(Kamruzzaman Sabbir had to visit the 19th US Trade Show for witnessing the marketing activities in US Trade Show. He discussed with corporate participants and tried to have the understanding of how US based businesses expand their market through this event. Witnessing the marketing activities and judging the effectiveness Kamruzzaman Sabbir wrote this report for Bashir Hossain, Senior Faculty Member of North South University as a field work for the course titled MKT202 which is taught as an elementary marketing course at NSU.)
Objectives of US Trade Fair:
- To promote economic cooperation between the United States of America and peoples republic of Bangladesh, particularly in private sector.
- To promote exchange of information between the US and Bangladesh with a view to simulating greater understanding about each other’s economic potentials and opportunities.
Marketing is all around us. We see the results of marketing in the abundance of products in our nearby shopping mall. We see marketing in the advertisements that fill our TV screen, spice up our magazines, stuff our mailbox, or enliven our webpage. At home, at universities, where we work, and where we play we see marketing in everything we do. Yet, there is much more to marketing than meets the consumer’s casual eye. Behind it all is a massive network of people and activities competing for consumer’s attention and purchases.* The 19th US trade fair was also filled up with marketing activities competing for the expansion of respective market of the participant in the trade show. This report will focus on the marketing activities in US Trade Show. It will also judge the effectiveness of these marketing activities in the trade show.
*According to “Principles of Marketing” 12th edition, page 5, by Phillip Kotler and Gray Armstrong.
Marketing Activities In US Trade Show
A firm can communicate with its customers through publicity or public relations and most importantly through trade promotions. Many participant of US Trade Show have set exemplary benchmark for customer service and market communication. Every company participated in this trade show to differentiate their competitive goods and services for creating a distinct market position for their company in customer mind. The participants tried their outmost to use the platform of US Trade Show to perform the best marketing approaches for their market expansion and brand promotion.
Excellent Decoration-Every possible effort has been made to attract the visitor. All of the stalls were decorated in a very elegant manner. Most importantly all of the stalls were designed in such a way that anyone can differentiate them and can understand the business of those stalls just at looking on the decoration. The stall of Coca-Cola can be mentioned here as a very relevant example. Their stall was so wonderfully adorned that no one can help but have a very attentive look to that stall. They were showing their masterpieces of advertisement on a wide screen. Many people gathered there and watched those eye catching advertisements with great attention. Coca-cola successfully created such a wonderful environment that a visitor will never forget the impression of visiting that stall and they will leave the trade show setting a very positive image of coca-cola in their mind.
Personal Selling-Targeting the professionals and university students Comptech Network System (PVT) Limited offered a very unique and attractive service. Trade show agents of that stall were roaming around the whole area of the trade show venue. They were very active to find out and promote their service to their target market (the university students and corporate executives). “Excuse me! Can I have your attention please…………We are very happy to get you as an honored visitor of this tradeshow.” This is how they started their conversation with the targeted visitor. They behaved in such a pretty manner that the visitors were literally compelled to have their attention to those sales agent’s words. They offered e-card. This e-card will store contact details of a person in its database. The facility of this e-card is that a person does not have to bear any visiting card rather he would suggest his name and tell people to type his name and send a SMS to 7325. An instant reply from the database would be forwarded in the form of e-card. Comptech got huge success from this trade show as a reward of following this unique and lucrative personal selling strategy. Some other stalls also used personal selling techniques but it is for sure that Comptech set the benchmark in personal selling techniques.
Multimedia Presentation- The most common and useful marketing technique adopted by the participants in the US Trade Show is probably the visual multimedia presentation. Almost all the stalls used multimedia presentation to promote their services and product to the visitors.”Money does not make ideas: its idea that makes money” Listening to this luminous idea many people gathered to the stall of City Bank Limited. They used multimedia projector to promote their services to the visitors. The presentation was very informative and no wonder many would like to get these services just after seeing the presentation.
Coca-cola did a great job in using multimedia advertisement. They showed some of the masterpieces of their Television advertisements. It was such a great job that huge rush was there on all the three days of the US Trade Show. They sold their soft drinks in large volumes.
