketers, to commit such a significant proportion of their budgets to single events without real consideration of ROI (tangible and intangible) did lead to some resentment, or at least resignation in having to exhibit.?

Over the course of the last few shows, there’s been some notable absences from the floor plan, with representatives choosing to walk the halls or take meeting space elsewhere, but doing so was still considered a “big and brave” decision - albeit one that other vendors might concede was sensible.?

However, in 2021 the situation was different. With corporate and national travel restrictions varying from company to company and nation to nation, there was no expectation that vendors or visitors would necessarily attend the big shows and marketers who had successfully pivoted to digital and other campaigns were seeing better, or more calculable ROI than they did from big booth trade shows.

Exhibiting at IBC was, for many, a nuanced discussion for the first time with many different factors in the balance and the show floor plan looked very different as a result. When, at the end of May, IBC announced its move to December, with very little (if any) consultation of the exhibitors, the factors in that discussion changed significantly.

At this time, the Marketing Leaders Circle surveyed its membership, made up of marketing provisionals from the media technology suppliers, and, as well as sharing the results with the membership, provided a summary to IBC. It wasn’t pretty! There was very little (if any) support for a December show with the following points being recurring themes:

• It was too late in the financial year for many to have a meaningful impact on 2021 projects
• The weather would reduce the opportunity for networking
• The likelihood of COVID cases rising again as we moved into winter seemed high which in turn was likely to cause disruption to plans due to either last minute restrictions or, worse, another cancellation.

The general consensus was that IBC should “bite the bullet” and cancel early or move the September dates completely online and focus on a great digital event. I’m not aware of IBC officially responding to the outcome of the MLC survey, and while there was clearly some resentment around the decision in the community, the outcome of the survey? was shared openly and with positive intent.?

At this time, some exhibitors withdrew from the show. Whether coincidental or in response to this, IBC also announced this summer that it would be changing its rebooking system. The new system, similar to that of NAB, effectively penalises those who did not continue with plans to exhibit in 2021.

Of course, while restrictions did continue to ease for many, they have continued across Europe and elsewhere throughout the year and while November was packed with smaller, regional events, most larger gatherings, including NAB, were cancelled.

A New Generation

By the time of the MLC event “Balancing the Budget” in late November, a lot of us had had some experience of in-person events again, so it was a good time to be looking forward to 2022 and working out how, as marketers, we were going to split spending between the initiatives that had been proving successful in the 18 months we’d been (mostly) all online, and the often costly in-person events that are, we hope, likely to feature more significantly again in 2022. You can watch the session here, but in summary, it looks like we’ll be spending significantly less on big trade shows moving forward, and very carefully considering what we expect to get from them. That isn’t to say that we won’t exhibit necessarily, just that the size and nature of that exhibit will be quite different from their pre-pandemic equivalents.

One reason for this, beyond straight comparisons of ROI, is that for many marketers, we now are, are working with, or communicating to a different generation. A generation for whom sustainability, diversity and physical and mental well-being are all top priorities.?

Big booth trade shows, especially in this industry, which take place at a weekend with massive waste, people flying in for short trips from across the globe, really don’t sit well with those priorities. Although very enjoyable for those of us who’ve attended every year for most of our working lives, building our networks and seeing our friends, for the generation leading the next convergence in our industry, especially after what will have been a 3 year break, the big shows might just not be relevant any more.?

However, the Marketing Media Technology report published by Bubble Agency and Caretta Research seems, at least in part, to counter that position, suggesting that “trade shows retain a crucial role: still the most popular channel for buyers to keep up with industry trends and vendors, and the channel that buyers trust most.”

The report shows some clear differences between the perception of buyers and vendors, but nonetheless, trade shows rank highly for both when it comes to marketing media technology.?

There is, without doubt, some nuance around the results of the research that back up that report, and I would strongly recommend attending the MLC event on Wednesday 15th December when Rob Ambrose, co-founder of Caretta who led the research, will discuss the report.?

Cancelled... ...finally!

Of course, just before that report was released, just a week after confirming the show was definitely going ahead despite COVID restrictions being tightened in the Netherlands, IBC cancelled the in-person 2021 event in Amsterdam. As raised in the earlier MLC survey, this was hugely disruptive as by this time those who were still planning to exhibit had booths and equipment already en route to the RAI and had invested significant time, money and energy into the show. Emails with what, by many, were considered to be confusing and/or unfair refund terms were sent out to exhibitors and you could see the resentment and frustration in the community turn to anger.

Credit, at this point, should be given to the IABM for organising the live Q&A with their CEO, Peter White, and the CEO of IBC, Michael Crimp. This session, which took place on Friday 10th December, and can be watched on demand on the BAM Live platform, provided an open forum for the exhibitor community to ask their questions and many also took the opportunity to publicly vent their frustrations.?

It was one of the most candid exchanges I’ve witnessed or taken part in between the show organizers and their customers (the exhibitors) and I think it’s fair to say that IBC, and certainly Michael Crimp, had not appreciated the weight of feeling in the community. It was clear that IBC has a long way to go to rebuild the trust and goodwill of their (potential) exhibitors.?

It was highlighted by those asking questions during the event, and those listening in on the chat, that as vendors, if we make serious errors or our customers have serious failures as a result of our products or services, that we would be expected to produce, in a timely manner, a root cause analysis or similar, that identified the causes of those failures and actions taken to avoid them recurring.

Mr Crimp did acknowledge that IBC should produce a report along those lines, although he wasn’t able to commit to a timeframe to doing so. He also acknowledged that IBC needed to change with the times to stay relevant to a changing industry and a new generation, although again, the “how” and “when” are yet to be defined..

To conclude... ...or perhaps not...

So here we are left with a great deal of uncertainty. Uncertain what events will look like as a whole in 2022, uncertain how much we should allocate of our marketing budgets towards trade shows, uncertain the IBC will learn from its mistakes in 2020 and 2021 and uncertain whether IBC can stay relevant in a society and industry that looks very different emerging from from the pandemic than it did going in.?

Bookings for IBC 2022 are now open, but with so much uncertainty, the question remains whether to IBC, or not to IBC.?