Tag-Archive for » GenX «
CEIR Report Power Of Exhibitions In 21st Century Review Part II Read part I.
Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try! Dr. Seuss
Theodore Gisele, aka Dr. Seuss, had a great idea about thinking. Think differently.
Now apply Dr. Seuss’ thinking strategy to the next event or exhibition that you’re planning.
Think about it from many angles, from top to bottom, to inside out, to before and after, to what’s it all about. Think about who’s attending, who’s not and why. Think about how to do it differently and not repeat what you’ve done on the fly. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try.
If more exhibition and event organizers would stop and think before planning their next event, they might come up with more “thinks…if only they try.” Unfortunately, many organizers continue to plan their events the same way they’ve always done it. They expect that the old dog method will lead to new, improved results.
CEIR’s recent report, Power of Exhibitions In the 21st Century: Identify, Discover and Embrace Change from the Point Of View of Young Professionals (those under the age of 40), shows that exhibitions and event organizers can’t continue to “wash, rinse and repeat” and expect the same results. It’s time for event organizers to wash the old strategy right out of their hair and think differently in their planning process, especially if they want to attract Gen X and Y.
Here are six more takeaways from the report that organizers, exhibitors and event professionals can use for improving the planning and executing of future exhibitions and events.
1. Event Web 2.0-enabled sites are a necessity, not a luxury.
Websites and conference eCommunities are the gateways to an organization and its events. 73% of young professional respondents interviewed created a must-see list of exhibitors before attending the event. Unfortunately, most ranked current event Websites poorly as disorganized, outdated, incomplete and not user friendly.
Suggestion
The online event eCommunity and Website with show floor plans and exhibit descriptions is a must. Having this available before and after the show as well as via mobile devices is a no brainer. Similarly, organizers must give more attention and investment to the event Website by making it more user-friendly, robust, vibrant and updated regularly.
2. Stop the selling madness!
Gen X respondents who attended an exhibition feel there are too many sellers and not enough buyers. They also feel that there is too much pressure from sales people who staff the booths.
Suggestion
Younger generations do not appreciate the hard sell. Exhibitors should endeavor to explain to younger attendees what they are offering and what they are capable of without pushing a sale. Tricking them into scanning a badge to enter a drawing is not a best practice for gaining trust. They want transparency.
3. Age discrimination will cost you! Let no one despise their youth.
Many young professionals expressed age discrimination, ignored by show exhibitors because of their age. This mistake can cost an exhibitor future sales. While these individuals may not have the final purchasing decision for their employers, two-thirds do have the power to make recommendations and influence the buying decision.
Suggestion
Event organizers can work with exhibitors to help them understand that young professionals heavily influence the purchasing decisions of their employers. Organizers can also help exhibitors learn new sales approaches like consultative and relationship sales.
4. Interactivity and engagement are imperative.
Young professionals have a strong preference for interactive exhibits versus static exhibits. They also want interactive educational sessions where they can discuss content with each other versus monologue, lecture-style presentations.
Suggestion
Organizers should recommend that exhibitors consider hands-on, interactive elements to attract younger professionals. Exhibits that combine high-tech with high-touch and use virtual gaming components will be successful. Session presenters and facilitators that use hands-on, activity based efforts that allow attendees to work together collaboratively and discuss issues are also important.
5. Content is king and human interaction is queen.
38% of respondents considered the educational sessions the most important component of the exhibition, over the exhibition, social events and networking. Nearly nine in ten that attended a recent exhibition participated in an education session. The content of the session was the most influential element while the session title and speaker had the most influence on Millennials. 35% said they go for the networking. Both Gen X and Y stressed that they want to interact and learn from each other and industry veterans.
Suggestion
Organizers must spend as much time on planning the event program as they do on the logistics. They should secure industry veterans that can give short presentations and facilitate discussions. Providing relevant, exclusive content with appealing session titles and descriptions that accurately reflect the presentation is also important.
6. Yours, mine and ours!
Opportunities must be created that permit attendees to contribute their own ideas and suggestions to the exhibition and event. Creating show floor social spaces and lounges with power ports will draw and retain traffic of young professionals. Both of these points gives attendees the feeling the show is as much theirs as it is the exhibitors. Both groups also want wireless access on the show floor and throughout the event.
Suggestion
Organizers should crowdsource event ideas, suggestions and education topics. They should also ask facilities to provide free wireless on show floors and venue for attendees. They should include wireless request in future RFPs. Are facilities better off charging for this or helping their clients satisfy long-term attendance challenges?
Did any of these points surprise you? What resonates with you about your attendees? What changes will you make to your next event to attract and retain young professionals?
CEIR’s Power of Exhibitions In the 21st Century Part 1 41 page report offers a wealth of insight on what Gen X and Gen Y want.
ICEEM (The International Center for Exhibitor and Event Marketing) is hosting a soldout webinar on Wednesday February 17 entitled “Do Young Professionals Think Your Event Sucks?” IAEE and CEIR are providing an archived recording of this Webinar to members and nonmembers for a nominal fee.
CEIR Report Power Of Exhibitions In 21st Century Review Part I
“A trade show is a trade show … I don’t expect anything to change.” Chad, 26.
Imagine this comment came from one of your recent conference attendees. What would you do? How would you engage Chad in a future exhibition or event?
Chad’s negative sentiment is not unusual from others his age. Organizers and exhibitors need to recognize that the exhibitions and event marketplace is on the cusp of a major generational shift and plan accordingly. The long-term health of the show is depending on it!
In October 2009, Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) released the first part of an 18-month study, Power of Exhibitions In the 21st Century: Identify, Discover and Embrace Change from the Point Of View of Young Professionals. The purpose of the study was two-fold:
- Provide a better understanding of how a new, younger attendee demographic thinks and feels about exhibitions and events.
- Provide a clear blueprint for how to produce exhibitions and events that will create a positive value-added experience for younger professionals.
The CEIR report also explains why organizers and exhibitors must change the way they currently do things if they want to keep young professionals attending year after year. For the purpose of this study, CEIR defined young professionals as those under the age of 40. Generation X are those age 28 to 39. Millennials are those 27 and younger. As a collective whole, these two generations are technology savvy, individualistic and innovative.
Here are five takeaways from the report that organizers, exhibitors and event professionals can use for improving the planning and executing of future exhibitions and events.
1. WOM rules! Especially with your exhibition and event registration marketing.
More than half (52%) of respondents learned about an event from their work colleagues. 88% use social media regularly. Each time an exhibition or event creates a successful brand, the opportunity to improve the overall image of the industry increases with more people saying better things about their experience.
Suggestion
Identify the various exhibition influencers that have large social networks that believe in your event and can help spread WOM. Identify and reach out to key bloggers that will write about the event before it starts. Create blog and Facebook badges for attendees and speakers to post on their individual pages.
2. It’s time for organizers to innovate, think differently and not rest on their laurels.
87 percent of Generation X and Millennial respondents are very to somewhat likely to attend an exhibition in the next two years. Does willingness to attend automatically translate into guaranteed attendance? No.
Suggestion
Organizers have to find ways to convert their willingness into action by meeting more of Gen X and Y’s expectations and needs. (See number 3 and 4 for more tips.)
3. Give away bacon and add more cowbell to create more fans.
There is a large gap between the average number of job-related exhibitions these young professionals had the opportunity to attend (7.6) and the average number of exhibitions they did attend (2.8).
Suggestion
Number 2 and 3 speak to the opportunity of attracting and gaining Gen X and Y’s loyalty. Perhaps it’s time to provide more bacon and add more cowbell. Seriously though, adding more bacon and cowbell can be as simple as helping Gen X and Y meet each other before the event through the event’s eCommunity, providing social lounges on the exhibit show floor complete with recharge stations, and allowing Gen X and Y to help plan parts of the event. All of these suggestions are things Gen X and Y expect according to the CEIR report. (See number 4 for more ideas.)
4. Organizers must increase the value of attendance.
Non-attendees of both generations feel that exhibitions take too much time away from their personal and professional lives.
Suggestion
Organizers need to provide the irresistible offer. How do you do that? Provide exclusive education and content that is relevant to Gen X and Y that can’t be found online. Provide receptions and parties that are open to everyone and nix invitation only events. (Research showed Gen X & Y don’t like exclusive parties.) Provide speakers and entertainers that attract younger generations. Neil Diamond is out. Black Eye Peas is in! Consider business lounges like those in airports that attendees can visit to do some work, connect with the office and call home. Provide Skype stations where attendees can call their family members and check-in with their loved ones.
5. Location, location, location!
Two-thirds of those that did not attend said their reason for not attending was convenience. Two out of ten said the location was a problem. Millennials who attended placed high importance on the fact that the exhibition must be held in a city they are interested in visiting.
Suggestion
Does this mean having your show in Vegas every year is a good or bad thing? Gen X and Y want event locations within walking distance of entertainment districts, night life and other local hot spots. Millennials are known to have a love affair with fine dining, food and wine. Make sure you’re location provides opportunities for their more sophisticated palates and breaking bread with their peers.
Did any of these points surprise you? What resonates with you about your attendees? What changes will you make to your next event to attract and retain young professionals?
Look for more research highlights and suggestions in an upcoming post. Also, CEIR’s Power of Exhibitions In the 21st Century Part 1 41 page report offers a wealth of insight on what Gen X and Gen Y want.
ICEEM (The International Center for Exhibitor and Event Marketing) is hosting a soldout webinar on Wednesday February 17 entitled “Do Young Professionals Think Your Event Sucks?” IAEE and CEIR are providing an archived recording of this Webinar to members and nonmembers for a nominal fee.