Trial before Purchase- Windows Seven a vey newly launched operating system gave the visitors the opportunity to try this new operating system. They put three desktop computers in their stall to give the visitors the facility of trailing this operating system. In addition to that there were some specialists who helped the visitors to understand different features of Windows Seven. They also answered different question posed by the visitors. Thus the visitors got the practical experience of the facilities of this new operating system. This is obviously a better technique than describing the features in merely a brochure or a short speech.
Special Discount- “Buy three at the price of one” RC Cola a very well known local soft drink manufacturer offered this money-spinning offer to the visitors. Only at the cost of taka twenty they offered three 250 ml bottles of RC Cola in the US Trade show which would cost 45 taka anytime other than the trade. Tens of hundreds visitors responded to this offer and thus RC Cola has successfully got the benefit of communicating with their target market in US Trade Show.
Norton Antivirus; one of the most popular anti-virus software being used in Bangladesh: offered the software at relatively very lower price. Norton has various types of anti-viruses for example-One User Antivirus, One User Internet Security, Multiple user antivirus and internet security, anti-virus for server system etc. They offered a special discount ranging from 100 to 500 taka for their different types of antivirus software. Norton also has been able to create a strong position in consumer mind in compare to other popular anti-virus software like Kaspersky or Bit Defender.
Product Development-Many participants chose the US Trade Show as a perfect venue to introduce new product to their current customer. RC Cola introduced a new soft drink, which they call RC Diet Cola; targeting the health conscious people. They researched the consumer behavior and found that many of their current consumers buy less quantity of RC Cola because they fear being fatty. So RC Cola introduced “RC Diet Cola” to persuade these current consumers to buy more RC Cola.
Distributing Brochure-All of the participants were very generous to distribute their brochure among the visitors. These brochures contained brief and in some cases detailed information about their services.
“If ‘coca-cola’ ever produced were flowing over Niagara Falls at its normal rate of 1.5 million gallons per second instead of water; the falls would flow for 38 hours and 46 seconds.”
“If “coca-cola’ ever produced were poured into the famous contour bottles and placed end to end, they would stretch to the moon and back 1045 times.”
This fabulous information was printed in the brochures of coca-cola. Certainly this kind of information creates a very positive image for coca-cola in consumers mind. Coca-cola tried to reinforce this in consumer mind that this soft drink has been trusted worldwide and the huge quantity of production and consumption makes clearly proves that it is the right choice even for the people of this country. The Bangladeshi people although used to take coca-cola but yet coca-cola took the chance to reinforce their brand image among the consumer mind by providing the information about coca-cola which portrays that this drink undoubtedly trusted, tested and hugely consumed worldwide.
“Your success; our effort!” Focusing the consumers benefit as the main concern; Standard Chartered Bank Limited promoted its various services through its brochure. “Maximum utilization of the assets of your business’s capital is a must for success; we brought that opportunity for you” Helping the customer to get the maximum utilization of their business capital is the objective of SME Banking Services; Standard Chartered Bank Limited endorsed its SME Services.
In addition to Coca-cola and Standard Chartered Bank Limited many other participants; in fact every single participants was very active in distributing their brochure. These brochures undoubtedly were very informative, useful and most certainly distributing brochure is a very efficient marketing technique.
Promotion of Universities- Several renowned universities of the country participated in US Trade Show. They represented some US Universities and also promoted themselves. North South University, the first and leading private university of the country represented University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, Illinois, U.S.A. Independent University of Bangladesh another renowned private university of the country represented Southern Illinois University, Hamline University, Harvard University and University of Colorado. American International University Bangladesh represented University of San Francisco, University of Wisconsin and some other universities. IBAIS University and Daffodil International University also attended the US Trade Show. These universities also got the chance to promote themselves to the visitors of the US Trade Show. They answered to the queries of the visitors about their various undergraduate and post-graduate programs.
Creating Evangelists- North South University was very successful in its effort to turn its students evangelists. They offered some gorgeously designed tea-shirt with the logo of NSU printed on it. They offered three tea-shirts at the price of two. Many students bought large number of tea-shirts and thus by wearing this tea-shirt they become evangelists. These evangelists promote NSU wherever they go wearing this tea-shirt.
