Fascinating new venture by The Bespoke Group of Businesses UK gives candidates a full job fair experience without having to incur travel fees
June 3, 2007 (Press Release) --
Marketing can be a large part of any businesses budget, and as such, in my case, I am always on the look out for more ways to increase brand awareness and to place my business in front of people who would be interested in going ahead with a potential commercial agreement, ideally, with as little risk to my business as is possible. I am under the impression that you may be thinking along the same lines.
During my dim and distant personal history, I was employed as a media salesman for a virtual conference and trade show company, and I have, I feel learned from the mistakes that they had made. Their product was based purely on the Internet and as such the benefits was hard to distinguish. It was not virtual reality, but a flashy website with intriguing graphics and served no better purpose other than to act as an on line directory that was more optically pleasing than any other. It did not “feel” like a real trade show, and it had none of the benefits in terms of being able to look around you and to get a feel for what other stand owners were providing. It also lacked the fun of a VR experience and as such interested parties did not spend as much time taking in the information that was being presented as a real trade show attendee might.
I have looked into other possibilities such as incorporating the functionality of MMORPGS (Massive Multi player on line role playing games) such as Second Life, but found them to be lacking. Firstly, there was the issue of Lag, your Internet connection or their servers slowing down the data transfer making the display of information and imagery slow, time consuming and possibly low resolution. The network experienced problems and one cannot reliably stay “in game” for any length of time. Although you have the ability to text chat (Instant message) with other players, this was often slow and the Internet connection was not always sensitive to all key presses. There was also lag between pressing the enter key and your message appearing on screen. This can cause more misunderstandings than to create ease of communication and makes the experience of using a trade show in this format a time consuming and even unpleasant business. And then there is the cost. There are two fixed costs to take into consideration, the initial expenditure of the purchase of the land (which can be massive, I mean really massive) and secondly the monthly land usage fees (which for the sizer of the “sim” that you would need, would also be massive and on a monthly basis. Both of which can increase the cost to the Expo host and can therefore increase the cost to the exhibition stand holder. On top of that, the costs of marketing the show would have to be added. Then there is the issue of awareness. How many real life business owners who play second life have been aware of any major events happening out there? I am sure that it has been very few SL has become a social environment and has not yet evolved into a business communication platform to be used in this manner.
Now lets have a look at the possibility of a downloadable trade show. As you may already know, I make 3D CGI artwork ad have at my disposal the ability to create “game engine” simulations. Once the simulations have been made and the executable file has been saved, it is not usually all that bulky, making the game easy to download, email, Skype P2P file transfer or just to save to disk so that employers and candidates can give the trade show to each other (in that way, part of the marketing will be done by the downloaders themselves, in an almost viral manner). I own the software that is used to make the simulations and have no further costs involved apart from my own time expenditure in making the simulation, importing and laying out imagery and logos and the like and some marketing. As the simulation is run on your own windows computer hard drive, there is no issues connected with Internet lag, server downtime or the like. The trade show will be a real virtual reality experience allowing you, the employer or candidate to turn your head around and look at the stands, see if there are any logos you recognize and to find out more about the agencies that you don't recognize. The attitude to using the trade show will be the same as when you play an on line game, namely you will take certain time out to walk around the show, to immerse yourself in the experience and have fun! It is designed to be pleasurable as well as to be there for business. By contrast to a brick and mortar recruitment trade show, one does not need to travel to it (thus incurring expenses), but one can get the contact details of all the agencies that one wants to do business with armed only with your keyboard and mouse. The simulation will be playable in either full screen or windowed mode so you can have MS Word or notepad up to type in any email addresses, URLs contact names and phone numbers that you see in the show to become part of your own database of recruitment consultancies to contact in the future, or just write them down for future reference to call tomorrow morning at 09:00 AM.
So, how will this be marketed? As far as getting recruitment agencies involved, I will be taking it on myself to perform direct marketing by email, letter and on the phone to get as many agencies involved before the going live date of 1 August 2007. This will be the cheapest method and will therefore cut down the cost of marketing the trade show, and by inference, the cost to the stand owners themselves. The sale values of the first few stands plus some extra funding put in by myself, will go straight onto the cost of a website that will become Search Engine Optimized straight away (a process that can take a few months to “kick in”) so that by the time that the show is live (will all the stands finished and in place and the show is ready for download), the website will already be receiving sufficient traffic to make it a download success for the employer and candidate audience. I will in the meantime go through the process of building strategic partnerships with university websites, the REC and other industry bodies (as I have already started to do), as well as a press release campaign to ensure authenticity and awareness. Download links and links to the site will be seeded across the Internet on high ranking sites to increase SEO and to increase direct traffic too.
How it works:
The trade show will operate just like a modern 3D CG action computer game with cursor controls to move you forward and backward, turn left and right and with two more keys so that you can tilt the viewing camera up and down to read the ad boards/press releases and anything else that the recruiters wish to display including the contact details, website or job board, email address and phone numbers.
