Connecting with consumers to deliver Christmas sales

Roadshow promotions expert Event Marketing Solutions (EMS) is experiencing strong interest from high-profile consumer brands looking for new ways to connect with customers and drive crucial pre-Christmas sales.

 

With a still unsettled economy, brands are determined to turn the challenges into opportunities by taking to the road and creating memorable one-to-one engagement with their customers.

 

And with some retail experts predicting a move away from ‘shed shopping’ to a more personal and inspiring shopping experience, EMS’ state-of-the-art exhibition trailers are the perfect solution for brands looking to create stand-out.

 

The exhibition trailers are ideally suited for consumer electronics campaigns – providing a self-contained space for people to try out new games or devices first-hand, as well as an opportunity to provide eye-catching promotional marketing support for key retail locations.

 

Nic Whelan, Head of Business Development at EMS, said: “Christmas is the peak buying period for consumer electronics, and despite the challenges of the recession we’re seeing huge demand from brands looking to create stand-out and ramp up their sales.

 

“Not only does EMS have a proven track record of success, but we also provide an end-to-end service for our clients, with every aspect taken care of.   We understand that it takes passion and commitment to engage consumers and so we go beyond what’s required to deliver brilliant ROI for our clients.”

 

And EMS clients that have used roadshows tactically at this time of year agree.  Working with marketing communications agency FK3, EMS project-managed a high-profile, on-the-road event marketing campaign to showcase SanDisk’s products to consumers in the UK and France.

 

The campaign exceeded its target of delivering 2,000 product demonstrations by a staggering 189.8 per cent, with 5,795 consumers engaged over an eight-day period. “A fantastic result,” said K3 Partner, Paul Micallef.

 

20^th Century Fox’s pan-European roadshows created public excitement and buy-in around the technology benefits of Blu-ray, while promoting the release of famous back-catalogue films in the run-up to the festive season. EMS’ branded giant exhibition trailer visited 32 sites in Germany, the UK, France and Italy and the campaign’s results were striking, with:

-       7,674 direct interactions recorded on board the vehicle

-       1,851 visitors experiencing a Blu-ray product presentation.

 

August Martin, Vice President of Marketing, Library and Home Entertainment, says 20^th Century Fox understood that a roadshow promotions campaign had the potential to reach huge numbers of consumers, as well as support their retail partners. He said: “The campaign allowed us to connect with consumers on an interactive and personal level.”

 

Ref: EMS-HS-190911

 

EMS Goes Back To School With Student Finance Tour

With its vast wealth of expertise in the education sector, Event Marketing Solutions (EMS) is once again returning to the classroom to work with the government on the new student finance programme for 2012.

 

EMS is delivering the promotional marketing tour on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).  The principal objective of the roadshows is to inform sixth form students about the upcoming university fee reforms from September 2012 and the support available to help them participate in higher education.

 

The tour follows a rigorous recruitment and three-day training programme to obtain 19 recent graduates who will form part of the Student Finance presenter squad, visiting schools and colleges in England in bespoke exhibition trailers.  Each visit will see the presenter deliver an engaging presentation as well as a Q&A and one to one session. Students will complete a survey before and after each presentation to enable EMS to fully evaluate knowledge and perception shifts.

 

The launch week enabled the campaign to reach 118 schools/colleges, the first tranche of an ambitious schedule of 2,350 visits from now through until early January, ahead of the UCAS application deadline.

 

Managing the direct marketing campaign is EMS’ experienced education team, who worked on a series of highly successful roadshows for the BIS’ Aimhigher campaign for over nine years. They are backed by a full-time EMS student finance team whose key focus is to manage the database and demanding schedule of the 19 presenters as they tour the country.

 

EMS Client Services Director Justin Isles said: “We are delighted to work with BIS again on what we believe will be another extremely successful campaign.

 

“Along with our extensive experience of education, we have utilised our known expertise in complex logistics to deliver a very intensive campaign to thousands of schools by January 2012.

 

“This is augmented by our experience in training field marketing staff for high-profile campaigns. Our strength lies in choosing and thoroughly training only the very best people. There is no ‘one size fits all’ here.”