Marketing Mix Analysis for US Trade Show Participants
Product- In US Trade Show product included the wide range of the goods and services that the participants offered. These products and services were able to satisfy the varying needs of different types of customers. The participants tried to promote the quality product and services to satisfy the consumer needs. There were a wide range of products and services with variety, assured quality, unique design, extraordinary features, strong brand name, useful packaging, and customer need focused services. In most of the cases the participants tried to develop and promote their services for solving the customer’s problem or need rather mere selling the products and services.
Price- The participants of the US Trade Show adjusted price of their products and services for the current competitive situations to create superior customer value. They offered discounts and reasonable price range for various goods and services. For many goods like heavy machinery if anyone signs up for the purchase then the respective company would facilitate for long term installment facility.
Place- Most of the participants in US Trade Show were concerned about customer convenience. So their activities are designed in such a way that customer can get the products and services at a very easy effort in wide range of places. These companies keep inventory, demonstrate them to potential buyers, negotiate price and give after sales services whereas applicable, in a great diversity of locations. Most of them maintain very strong channel for consumer convenience. They have excellent coverage throughout the marketplace. Customer can get the products and services in their convenient locations. Almost all of the participants of US Trade Show maintain strong chain of logistics.
Promotion- In terms of promotion the participants of US Trade Show have set a benchmark. They successfully communicated the merit of their product to the target market and persuaded them to buy. Many of them adopted the personal selling techniques very successfully. Their sales promotion strategies were also outstanding. Undoubtedly most of these participants are good at maintain strong public relations.
Effectiveness of the Marketing Activities In US Trade Show
The 19th US Trade Show was filled up with immense marketing activities. These activities vary from each other and not all of them are equally efficient and thriving. But yet undeniably many activities have to be considered as stunning success of marketing procedures. The companies participated in the US Trade Show will judge the effectiveness of their activities and marketing techniques that they adopted in the trade show. The above described activities will be judged in terms of effectiveness in a chronological order-
Excellent and unique decoration of the stalls was a very pragmatic marketing technique. It helped the participants to differentiate themselves and create a distinct and clear position in the consumer mind.
Personal selling was another useful marketing activity in US Trade Show. The consumer got personalized attention. It was very effective to establish a superior value in the consumer mind about the product.
Uses of multimedia presentation were most probably the most effective technique. Instead of describing the merit of a product in words the multimedia helped the company to create a great response from the consumer.
Trial before purchase has been proven a very useful marketing tricks for Windows Seven. They got huge response using this technique.
Special Discount was a good technique for RC Cola but Norton Anti Virus did not get the desired response from it. Yet Norton got good response from the visitor. Norton thinks that using the same technique in any other IT Fair they will reap greater benefit. However, on an average many participants got this technique effective although few exceptions are there.
Distributing Brochures is unquestionably a very effective marketing activity for the participants. The visitors took the brochure and many of them responded instantly and it is most likely the rest will respond positively at a later time. The brochure gives a brief but accurate description of the products. It is more likely in the long run many of these visitors will come back to get services from the participants.
Promotion of Universities was an effective activity to some extent but it was not effective to the fullest potential. In fact universities are to be promoted in education fair not in trade fair. But yet they got some benefit like placing some interns in different corporate organizations or setting university image to the corporate world.
Creating Evangelists was a very wonderful and effective technique adopted by North South University. They got huge response in selling their tea-shirt on which NSU monogram was printed and thus when these students wear the tea-shirts NSU gets promoted. This was a very useful but hassle free technique.
As one explored the US Trade Show he/she discovered the wide range of high-quality US products. This event was full of outstanding marketing activities. The participants tried their outmost to adopt the luminous marketing activities. Excellent decoration, personal selling, special discounts, distribution of brochures, promotional activities for universities, effort to create evangelists and inaugurating new products were the most remarkable activities in 19th US Trade Show. All of these activities were not equally effective and thriving. But yet many of these activities have set exemplary benchmark by their superb effectiveness. Last but not the least participants of this trade show got the advantage to stay on top of the current market trends, gain competitors insight, make key industry contacts and further solidify relationships with their customers.
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