Touch and Feel Touch screens at Retail’s BIG Show, far left, let attendees interact with information, while banners at the Paris Convention Bureau’s exhibit at IMEX helped create an intimate world in a crowded space.
As consumers become accustomed to personalized shop-
ping experiences, trade shows that don’t provide attendees with ways to easily identify and find the content that is per- sonally relevant to them risk not connecting with them at all. A large trade show may trumpet the fact that it has hundreds of exhibitors as if it were an absolute benefit, Zeppa said, but for many attendees, “1,700 exhibitors is not a value proposi- tion, it’s a carnival.” Increasingly, attendees will expect some form of digital
compass to help them cut through the clutter. Apple, Zeppa said, is a perfect example of how companies are redefining what is possible in the retail space. The technology giant has developed a mobile app for use in its stores that not only guides consumers to products, but also allows them to scan product price codes and charge their credit cards. Shoppers can purchase products without ever talking with a salesper- son or standing in line at a cash register. That kind of shop- ping experience, Zeppa said, “will totally change how groups behave and what they expect.” “You can talk all day long about experiences that drive
emotions, but if you have a [trade-show attendee] who has just walked out of an Apple store, they are going to have an emotional reaction when a trade show doesn’t match up with what they just experienced,” Zeppa said. “I look at my 15-year-old nephew and try and picture him going to a tradi- tional trade show. No way.” Indeed, there aren’t many boundaries left when it comes
to deploying digital experience in a physical environment, according Paul Price, CEO of Creative Realities, which has created digital installations in retail environments for clients such as National Geographic, Coca-Cola, and AT&T. “The technology is catching up with our imaginations — and in
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some cases has caught up,” Price said. Cost isn’t the barrier it once was, as the price of technology has come down while quality has improved. “I see enormous potential for digital,” Price said, “for lots of different reasons.” Some applications are what Price terms “inspir-actional,”
improving or creating customer experiences. For example, in Asia Coca-Cola recently distributed the Coca-Cola Hug Machine, a vending machine that, “if you hug the machine, it gives you a free Coke,” he said. But digital also has great potential to serve more utilitarian purposes at a trade show, Price said, such as providing wayfinding, as well as interactive platforms that allow attendees to continually engage with various aspects of any show by way of mobile and digital dis- plays inside the exhibit hall. At Retail’s BIG Show, organizers a few years ago began to
use “You Are Here” kiosks, similar to what might be found at a mall, at the entrances of exhibit halls. The kiosks feature interactive touch screens, making it possible for attendees to select a topic and see all the booths in that category high- lighted, and also provide short booth descriptions, maps to specific booths, locations of educational sessions, and, of course, directions to restrooms. NRF’s kiosks are not “an unbelievable, state-of-the art kind of thing,” Newman said,
“but attendees use them and love them. It makes their experi- ence a lot easier in terms of being able to find their way to the building and the exhibitors they want.” Online retailers that guide us to selections that match our
interests — such as Amazon.com — have trained us to yearn for experiences tailored to our interests, said Davis-Taylor, who used a kiosk similar to NRF’s at GlobalShop, another large-scale annual retailer exhibition, held on Feb. 29–March 2 at the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas.