Marshall Yard:

As Iran erupts into riots and chaos with their recent election (and by “election” I mean “perfectly executed exemplar of the democratic process in its purest form”), I thought I’d tally up the votes for and against virtual trade shows.

I’ve had a cruel fascination with virtual trade shows for quite some time. In fact, I have between 5-10 aborted blog posts wherein I abysmally attempt to analyze this topic. Too long winded, and a bit too “soap box-ish” when it came time to post, so I thought those subjects were better off in blog-limbo (”draft”).

Here’s how virtual tradeshows have been treated here in cyberspace (there seem to be 3 general arguments):

1. Tradeshows are so expensive that virtual trade shows will continue to gain importance: they’re the wave of the future, and super-duper-green to boot.

2. Virtual tradeshows may never quite overcome tradeshows, because business people need to meet face-to-face, hug, and cuddle over that freshly inked contract.

3. Virtual tradeshows are stuck in the social networking fluff-world - not conducive to replace the serious business that actually takes place at trade shows

Because this tradeshow blogger always thinks he has an exciting new viewpoint, I’m going to offer my own spin:

Virtual trade shows will never be able to replace tradeshows for the very reason that tradeshows were invented: they bring together the products and services of an entire industry under one roof. I will never be able to touch and feel the industrial machinery, MRI scanner, or new electronic gizmo that I expect to purchase. In fact, I’m basically on a glorified version of the internet - though I may have greater attention paid to my questions. Some potential clients may prefer to be on the “regular” internet, where anonymity is enjoyed, and there is no process involved with accessing your website. Virtual shows offer increased information for participants, going above and beyond what is available on the company website. The drawbacks, however, remain.

I do believe that virtual tradeshows will replace other forms of advertisement - print mediums being a prime example, with TV and radio also falling casualty to declining marketing budget allocations. We delved into 2009-2010 budget expectations earlier this month, here.

While virtual trade shows will continue to grow, the trade show exhibit industry is mutually exclusive of such growth. The decline or growth of trade shows is tied to the business communities’ willingness to travel and the cost of exhibiting (which is severely affected by the staggering costs of tradeshow services). So long as the business community needs to touch & feel a product, or meet the company they expect to do business with; and so long as that need exceeds the costs and fears associated with flying; the exhibit industry will continue onwards.

Disagree? Did you just sell a flablillion widgets at your last virtual tradeshow, and are interested in gushing to us about your success? Let us hear about it!

Tags: exhibit sense, marketing department, marketing in a recession

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 at 3:06 pm and is filed under Advertising, Events, Exhibits, Marketing, Tradeshow, trade show strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.