Aerospace eBusiness

Bahrain Air Show: The invisible online aerospace event January 26, 2010

Last week a brand new Aerospace event debuted in the Kingdom of Bahrain. This bi-annual event in a key location for international business promised to be a contender for the marketing budgets of a number of Aerospace companies. The show preview by Flight Global pointed out the potential. The organization by Farnborough International guaranteed a well-run event, and by all reports, the show was a success with over $1 Billion contracted over the three days.

However, for an event that is trying to launch and grow, online coverage was completely ignored by the organizers. Of course you could Google “Bahrain Air Show” and find a mish mash of over 400 articles about the event, but there was no concerted effort to promote this opportunity using social networks before, during or after the show.

In 2010, it is no longer enough to build a “static” website and hope that people will come visit it. Event organizers must interact, broadcast, discuss and engage the global audience they are targeting. I feel that Farnborough International made the classic mistake: they strictly marketed this year’s event instead of using it to promote the next one.

Many Aerospace companies will always take a “wait and see” attitude toward new events, especially ones that require a significant investment. How do the organizers make them feel like they ought to be there next time? By involving them in the current event and make them realize they are missing something. It is called “buzz” and today it happens largely online.

So here are five things Farnborough International could have done better in Bahrain:

1. Build-up the show by centralizing information about the event and making it interactive: write a blog, create a twitter account, retransmit stories created by others, create a YouTube channel, solicit comments, and participate in the conversation.
2. Involve the participants: out of the 40 exhibitors, all of them have websites and at least 10 have a Twitter presence. Build up links to the sites, create a twitter list of exhibitors, feature it on the event website, and encourage the participants to share information about the show online.
3. Target future participants: what is it like at the show? How does it compare to others? What did the participants like? Use the various mediums (e.g. blogs, twitter, discussion forums) to share this information and interact. Not all of it needs to be public; you can have an access controlled exhibitor area in LinkedIn for example.
4. Crowd source new ideas and wishes: there is always room for improvement and further expansion. But this information is better captured during the event rather than weeks later. Leverage the social media platforms to gather this information as well as wishes for next time. This can then be used to create a better show in two years.
5. Do not end the dialog when the show ends: organizers should maintain a presence online during the gap between shows. Streaming news and information about the event or location, piggy back on other Aerospace events, and keeping the interaction going will keep the next show in the mind of the Aerospace companies that have to include it in their marketing budgets well in advance.

I know what you are going to say: that is a lot of work and with limited resources, we cannot afford to do much more than we have done so far. The secret is not to add resources, but instead to shift resources. Move away from the traditional promotion methods that have run their course and move budget and personnel toward social media to migrate into the newer way of interacting. A recent survey shows the shift in marketing methods for 2010.

As for participants, they can also take the initiative. Discussing the show and its positive happenings contributes to its success and validates the decision to invest there. ADS Group announced in Bahrain that they were opening offices in the Middle East, but they never posted it on Twitter. AIA told me that they wouldn’t be tweeting from Bahrain because their new media guy could not justify traveling there. But that is just the problem. AIA could “relay” information from the show onto twitter and still provide a valuable service to their members.

The upcoming Singapore Airshow (#SIN10 on Twitter) is gearing up to have a great online coverage, however not from the organizers but rather from Aviation Week and Flight Global. Other major aerospace shows seem to be going the way of Bahrain. I predict that the ones who embrace this technology, and particularly some of the ideas above, will definitely become more successful. It will be interesting to see what Farnborough International does for their summer air show.