Get help managing your trade-show workload

Preparing to exhibit at any trade show, much less one with the mammoth scale of the triennial K plastics fair, can be daunting. With so many moving parts, many companies seek support from trusted partners to help ensure they are as well prepared as possible. That’s where, for many firms, EMG comes into play.

We’ve been assisting plastics and chemical companies for over two decades with their messaging and public relations. But the portfolio of EMG’s core competencies has expanded greatly over the years, and includes not only media relations, but also stand management and event management.

At the K 2016 show alone we’ll be assisting, in various ways, companies such as Arlanxeo, Ascend Performance Materials, Borealis, Clariant, DSM, Elix Polymers, Henkel, Milliken, Perstorp, Polyscope, PTS, SABIC, Songwon, Total and Rapid Granulator.

Maximise and measure the impact of your investment

The most obvious role for a PR-focused firm is to provide communications services and help to manage media relations. This can take many forms, including: drafting a list of targeted industry editors; ensuring proper listings in the show catalogue or on-site news dailies; recommending and placing paid ads in appropriate media; counseling client executives on the best approaches for engaging with the media; preparing and disseminating advance, multi-language press materials; working in advance to maximize interest in the client’s message; organizing and stage-managing press conferences (both prior to and during the trade fair); assisting with on-site interviews; following up afterwards with editors to ensure they have all they need for their stories; tracking the effectiveness of both advertising and PR-related outreach, and providing the client with a post-event syndication summary of all the resulting news coverage.

Focus your attention on your team and your customers

Another service we offer involves trade-show stand management. For Ascend and Songwon, for example, EMG is providing end-to-end assistance related to their booths at this year’s K fair. This can start a year or more before the event, with researching and securing the most desirable stand location available. We organize the bids from contractors for designing and building the actual booth, and then help to see the resulting concept through to reality. That can involve creating the signage and graphics, sourcing any audio/visual services, organizing on-site booth activities such as catering, cleaning, technical service, security, hiring and managing local booth staff, and ordering the necessary stand gear -- from tables, chairs and rubbish bins, to flowers, lighting and power resources.

EMG additionally can assist with event management, such as we did recently with a client in another (non-plastics) industry, for which we organized a 1,000-person gala dinner during a major trade fair.

Companies participate in trade shows in order to build their brands, reconnect with existing customers, meet prospective new clients, and introduce or showcase their portfolios of products, technologies and services. That’s plenty to have on one’s plate. It’s smart to leave much of the media-related and on-site logistical challenges to experienced professionals like EMG. Let us know if we can help you succeed at your next major industry event!