The covid-19 pandemic has brought many uncertainties to the exhibition industry and put forward higher requirements for the digitalization of exhibitions. In any case, it is certain that the exhibition, as an indispensable and important stage for economic and trade development, will not be replaced. At present, the exhibition industry needs to face the external environment, customers, and digital innovation driven by the power of all parties in the supply side, so that it can change according to needs. Therefore, the online exhibition has been placed high hopes, coupled with the blessing of the meta-universe, which has added another dazzling aura to the digital exhibition.
In view of this, the author has thought about the three trends facing the digitalization of exhibitions and the three challenges of the new journey of digital exhibitions, and discussed them with the industry here.
Let's first look at the three development trends of digital exhibitions.
First, more and more online conferences and exhibitions are presented. Unlike before the epidemic, more and more online exhibitions and online conferences are fragmented and differentiated, and it is difficult for participants to be "retained". This exposes a shortcoming of online activities, which is that it is increasingly difficult for an online activity to maintain attention and attention. The cost of holding an online exhibition is higher than that of an online conference, and it is more difficult to operate. However, compared with before the epidemic, there are still several orders of magnitude of digital exhibitions that have shown growth momentum. This shows that online exhibitions are still a general sense of the online way of holding, in addition to sports events need to participate in the scene, concerts and so on can also be held online.
Secondly, more and more people participate in online conferences and exhibitions, and the above phenomenon is a positive feedback that is formed by each other. The reason for this is that the cost of participation is greatly reduced, and the way of participation is becoming more and more convenient. Most groups participate in more online conferences and exhibitions, including for those who do not want to go out, it is more convenient to participate in meetings and exhibitions online. On the other hand, due to the needs of epidemic prevention and control, offline conferences and exhibitions have been interrupted, and online also provides an alternative means for those who urgently need to participate in offline exhibitions. Once these groups adapt to online, coupled with the ongoing epidemic and other reasons, they will get used to the new way of online exhibitions. Not to mention, whether it's a mobile app or an H5 and Mini Program experience improvement, the experience of the participants will get better and better.
Finally, hosting an online conference and exhibition requires more and more exhibition tools, and the technology is more complex and more important. The technology platform has replaced the offline venue and become a new "venue". This new "venue" is a combination of tools that requires registration, followed by a bunch of new technologies such as online exhibition displays, online conferences, online negotiation rooms, live streaming, etc., and the process of delivering an online conference and exhibition becomes complicated. Users walking between different technologies, and how to maintain a concise and consistent experience is a very big challenge.
Let's look at a few hidden worries of digital exhibitions.
First, digital exhibition revenue indicators. From the early days to today, the cost of digital exhibitions has changed with the iteration of supply-side technology, and many organizers have not had much cost pressure. However, at this stage, it is still relatively rare for exhibition enterprises to obtain large-scale income through digital models, and there are not many clear business models and revenue realization. This reflects that the new business model of digitally driven MICE is not completely independent. The emergence of views such as "online exhibition has no effect", "or to return to offline", "digitalization is essentially service offline" and other views give people the illusion that everything will be fine in 2019 before the epidemic. However, it should also be noted that exhibition organizers with strong digital capabilities can already invite from 1500 people to 300 people online attendance rate, and make full use of each data potential through continuous replication of this model, and obtain considerable revenue through perennial operation.
Second, the challenge of the digital exhibition operating model. Digital exhibitions are not entirely driven by the epidemic, but customer needs are driving change. Customers need exhibition organizers to exchange trade pairs under the normalization of the epidemic. Some industry insiders commented that online exhibitions can be one-to-one, but they can also do one-to-many and many-to-one, but they have not yet seen how online can achieve many-to-many like offline. The core proposition of the review is how to complete the "twin" and transcend the online to offline model. This can be said to be the primary proposition of digital exhibition operations, and it is the main mechanism driving digital exhibition revenue. The author believes that starting from several directions may provide some help: one is the normalization of the line of sight, that is, the online communication scene, whether it is one-to-one or many-to-many, can be completed online; the second is to increase the frequency of online matching activities, if offline to hold a large conference or exhibition is an annual holding cycle, theoretically the same cycle of online can be done many times, because the online venue is the rental cost of server and bandwidth, compared with the rent of the venue is insignificant Third, driven by the ability of portraits, more accurate matching and invitations, online groups are easy to come and go. Once dissatisfied, the spread of bad word of mouth will produce a very large negative effect. Therefore, exhibition organizers need to have professional digital technology to support more accurate amount matching and negotiation, which not only avoids harassing other groups, but also generally improves satisfaction, and truly allows customers to obtain accurate personalized services.
Third, the lack of digital exhibition composite teams. The above-mentioned digital exhibition revenue and operating model seem easy to understand, and the operation is not very difficult, but it is necessary to see a grim fact: with the continuation of the epidemic, the talent in the exhibition industry is being lost, and the cash flow damaged by the epidemic is difficult to provide higher salaries to absorb the key talents needed by the industry, which makes the exhibition industry in a dilemma. The host of the head as a whole has the possibility of transformation, and the bigger challenge is whether it can have such a determination to upgrade. Once upgraded, it needs to go through the early climb of the learning curve: attracting talent, running in with old and new teams, polishing and tuning operations and business models, etc., which is an ongoing process that relies on a composite team with a strong learning, open and challenging spirit.
It can be said that digital exhibitions are on the road to a new model of "coming-of-age ceremony". 2022 is a turning point in the maturity of digital exhibitions, and it is also a key year to start a new journey.
【About the Author】
Wan Tao
CEO of 31 Conference, Chief Customer Service, Co-Founder
Digital promoter of the exhibition industry
Co-founder of AMT Consulting
Graduated from Xi'an Jiaotong University with a bachelor's degree in computer science and an EMBA from China Europe International Business School
Source: China Trade News
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