TESTIMONAL:
BRIEF:
Infosecurity Europe is one of 500 events organised by Reed Exhibitions worldwide, which at the time had reached a plateau with a number of its international Trade Shows. Unlike their competitors, they faced ongoing growth constraints, growing at 2-3% per year. There was a need to break old habits , so Comotion was asked to use Infosecurity Europe as a pilot to develop a customer-led strategy.
WORK:
A key element of the work was to help the business understand the exhibition’s spectrum of customer types, each with different needs. During this, customer and vendor personas became an integral element of the project’s success. To achieve an all-round customer view, we conducted telephone and face-to-face interviews, ran surveys and conducted ethnographic research, which is a method of study which involves the field observation and qualitative analysis of human behaviour.
This phase of work formed the cornerstone of the strategy as it allowed us to understand what the customers truly needed, which in turn was integral to developing the specifics of the new client’s new strategy.
OUTCOMES:
The work resulted in a significant cultural change within the pilot business, creating a blueprint that is now being used across the group to replicate the success in other units.
Moreover, the new business model has led to a significant 21% increase in growth within the first year alone, that is on track to the business doubling in size over a 3-4 year period.
FINANCIAL:
- 25% revenue growth YoY versus 1.6% the prior year
- 27% operating profit growth
- 139% increase in digital sale
- 66% increase in sponsorship sales
- First time retention up from 33% to 50%
- New Exhibitor zone grew from 14 to 64 companies
- 9% increase in attendees
- 97% satisfaction of attendees
- 96% satisfaction of exhibitors
- Outstanding show re-book figures – over 70% of space sold for next year within 1 month of show
NON-FINANCIAL:
- Trending No1 on Twitter
- Global Executive Network launched during the show
- Requests from 5 countries to replicate the show
- Significant increase in dwell time by visitors
- The biggest turnaround ever in Reed’s UK portfolio of event
ORGANISATIONAL:
- Reed Global CEO had originally stated “You are smoking crack if anyone believed that you would hit 15% growth in revenues”
- Now considered by the Global Executive to be the Best in Class example for strategy training
- Template being rolled out across £30M portfolio of events as part of the expansion