The Studies, Development and Training area of Fondazione Fiera Milano presented the following research paper “New Media and face-to-face: a winning team” at the Ufi (trade fairs international association) Open Seminar at Budapest. Corrado Peraboni, general director of Fondazione Fiera Milano, is the vicepresident of the European Chapter of the Ufi.

The use of communications vehicles has changed radically over the past few years. The tools used to search for product/service information are no longer the traditional ones (printed material, advertising). The web is the preferred tool (product comparison sites or critics’ and users’ reviews) and dialogue with the sales staff. In addition we often bear witness to the simultaneous use of several communication channels, with consequent lower attention levels from the users, and low trust in advertising, whilst friends, family, social network contacts and regularly read blog authors are considered trustworthy.

The effects of this revolution are evident if we analyse the B2B market in the US. Comparing turnover in 2003, and 2009 and forecasts for 2013, there is an increase in overall turnover, indicating that the sector is healthy, but the form of the turnover is changing over time. If in 2003 48% of income came from magazines, the forecasts for 2013 imply a drastic change to just 27%.

But online sales benefit from this drop, which goes from 5% to 23%, and trade fairs which from 40% in 2003 reach 44% in 2009 and we expect that this will be maintained for 2013. Also in Europe face-to-face is of prime importance: with 23% of marketing budget, events are in second place, after printed publicity material. But were marketing managers to have a higher budget available only 26% would invest in printed material, against 40% who would chose web marketing and 49% who would invest in events. Then, between the various types of events, trade fairs are the most cited tools (60% of replies) and are considered the vehicles with the greatest ROI (40% of replies). This scenario also influences the portfolios of media companies: income generated from trade fairs and online activities are growing, whilst that derived from printed magazines is falling.

And finally, even from the music sector, which has been badly affected by the digital revolution, the importance of face-to-face emerges: CD sales continue to fall, whilst peer-to-peer file sharing grows. However, concerts are still holding their own, so much so that about 2/3 of income for many great international artists comes from concert ticket sales.


Fiera Milano news n.27 - july/august 2010