Ref: EMS-HS-270911

 

Backlash as Dahl Wants £500,000 to Save Grandad’s Garden Shed

Garden sheds aren't often cause for controversy but Sophie Dahl, model, TV chef and wife to jazz singer Jamie Cullum, has caused a stir by pleading to the public for £500,000 to save the garden shed in which her grandfather Roald Dahl wrote many of his timeless children's classics.

The Dahl family are bidding to raise the exorbitant fee in order to transport this most famous of garden sheds from the Dahl family home, to the nearby Roald Dahl Museum. In the Garden shed, Dahl wrote some of his most famous work, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Big Friendly Giant, James and the Giant Peach and The Twits.

Untouched since his death in 1990, the garden shed still holds the author's favourite armchair, old yellow legal pad. The children's favourite wrote all of his work in pencil and wrapped his legs in a sleeping bag when the shed got cold.

Dahl's widow Felicity stressed that 'terribly important to save it for years to come', but not everybody has been so supportive of the cause; some believing that garden sheds, however significant, might not warrant such a huge outlay.

Expressing his opinion on Twitter, writer Nicholas Pegg said 'Top model (& Jamie Cullum's wife) Sophie Dahl wants us to raise £0.5 million to save her best selling grandpas shed. Am I'm missing something?' and he didn't stop there:

'A preposterously wealthy family pleading for cash for its legacy? It sounds like a lost Dahl story'

Others were perhaps even less gracious, one Twitter user exclaiming 'Roald Dahl's shed needs to be renovated – Sophie could earn that on one modelling job. The Big Stingy Giant'.

The Roald Dahl Museum already charges for admission and is owned by the Dahl estate. Amelia Foster of the Dahl Museum said that the Dahl family had already made a significant financial contribution to the project, and Sophie Dahl has since tried to temper the response by saying that they were not begging for the cause, but the public could donate if they so wished.

As far as garden sheds go, the one at the bottom of the Dahl garden is fairly controversial indeed.

New operations man for EMS

Roadshow exhibitions specialist Event Marketing Solutions (EMS) has appointed a new operations production manager to enhance the company’s service to its ever-growing client base.

Will Woolner has a brief to help increase EMS’ operational flexibility and add value to its technical and logistics expertise as the company heads for another successful year.

He joins from experiential agency TRO, where he specialised in digital integration for live events, with a client portfolio including BMW, Shell and Samsung.

Will said: “I am joining EMS at a fantastic time, as the company looks to a second record-breaking year as the leading provider of event marketing roadshows. I’m looking forward to playing my part in the company’s success.”

EMS Managing Director, Keith Austin commented: “We are delighted to welcome Will. He will add strength in depth to our award-winning team, and help us as we expand operational scale and capability to meet the demand from our growing portfolio of big brands.”

Ref: EMS-HS-200911

 

Revelation Smart Vehicle Tracking and Bing Map PRO Mapping

GPS Vehicle Tracking system Smart Vehicle Tracking by Road Safety Systems utilises Bing Map PRO Mapping Technology as standard. A vehicle tracking system is only as good as the mapping software that it uses. It’s no good being able to track your vehicles if cheap mapping software is going to prevent you from tracking them simply and successfully. That’s why Revelation Smart Vehicle Tracking makes use of the best mapping platform available.

Mapping software is an integral part of any vehicle tracking system. If a vehicle tracking system is based on poor-quality, free mapping it will be more difficult to follow, to navigate and to track. Other vehicle tracking providers might employ such low quality mapping platforms as a cost cutting measure and would be selling their customers short; saving money at the ultimate expense of the client. They might do the job, but they’ll never do the best job.

For the best job, you need to choose the best vehicle tracking system and the best mapping software. With Revelation Smart Vehicle tracking and Bing Map PRO Mapping, you get both of those things in one.

At Road Safety Systems, our highest aim is to provide the optimum performance equipment, providing the greatest user experience possible. Bing Maps PRO Mapping platform provides the most modern and up-to-date maps available. Users are able to view the location information of any member of their fleet, and comprehend it in a flash so that they can continue to provide the best service and the best support to the members of their fleet.

Users can choose between a normal road map, detailed overhead satellite imagery or super-detailed satellite imagery. All three variations are very simple to follow and provide bang up to date information via satellite, so that the user always has the information needed to make the most informed decision at any given moment.

