Till Barth (l) and Michael Scherer.
HAPTICA® live will be staged at the World Conference Center Bonn (WCCB) on March 13, 2024 for the twelfth time. As the only trade show platform on the German-speaking promotional products market, the event explicitly addresses all of the target groups that are involved with haptic advertising. Michael Scherer, the managing partner of the event organisers, WA Media, and project manager, Till Barth on enthusiastic marketeers, generic marketing as a mission and their plans for HAPTICA® live ‘24.
HAPTICA® live traditionally takes place in the first quarter of the year. Why do you opt for the date in the spring?
Till Barth: With the exception of the three pandemic years, when we were forced to postpone the event to September, we have always held the “Experience of Haptic Advertising” in mid/late March. This date was a fixed appointment in the calendar long before other events were introduced at the beginning of the year. For a good reason: Marketeers are also always on the look-out for novelties in the spring because that is when the budgets are allocated and when the events, campaigns and activities are planned. The majority of our exhibitors also prefer the HAPTICA® live to be staged in the first quarter to kick the year off with it regardless of all production cycles and the pandemic. Most other big industry fairs don’t take place in the spring in vain.
A discussion is, however, currently being held about the trade show landscape. Particularly the suppliers complain that they have to participate in too many trade shows in the spring season. The organisers are therefore called upon to find solutions to thin out the schedule at the start of the year. What role is HAPTICA® live playing within this debate?
Michael Scherer: It is understandable that suppliers would welcome fewer trade shows, because they are faced with the challenge of having to divide their manpower and budgets between more and more platforms. However, the current discussion does not actually apply to our event – due to our concept: We are namely the only trade fair platform that explicitly addresses all of the target groups that are involved with haptic advertising: Marketing managers, buyers and decision-makers from advertising companies and organisations, advertising and design agencies, promotional products dealers or print service providers. At the same time, attending the HAPTICA® live is not tied to membership of an association or an invitation by a promotional products distributor.
This concept makes us unique, at least in the German-speaking promotional products market. As a result, in addition to experienced promotional products buyers from large, wellknown companies and organisations, we always also manage to attract further haptic advertising decision-makers from the marketing sector, who have not yet gained that much experience with this most tangible form of advertising. That increases the market for all participants. Whilst several closed-shop trade shows with an almost identical target group structure take place at the beginning of the year, with its intentionally open alignment, the HAPTICA® live is unique. Our visitor structure is our USP.
How high is the share of end users at the HAPTICA® live?
Michael Scherer: Around 60% to 70% of the visitors are decision-makers, managing directors or employees from the advertising industry, across all company sizes and industries according to our annual visitor statistics. Of course, we not only address end users – all visitor groups can utilise the HAPTICA® live for their respective requirements. We are also explicitly in favour of promotional products distributors or advertising agencies visiting the HAPTICA® live together with their customers. That doesn’t cost them anything – on the contrary there’s an added incentive: Distributors and agencies, who bring their customers with them, benefit from a VIP status and thus also from free catering. This also applies for their guests.
Till Barth: After meanwhile eleven issues, the HAPTICA® live enjoys a high standing among the visitors and as we have learned from surveys, conversations and interviews, this is not least due to the set-up of the event: We consciously keep it very compact so as not to overtax the visitors – anyone who is searching for inspiration for his marketing activities or is perhaps on the look-out for concrete products for a specific campaign or communication goal, is seeking quality, not quantity. Instead of a wealth of redundant offers, we present a good, high-quality selection, which at the same time spans more or less the entire spectrum of the market – after all there is hardly a more multi-faceted advertising medium than haptic advertising.
Last, but not least the “Experience of Haptic Advertising” is more than merely a trade show – thanks to its versatile supporting programme, which offers additional added value for the visitors. Incidentally, the industry visitors particularly appreciate this aspect, as the extensive feedback we receive demonstrates.
In the scope of lectures and exhibition areas, the HAPTICA® live provides the visitors with ideas and inspiration and aims to impress them with the power and potential of haptic advertising. What is planned for the next edition on March 13?
