Posted by

Barry Siskind

Community Manager

The theme of the UFI Open Seminar in Ghent, Belgium  is “Invention and Reinvention: Developing your Exhibition and Keeping it Fresh.”  It promises to be two days packed with lots of information presented by a stellar group of industry professionals.  One presenter is Rob Nathan, Marketing Director for Media 10 ltd.  His topic will be “Product re-launch – all but easy.” Rob spoke to me about some of the issues related to his re-launch of the Ideal Home Show.

Barry: How does a strong brand affect (positively or negatively) a trade fair’s ability to adapt to changes?

Rob: Having a strong brand is incredibly important for the success of an exhibition. With the Ideal Home Show we acquired more than just an event, we acquired a brand that was recognised throughout the country, had over 50 million visitors over 100 years and was the arguably the most recognised ‘brand’ in the UK events industry. The downside was that it was performing very poorly, so on one hand we had a great brand but on the other hand we had something that was unloved and was in danger of disappearing from the event calendar altogether.

Barry: In Media 10’s turnaround what types of research did you conduct?

Rob: We conduct qualitative and quantitative research for our events as a rule of thumb but the problem we had with acquiring the Ideal Home Show was that we only had 6 months to turn things around (we started work on it in October 2009 and the show was March 2010). In this respect the most important tasks were to focus on the team structure, the data available and the marketing plan. I am a huge advocate of research but in this instance we didn’t have time to conduct new surveys – fortunately I have a good working relationship with the research company that conducted the survey in 2009 so I spent a long time on the phone to them!

Barry: What was the greatest risk Media 10 faced?

Rob: The greatest risk was the financial one. The event was a multi million pound loss venture when we acquired it and Media 10 is not a multi-national with bottomless funds. We are privately owned and have grown from 10 employees to 150+ in 7 years….the reason we are successful is that we work as a team and everyone is passionate about the company they work for.

Barry: What steps did you take to mitigate these perceived risks?

Rob: We worked hard….harder than ever for 6 months! We left no stone unturned and realised that we couldn’t change everything in 6 months but we could put some blocks in place that would secure this show and turn things around. We didn’t realise how quickly we could turn disaster into triumph though….

Find our more about the UFI Open Seminar to be held in Ghent, Belgium, June 20-22, click here: http://ghent2011.ufi.evenium.com