By Kathryn O’Donoghue
It was buzzing at the IPTV World Forum in London last month. The show had more than doubled in size since last year and anyone who's anyone in this emerging industry was there to show off their products and services, meet the industry's opinion formers, and forge lucrative deals and partnerships. The atmosphere was one of genuine excitement that this market is finally about to take off and earn these companies their millions.
But it wasn't only the IPTV industry that was swarming - it was also the technology PR industry.
It's not hard to see the attraction of working for clients in this industry - IPTV is after all one of the hottest topics in the media at the moment.
But what was strange is that a lot of the PRs touting for business at the show went straight to the busiest booths where prospective customers and partners, journalists and analysts were already jostling for the attention of those on stand duty. It happens at every show, and to be honest, it’s not a great reflection on the general intelligence levels of your average PR – do these people not realise that busy stands are usually busy for a reason ie. they already have good PR!
Take Ruckus Wireless, for example, one of our clients. A number of PRs certainly tried to, having emailed in advance to say they would ‘drop by’ the company’s stand, and several more turned up unannounced, all battling for space with frankly more important visitors. What these PRs forgot was that the main reason Ruckus and other companies were at the show was not to reassess their PR activities, but to make business contacts - distracting them from potential customers hardly seems the best way to convince them to switch agencies!
Of course, this isn’t to say that there's no place for winning new clients at trade shows. But wouldn't it maybe make more sense to target those booths with fewer visitors (and often in genuine need of PR), where you'd actually stand a chance of getting to talk to someone for more than 30 seconds, rather than going after the companies that are already making the headlines?
You never know – as we’ve found ourselves, even the smallest start-up can generate all kinds of attention with a decent PR company on board…
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