The 2000s saw an explosion of trade shows as a popular marketing tool. Businesses can show off their products and services, meet potential customers and other people in their industry, and learn a lot about market trends at trade shows. Attendees also benefit from being able to compare different products side-by-side in one place. In this article, you will learn about the history of trade shows in the 2000s.
Read Also: History of trade shows in the 1990s
A new century dawned with televised fireworks displays of major cities chasing midnight across the globe, starting with Auckland, Sydney etc.
9/11 changed the world. Everyone remembers where they were when they saw the planes flying into the towers. Words like Taliban, Euro, Facebook, Twitter, email, MySpace, and War on Terror became commonplace.
With the spread of computing, the internet, and globalisation, coupled with the impact of 9/11, the movement of people changed. We became numbers and dots. Face Recognition Technology (FERET), developed by the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop the commercial application of facial recognition technology, accelerated the pace of facial recognition technology, which began in the 1970s. However, after 9/11, many projects, of which this was one, focused on security.
What else happened in the new century that informed exhibitions and trade shows?
Y2K was the buzzword for at least 3 years prior to 2000, when it was thought that as the date changed, it would cause havoc with computer systems. Nothing happened.
The International Human Genome Project was completed in 2003, with 92% of the genome being mapped and 8% requiring different technology that didn’t exist then. But it would be completed a decade later.
Pope John Paul II died in 2005 from Parkinson’s disease. He was a strong opponent of Communism.
Climate change and global warming awareness also grew, leading to new industries like wind farms and solar farms that are bigger and work better. The tsunami that hit Thailand and other islands in the South China Sea was devastating. It moved at an incredible 500 km/hr. Below is an image of the first town that was closest to the tsunami as a result of a 9.5 earthquake.
The World Expo in 2000 took place in Hanover, Germany. The theme was Man, Nature, and Technology; It was appropriate that it took place on the largest exhibition grounds in the world, Messegelände Hannover.
The Expo ran for 5 months with 25 million visitors, resulting in a financial loss of $600 million. This was the largest loss (even adjusted) that a World Expo had experienced.
Over 50 countries participated; however, the USA was not one of them as it pulled out at a late stage. Several major German conglomerates from the automotive, media, and pharmaceutical industries took part.Bertelsmann, the largest German publisher, showcased the media’s importance in our lives. Their pavillion included the largest lift in the world; it was able to carry 2000 people in one journey.
The BMW Pavillion focused on clean energy options. It included both water-fueled and solar-operated cars.
A large number of buildings were retained after the fair and have been used as part of the Messegelände Hannover.
The travel and conference sectors were severely impacted by the effects of 9/11. However, a good sign was the move to a larger venue by the World Travel Market Show in 2002. Not much later, in 2003, they had 783 exhibitors and 12,111 visitors at the new ExCeL London venue. In 2005, ATM found that it helped make business deals worth $2.4 billion and attracted over 26,000 people and 2,800 exhibitors from 86 countries. The business need in the sector far outweighed the travel inconveniences of removing shoes.
Technology played a major role in our lives in the 2000s. The iPod and iPhones were launched. The internet was maturing, with digital marketing becoming a necessity in every company’s budget.
New marketing strategies needed to be created for the new environment. Marketers, event organisers, and exhibitors had to change how they talked to customers and people who might become customers. Email bulk mailing was in its infancy.
In 2002, Dutch marketing professor Ale Smidts came up with the term “neuromarketing.” He did this by building on research that had been done before. The first recorded neuromarketing experiments were done at Baylor College of Medicine in 2003 by Professor of Neuroscience Read Montague. Neuromarketing research shows what stimuli, i.e., images, words, etc., make our brains light up and buy.
It fundamentally changed the way we market to get results across all channels. Another trend that picked up the pace was experiential marketing. Dove’s Real Beauty campaign in 2004 set the tone for the rest of their marketing for years to come with an interactive, consumer-centric approach.
In 2004, an article was printed in the journal Natural Neuroscience, raising the issue of the ethics of neuromarketing as its effects are so powerful.
Kodak could have used neuromarketing in 2005, but I doubt it would have made much difference to the outcome. They made digital cameras and printers, which helped them sell $5.7 billion of products in 2005. Just two years later, in 2007, they were number 4 in camera sales, but that had changed by 2010 when they moved down to the 7th position. But things changed with the iPhone and smartphone technology, as people used their phones to take pictures and no longer needed a separate camera. By 2010, they had cut nearly 30,000 jobs worldwide and, by 2012, declared themselves bankrupt. A modern tale of a company not adapting quickly enough to change, much like carriage makers didn’t evolve when the car was developed.
Change, evolution, and new technologies help smart entrepreneurs understand new problems and come up with ways to solve them.
Terrapin was one of those companies. It created successful and niche events all over the world in 2006. Because of this, more than 5,000 people attend more than 250 niche exhibitions and conferences each year. Volume matters in the event sector, and the larger players understand that running conferences continuously ensures consistent and growing profits.
The challenge, rather, is sourcing new niches. Marcus Evans captures what event managers are as “entertainment and business information providers.” The sector is evolving as customers and visitors become jaded, or should one say sophisticated? It is challenging to raise the bar and level of innovation continuously.
Two companies have recognised how professional the field is and how important it is to reward excellence.
The Experiential Designers and Producers Association (EDPA) is an organisation for organisers that now represents 300 companies across 18 countries. The EDPA Awards recognise excellence across a few areas within the event management sector.
A publication The Trade Show Executive began in May 2008. They also ran an award programme titled Top 100, which focuses on the B2B environment. Award categories included: The Largest Show organised by an Independent Show Organiser, The Largest Show managed by an Association or society, The Top Brand (parent company needs to be US based), the Show with the most dramatic growth, The Show with the most Innovative Practices etc.
In South Africa, because of the new dispensation post-Apartheid, a few large events took place, among them the Truth and Reconciliation Commision that was created in 1996 and ran till 2003. It was created as a restorative justice body to address atrocities committed during apartheid. Many spin-off events took place after that.
Black Economic Empowerment was created in 2003 to uplift the black population and include it in the economy across all strata. This created many specific events across many industries.
Another unexpected sector was created due to the decriminalisation of cannabis. The 2000s were the decade that saw many countries, beginning with Canada, legalise medical cannabis. New events from B2B to consumer shows, e.g., MJBiZcon popped up across the globe as legislation changed and the perception of cannabis use changed.
Besides the creation of new shows, marketing channels and methodologies, awards, and magazines, a number of papers are published by Harvard Business Review, amongst others from the 1980s onwards, discussing the effects of trade shows, goals for exhibitors, measuring ROI etc.
The value of the sector to organisations around the world has been proven repeatedly. With new communication channels such as WhatsApp, experiential marketing, and neuromarketing becoming the norm, the trade show now needs to keep abreast of these developments and find new ways to justify the considerable investment they represent to organisations.
The 2000s marked a major shift in the way trade shows were conducted. With the emergence of digital platforms, companies had access to unprecedented amounts of data and analytics that allowed them to better understand customer behaviour and preferences.
This made it possible for businesses to give attendees more interesting things to do, like interactive product demos, virtual reality tours, and augmented reality displays. Also, changes in technology have made it easier for exhibitors to set up their booths quickly and offer high-resolution images and videos on large screens or projection systems for their audio-visual presentations.
Because of these changes in technology during this decade, the number of people attending tradeshows around the world grew by a factor of ten. This is due to the fact that tradeshows have grown in size, with hundreds or even thousands of exhibitors from various industries displaying their products or services under one roof.
Read next: History of trade shows in the 2010s
