Itineris, has just finished playing cupid at the world’s largest mobile technology exhibition.The company delivered an innovative and highly successful package of business match-making services which were central to the UK Trade & Investment Pavilion at Mobile World Congress 2008.
Mobile World Congress is one of the world’s major technology events and more than 55,000 visitors attended the Barcelona exhibition in February to do business and debate the future of the mobile phone industry.2008 was the largest Mobile World Congress yet, and the UK was the largest country exhibitor.The UK Trade & Investment showcase stand provided a forum for international companies to make contact with UK organisations and identify ways to do business together.
UK Trade & Investment’s job was to provide a platform for some of the companies who have taken the innovation and expertise available in the UK and turned it into tomorrow’s ‘must have’ technology, explains Matt Davy, Head of Operations at Itineris.
Our role was to create an innovative yet practical set of tools to allow UK businesses to make contact with potential customers and suppliers from around the world.
Itineris was responsible for devising and delivering the complete digital marketing package which brought the UK Trade & Investment stand to life. We worked closely with our client to develop a digital marketing campaign which would help UKTI to achieve its objectives.Apart from the physical build of the stand, we were involved in every element of UKTI’s presence at the event which gave us an opportunity to use a huge variety of technical applications combined with marketing strategy and creative thought, explains Matt Davy.
Prior to the event Itineris produced an email marketing campaign to encourage people to register to visit the UKTI stand and captured company data to allow delegates to receive information of real interest and relevance to them.
Another key element of the pre-event activity was a business match-making website.Matt Davy explains; The micro-site we produced allowed Mobile World Congress visitors to search for, and book meetings with, UK companies before the event.They could browse company profiles by name, category or keywords and then select the companies they wanted to meet.Before issuing a meeting request they had to register their own details and the UK companies being approached had the opportunity to decline or accept the meeting invitation.
Over a 5 week duration, the site received over 10,000 unique visitors, ranking as one UK Trade & Investment’s most successful micro-sites provided by an external supplier.
But the business match-making service did not end once the event started. Itineris created a bespoke application using RFID technology which allowed visitors to the UK Trade & Investment stand to access a database of UK companies for organisations they were keen to collaborate with.Each delegate could scan their RFID pass card into a laptop and then have access to a meeting planner facility.Having created a personal list of organisations they were interested in, the delegate could print out the list and also have it emailed to them during the event.
UK Trade & Investment had more than 650 requests for company information from both the website and laptop scanners which resulted in 315 meeting requests over the period of the exhibition.This was described as a ‘fantastic’ result.
To create a buzz around the stand, Itineris also created 4 plasma screen, show-reel presentations plus 3 LCD presentations which were played on a loop throughout the event.
The whole purpose of Mobile World Congress for UK Trade & Investment is for innovative UK organisations to meet with potential collaborators.Our objective was to make this process as engaging, polished and professional as possible, explains Matt Davy, “The applications we developed had to interact with the equipment being used at the event and whilst everything had to look great, it also had to be straightforward for delegates to use. At an event like Mobile World Congress, which is attended by thousands of people who are focused on using technology to create trends and influence consumers, it was essential that we delivered clever, professional but practical solutions. ”