OBJECTIVES AND TARGET GROUPS 463and new applications may be discovered in that way. For instance, Nivea for Men used
an exhibition to launch its range of grooming products under the ‘for men who dare to care’
theme. Pre-show mailings, tube posters and show sponsorship drove people to the stand
where sampling, interactivity and a competition took place. Nivea supported its product
launch with media coverage as a result of the exhibition and gave out thousands of free
samples to its target group. Another example is Procter & Gamble launching Sunny Delight,
a range of fruit drinks, at a top retailing trade show. In this case, the objectives were push
marketing to get the new drinks noticed among the distribution as well as to earn shelf space.
P&G attracted 35% to 40% of the entire exhibition audience to its colourful stand with free
prize draws and product sampling, generating thousands of leads for sales call follow-up.
Within a few months of its launch, Sunny Delight was rivalling the sales fi gures of Coca-Cola
and Pepsi in the UK.^12M+R is a trade fair organised by Fairtec. M+R Antwerp and M+R Brussels are one-day trade fairs for measuring and
regulation instrumentation in the process industry. The M+R programme gives visitors the opportunity to experi-
ence the whole range of products and services for the process industry. There are exhibitors from many different
industries (batch systems, embedded systems, factory automation, identification systems, intelligent instrumenta-
tion, PLC, test and measurement, automatisation, digital data transmission, operating panels, sensors, etc.). At the
M+R fair in Antwerp, 25% of the visitors had come to the fair for the first time, meaning that every fair brings a pool
of potential new clients to reach. Fairtec focuses on organising smaller specialised fairs to compete with the large,
international, broader-scoped fairs in Germany and France. Its position is complementary to those large fairs. In
Europe, every country has its own large fairs because every national headquarters of a big international company
still keeps its proper national identity. M+R is a flexible concept. Companies can decide to participate every six
months, every year or on a two-year basis.
In 2002, Fairtec decided to diversify geographically by organising the same fair concept in the Netherlands.
Fairtec noticed that a lot of exhibitors at the Belgian fairs also had sister companies in the Netherlands. So it con-
cluded that, instead of opening its doors to Dutch exhibitors, it should implement the concept in the Netherlands
for Dutch exhibitors and visitors. So Fairtec went with M+R to, among other places, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and
Eindhoven. The one-day regional fair formula was intended to be a flexible alternative to the traditional four-day Het
instrument fair that takes place in the Netherlands every second year. The Dutch venture started in 2002, but in
2004 it had already come to an end. The fair had only 65 exhibitors and 600 visitors in Rotterdam, which was not
enough for such a large port city. For instance, in Antwerp there were 100 exhibitors and around 1500 visitors.
Apparently, diversifying by entering a larger geographical market did not work, because the Dutch fair Het instrument
(‘ The instrument’) proved to be too strong a competitor for M+R in the Netherlands. Having lost its place as an
organiser on the Dutch market, Fairtec moved to reposition its marketing approach to attract Dutch companies and
visitors to the M+R fair in Antwerp.
In 2007, Fairtec thought about making changes to the M+R formula. A lot of exhibitors felt that the fair was too
crowded, and exhibitors complained that not all interested visitors could be contacted. One possible solution was
to organise a two-day fair instead of a one-day fair, in one place. At the time, M+R attracted 1500 visitors on one
day. If the fair were expanded over two days, only 750 visitors a day would attend, which is not enough. So, making
M+R a two-day fair is a possible risk for the organiser. Another question was: Would exhibitors be happy? They
would incur more costs because they would have to rent the space and the stand for one more day. The result of
a survey showed that exhibitors did not want to change the current format of short, relatively small fairs in two
cities.^13 In 2012, the fair was still organised in Ghent and Antwerp for one day.BUSINESS INSIGHT
M+R: repositioning an existing fairM14_PELS3221_05_SE_C14.indd 463M14_PELS3221_05_SE_C14.indd 463 5/6/13 3:00 PM5/6/13 3:00 PM