Till Barth: As is the case every year we invite marketing and communication experts from famous companies and organisations to report about their own experiences with promotional products in the course of our lecture forum. Furthermore, we are planning to expand the contents of the lecture programme in 2024 with knowledge that is interesting for promotional products professionals – for example surveys on haptic advertising or sustainability topics. In line with this we are introducing a new exhibition zone that focuses on such knowledge topics and which will tie in with the lecture programme in one way or the other.
The Best Practice Show is a further infotainment element and always a fixed element of the HAPTICA® live: Here, particularly original campaigns are presented which haptic ambassadors play a major role in. The respective products are of course demonstrated and explained in a multimedia presentation.
Why do you place such a strong focus on the supporting programme and on infotainment and experiential elements?
Michael Scherer: Since we initiated the HAPTICA® live in 2013 our declared goal has been to help promotional products attract more attention within the marketing world. At the same time haptic advertising continually competes against the other advertising media – after all it always comes down to the budget. The biggest rivals of a promotional product company are not other promotional products firms, but actually the other marketing disciplines. The more budgets that flow into haptic advertising measures, the more the entire market profits.
What we do is genre marketing and we invite all of the market players – suppliers and consultants alike – to take part.
Of course, one above all also gains an impression of the diversity and the high level of quality of the market, when walking through the aisles and examining the offer at the stands. Which exhibitors have already confirmed their participation in 2024?
Till Barth: We are already looking forward to importers or generalists such as Macma, Makito, Toptex or Reflects, specialists from Daiber or Promodoro, adpen or badge4u, Fare or Halfar through to Vonmählen or mbw as well as upand- coming brands like Retap, Mepal, Niederegger or Schwan-Stabilo, to mention but a few. The choice of product groups ranges from writing instruments, drinkware, textiles and bags, or notebooks, sweets and electronic devices, through to cuddly toys, flags or porcelain.
As in 2023, there is going to be a Newcomer Area again in 2024, where new market players or newcomers will exhibit and which will enable young companies to make their debut on the B2B sector.
Some suppliers complain that it is too expensive to exhibit at the HAPTICA® live.
Michael Scherer: There are trade shows, where the stand rental is less expensive, but at the same time there are events whose prices are significantly higher than ours. What one often forgets as well: In our case, the exhibitors pay an all-inclusive price, i.e. there are no hidden costs on top. For instance other event organisers charge extra for the power supply or have fees for car parks or storage space, which even increase the later one orders. None of this is true in our case.
On top of that: Our event is not held in a bare exhibition hall, but indeed at the WCCB, a bright, modern location with fantastic architecture that allows the “Experience of Haptic Advertising” to be staged appropriately and ensures the highclass presentation of the industry and its products to marketing decision-makers.
Due to our special target group structure – this is a further decisive point – we are also called upon to invest intensively in visitor marketing, namely on a much larger scale than closed-shop fairs have to, for example. Trade shows for promotional products users aren’t a “sure-fire success”, one not only has to engage in intensive and target group-specific communications beforehand, there also have to be plenty of touchpoints to entice the visitors to attend at all.
Which marketing measures do you rely on?
Michael Scherer: We reach around 45,000 promotional products users as well as approx. 20,000 promotional products distributors and advertising agencies via our company’s own publications: HAPTICA®, Promotion Products, Werbeartikel Nachrichten and eppi magazine. Beyond this, we also cooperate with industry magazines throughout Europe, with industry-related associations, marketing clubs, regional groups and service providers and, last but not least, we also invest in targeted advertising measures, both online and offline, such as for instance digital and physical mailings, AdWords campaigns, online and print advertisements or social media marketing. Taking all of this into consideration, the price of the exhibition stands is more than fair.
What does one have to do to take part in the HAPTICA® live?
Till Barth: As an exhibitor: Request the respective documentation and application form, fill this out and send it back to us. As a visitor: Simply register free of charge at www.haptica.live. Updated information on the show is available on the website and in our media.
// Dr. Mischa Delbrouck spoke with Till Barth and Michael Scherer.
photos: © WA Media; Bernadett Yehdou