This is a guest post from Joe Flowers, a Millennial and co-worker of mine. To read more about Joe, scroll to bottom of post.
Yesterday afternoon, Jeff was kind enough to ruin my Wednesday by sending me a link to a blog post entitled “Twitter: It’s a GenX Thing.” The blog was just a re-posting to the author’s comment to another article, “Study Shows Gen Y Not In Love With Twitter, “ found here. I patiently read both before sending a flurry of angry message to Jeff letting him know that both links were nothing but garbage. He responded by saying I should write a blog for him about it. I thought to myself, “Well the articles say my generation needs constant praise and attention,” so here we are.
The original article states that only 22 percent of Gen Y a.k.a. Millennials use Twitter. It’s source for such an astounding statistic? “PMN conducted the study in May 2009 with its research partner, the Lubin School of Business’ Interactive and Direct Marketing (IDM) Lab at Pace University, by questioning 200 PMN panel members and consumers between the ages of 18-24.” Hmm, a tiny cross section from a small school lab in New York that doesn’t even cover the appropriate range of ages of the generation it’s claiming to represent. It doesn’t get much more credible than that, does it?
By this study’s definition, I’m a 26-year-old GenXer. A product of the Cold War along with other apparently notable GenXers like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Justin Timberlake and 95% of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue. Is it any surprise a study favored GenXers using Twitter if they have a 20 year span compared to the six years awarded to Millennials?
This report has been picked up by major news networks as well as the Twittersphere as fact. As we speak, an infection of ill-informed “gurus” is off to the races touting this story as gospel in an attempt to cash in on the social media craze. News flash: the report is as much a credible fact as the movie Titanic is a credible source to the actual disaster.
Nielsen states that they don’t have an accurate enough sample size to represent the 18-24 year old range, but the 25-34 range represents 19.6 percent of unique visitors to Twitter. This obviously pales in comparison to the 41.7 percent unique visitors ages 35-49. [Source]
On the opposite end, Quantcast says that young adults are leading the Twitter demographic with the 18-34 demographic representing 43 percent of users compared to the 33% represented by ages 35-49. [Source]
Staying in the statistics vein for one more example, a recent poll of people named Joe currently sitting in my desk chair revealed startling news. It appears 100% of people polled think that these surveys can kiss roughly 98% of my ass. 
Now that I’m fired up, I’d like to address the real source of frustration in all of this. That would be the comments left by Miss JessieX. JessieX describes herself as an “an old school marketer with a new media swing. An avid hula hooper and Iconic GenXer.” Now, I’m not sure what she thinks she did to consider herself an “iconic GenXer,” but having spent a bulk of my night reading her old tweets, she has little to contribute as far as productive conversations. She mostly reflects on the weather, her family, the occasional tech posting and far too many hashtags for me to handle.
Of course, I am a self-admitted link regurgitator so I have little room to speak so let’s move on.
In her response to the incredibly detailed and accurate report from the brains at Pace University, she said Millennials can’t adjust to Twitter because “they are a peer-oriented, collective can-do generation.” Well of course, JessieX! Twitter is a “Me, Me, Me!” network used to simply inflate one’s ego. It is not a social networking site that encourages collaborative work. We’ve all been such fools!
She goes on to say Gen Y is “oriented more to group-think and the collective heart-space they share in their peer groups.” Once again, how does this ideology not line up perfectly with Twitter? We also rely on a structured learning approach, need hands on attention and guidance.
Also, don’t think for a minute I’ve missed the complete irony in this woman saying Twitter isn’t for group-thinkers while she defines it as a place to “broadcast, engage and connect.” Must be a typo.
Of course, maybe she’s right. Maybe I’m looking at this all wrong. It’s probably because my generation relies on a teamwork approach and I’m sitting at my desk all by my lonesome. No one is here to inspire my can-do attitude or tell me that, gee whiz, I’m doing a great job. Aw shucks, I’m just a poor, snarky and inexperienced lost soul wandering the Internet wasteland searching for a hero from a previous generation from whose knowledge I can feed. I need someone to tell me what exactly my next step should be and how I should do it.
If you would like to help me and my current situation, here’s how:
RT @unhatched: Helpless Millennial searching expert guidance and mentoring from GenXer. Must be willing to hold my hand and pat my back.
About Joe
Joe is a non-profit employee based in Dallas, Texas. He claims to specialize in social media marketing because it’s the trend right now, but also dabbles in the creative arts. Besides his benefits paying job, he also freelances as a Web designer, copywriter and technical proofreader. Actual previous job titles include cooking instructor, department store pianist, fight promoter and zamboni driver. He is available for sarcastic and serious conversations 24/7 at twitter.com/unhatched.
Recent Comments