Bing Map PRO Mapping software gets its map data directly from Microsoft and is constantly upgraded to show new roads and changes without you noticing. Whenever you use your Revelation Smart Vehicle Tracking, you’re getting all of the information you need, in real time.

It’s the kind of simplicity, efficiency and accuracy that we afford to any client no matter how large or small, because every client is just as important; and when they choose Revelation Smart Vehicle Tracking they deserve the very best tools for the job.

 

EventMS ship in a unique hospitality solution for Parker at Offshore Europe

Roadshow promotions specialist Event Marketing Solutions (EMS) has designed an innovative, high-impact hospitality space for Parker Hannifin at the major European oil and gas offshore event.

The Parker Instrumentation tour - managed by EMS since 2007, was recently at the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Offshore Europe 2011 in Aberdeen - the biggest event in their calendar this year. It formed part of a busy, six-month tour taking in Sweden, Germany, France, Denmark and Norway.

EMS maximised the hospitality space and created impact for Parker at the heavily-attended three-day event with a strategically-designed, innovative exhibition unit solution that gave the whole stand experience a high-tech industrial look and feel.

A unique visitor experience was created by using the Parker-branded exhibition trailer to showcases their latest products, which also provided access to their private VIP hospitality area that was executed inside two 40ft shipping containers.  A ‘link’ walkway enabled visitors to enjoy a seamless, first-hand experience of Parker’s industry-leading range of instrumentation for the oil and gas industry.

The highly effective promotional marketing environment provided an exclusive space to have one-to-one conversations and enjoy networking opportunities with industry experts. EMS kitted out the exhibition units with separate presentation and refreshment spaces to give Parker the competitive edge at the prestigious event.

Now in its fifth year, the Parker roadshows have already visited locations across Europe and the Middle East. EMS manages all movements and logistics for the multi-territory campaign.

To ensure every lead is maximised, EMS has introduced a state-of-the-art centralised sales lead management service, managing the on-board visitor registrations and feeding through customer product requests daily to Parker’s different sales territories.

After the Aberdeen show, the Parker tour will head straight back out to Europe to continue its international tour.

Sheldon Banks, European Sales and Marketing Manager for Parker Hannifin said: “This tour has continued to create a high impact innovative experience for Parker in our marketplace, as well as allowing us to engage face-to-face with key customers and distributors in a time efficient manner.

“EMS continues to offer its international knowledge and experience to ensure everything runs smoothly, and the lead generation service introduced this year will support our sales team to the max in following up every potential customer.”

Justin Isles, Client Services Director of EMS, said
“We are enjoying an even more successful year for Parker in 2011. The data capture service has really kick-started this new leg of the tour and allows us to show a long-standing client the tangible benefits of a high-energy, mobile roadshow campaign.   Parker is among an increasing number of B2B brands who know that going mobile creates a real return on investment in what is a very competitive international market.”

Parker is just one of EMS’ growing number of clients who are seeing the benefits of EMEA roadshows. Other B2B clients include Dell, Lenovo, Infinera and Ciena.

Event Marketing Solutions are a team of roadshow experts with the largest and most versatile fleet of vehicles in Europe.

From conception to completion, EMS deliver tailor-made roadshows to put products and services right in front of any target audience, anywhere in the world.

Event Marketing Solutions pride themselves on being easy to talk to, good at what they do, and Event Marketing Solutions always aim to meet every objective and exceed every expectation.

They are a provider of vehicle-based marketing roadshows and was founded in October 2000 by Keith Austin (Managing Director) and Iain Johnston (Chairman). Ten years on the company employs 46 people at its offices in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire.

EMS manage client campaigns in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and the United States and to date they have operated roadshows in over 40 countries. Their roadshow marketing service helps brands to communicate campaign messages to Business to Business, Business to Consumer and Internal Communication audiences.

They works across a range of market sectors, including FMCG, retail, technology, financial services, consumer electronics, healthcare, charity/not-for-profit, manufacturing, logistics and sport.

Ref: EMS-HS-100911

 

 

Helping agencies to deliver global face to face campaigns

Roadshow exhibitions experts Event Marketing Solutions (EMS) has seen agency enquiries soar as they seek to create highly innovative roadshows and interactive experiences that enable their clients to connect ‘one to one’ with their customers wherever they are in the world.

With unsettled market conditions coupled with a decline in attendance at trade exhibitions, brands understand that in order to stimulate sales they need to react quickly and tactically with face-to-face direct marketing activity.

Taking to the road with tailored roadshows enables their clients to target new markets quickly and demonstrate their latest products to new and existing customers in a highly immersive, interactive and private environment.

What makes EMS unique is not just the access they unlock to state of the art exhibition trailers, but the expert ability of their in-house team to interpret and transform their ideas into reality. It is this key ingredient that highlights EMS as a proven trusted agency supplier - enabling agencies to confidently take their clients’ event marketing campaigns on the road.

Nic Whelan, Head of Business Development at EMS said: “Our agency business will account for nearly 60% of this year’s revenue. During the past 10 years we’ve delivered some incredible agency campaigns throughout the UK, Europe and the Middle East. We really help support agencies by playing to our strengths, allowing them to play to theirs.”

Agency customers:

Ivor Frankland at Mansfield Design said:
“Professional looking up front, but more important the attention to detail, determination and teamwork makes EMS an easy choice.”

Shenan Morgan at Avvio said:
“EMS helped us to create a truly immersive experience that allowed Sky people to feel for themselves the power of HD, first-hand. Using a mobile solution also helped us to maximise the number of people we could reach - by taking the experience directly to them and organising the schedule around their working day.”

Paul Micallef at FK3
“We were incredibly pleased with the results of the tour, by combining the use of a vehicle and stand we were able to reach the target audience and provide them with a unique and energetic experience of the brand. Getting the product in front of potential customers was the key objective and we almost doubled our target number of demonstrations - a fantastic result”

Ref: EMS-HS-010911

 

Employment Law survey results

Sickness and absence from work are the top issues which most worry business bosses, according to a nationwide survey by employment law specialists Citation.

As the traditional autumn recruitment season approaches, Citation, based in Wilmslow, Cheshire, contacted its 6,500 customers across England, Wales and Scotland.

They were asked to rank issues from redundancy, managing sickness, discrimination, agency workers regulations, recruitment selection, maternity and paternity, discipline and grievances.

Andrea O’ Hare, Head of Personnel and Employment Law said; “Our survey showed that 21% of our clients were most bothered by sickness and absence issues and the impact this could have on their business.

“This was not surprising, absence is one of the most common issues we receive calls from on the employment law helpline. Many employers think that they cannot contact or meet with an employee when they are off sick, particularly for longer-term absences. This is simply not the case . We advise clients to establish and maintain regular contact with employees who are sick as regular open dialogue between employer and employee enables employers to closely manage sickness and absence issues and plan their businesses accordingly. For the employee, it can demonstrate the Company is concerned for their welfare and may well encourage them to return to work, benefitting both parties. For short term, intermittent absence problems, we advise keeping accurate records and regularly monitoring absence levels, which allows companies to target and deal with short term absence issues quickly, ensuring meetings take place with employees to address the problem.”

Managers were also concerned about discipline with 19% and recruitment and selection 18%. Redundancy came in fourth with 13%.

Citation client Andy Redfern, Managing Director of North West online marketing agency Hit Search, said; “We are a small business and staff sickness and absence has a huge impact on the team’s ability to deliver our service, not to mention the additional pressure it undoubtedly adds to the whole team.”

Businesses based in the North West were most concerned about recruitment and selection issues. Added Andrea;

“Employers need to take into account a number of factors when recruiting and selecting a candidate for a role. Firstly, they need to consider advertising for the role, the selection procedures used throughout the application process and subsequently the storing of data and interview notes after the suitable applicant has been recruited for the role. Failure to follow the correct procedures could leave employers exposed to a potential employment tribunal”

Operating throughout the UK since 1995, Citation provides professional advice and compliance packages to business clients, mainly SMEs with between six and 200 employees. Independently endorsed at the highest level, its market leading services provide guaranteed protection in the high risk areas of employment law and health and safety regulations.

The company employs over 200 people and the helpline handles over 80,000 calls each year.

REF: CEL-HS-060911