The show will be split up into different halls to cover some broad industry categories. You will have the opportunity to have your stand in more than one category if you wish and at no extra cost to your business.
As a candidate or employer walks through the appropriate door, he or she will be immediately transported to the entrance doorway of the next hall. To go back to the main reception and to choose another hallway, all you have to do is to walk back to the doorway. Thus it will feel like you are navigating a real life building. I am planning interconnecting doors too.
Your trade show stand will have your logo, a few pages of press release material and more (see below). Colouring can also be added to make the stand fit in with the colours of your logo.
the industry sectors and trade show halls will be
1) finance and accountancy
2) IT
3) catering and administration
4) Architecture and engineering
5) Creative and design
6) Driving, laboring, warehouse and factory
With enough public pressure, I can be persuaded to create another hallway in a different category, however I feel that the above best represents the broad spectrum of requirements.
There are 4 levels of involvement. As you move up the levels of involvement, the stand sizes increase thus creating greater visual impact, and they allow you to display increasing quantities of information. The stand layout will be similar in appearance to the London Boat Show:
Basic Stand:
Allows you to display your logo, basic contact details such as email, website (but not job board), address and one telephone (but not fax) number and one side of A4 press release or marketing data in the form of an ad board.
SME
This slightly larger stand allows you to display your logo, website and job board, as well as basic contact details such as email, fax, address and up to 2 telephone numbers, and 2 pages of A4 information in the form of marketing information and press releases.
National
This stand (being larger still) allows you to display your logo, website and job board, as well as basic contact details such as email, address, fax and up to 3 telephone numbers, and 3 pages of A4 information in the form of marketing information and press releases.
PLC
This is the largest and most optically pleasing stand of them all. It rises higher than the rest and has much more room for the demonstration of your logo, strap line, elevator pitch and business information. I am working on the REC stand of this size right now. It allows you to display your logo, strap line, elevator pitch, website and job board, as well as basic contact details such as email, address, fax and up to 4 telephone numbers, and 5 pages of A4 information in the form of marketing information and press releases. It retails at 500 GBP for the full year of membership.
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During my dim and distant personal history, I was employed as a media salesman for a virtual conference and trade show company, and I have, I feel learned from the mistakes that they had made. Their product was based purely on the Internet and as such the benefits was hard to distinguish. It was not virtual reality, but a flashy website with intriguing graphics and served no better purpose other than to act as an on line directory that was more optically pleasing than any other. It did not “feel” like a real trade show, and it had none of the benefits in terms of being able to look around you and to get a feel for what other stand owners were providing. It also lacked the fun of a VR experience and as such interested parties did not spend as much time taking in the information that was being presented as a real trade show attendee might.
I have looked into other possibilities such as incorporating the functionality of MMORPGS (Massive Multi player on line role playing games) such as Second Life, but found them to be lacking. Firstly, there was the issue of Lag, your Internet connection or their servers slowing down the data transfer making the display of information and imagery slow, time consuming and possibly low resolution. The network experienced problems and one cannot reliably stay “in game” for any length of time. Although you have the ability to text chat (Instant message) with other players, this was often slow and the Internet connection was not always sensitive to all key presses. There was also lag between pressing the enter key and your message appearing on screen. This can cause more misunderstandings than to create ease of communication and makes the experience of using a trade show in this format a time consuming and even unpleasant business. And then there is the cost. There are two fixed costs to take into consideration, the initial expenditure of the purchase of the land (which can be massive, I mean really massive) and secondly the monthly land usage fees (which for the sizer of the “sim” that you would need, would also be massive and on a monthly basis. Both of which can increase the cost to the Expo host and can therefore increase the cost to the exhibition stand holder. On top of that, the costs of marketing the show would have to be added. Then there is the issue of awareness. How many real life business owners who play second life have been aware of any major events happening out there? I am sure that it has been very few SL has become a social environment and has not yet evolved into a business communication platform to be used in this manner.
Now lets have a look at the possibility of a downloadable trade show. As you may already know, I make 3D CGI artwork ad have at my disposal the ability to create “game engine” simulations. Once the simulations have been made and the executable file has been saved, it is not usually all that bulky, making the game easy to download, email, Skype P2P file transfer or just to save to disk so that employers and candidates can give the trade show to each other (in that way, part of the marketing will be done by the downloaders themselves, in an almost viral manner). I own the software that is used to make the simulations and have no further costs involved apart from my own time expenditure in making the simulation, importing and laying out imagery and logos and the like and some marketing. As the simulation is run on your own windows computer hard drive, there is no issues connected with Internet lag, server downtime or the like. The trade show will be a real virtual reality experience allowing you, the employer or candidate to turn your head around and look at the stands, see if there are any logos you recognize and to find out more about the agencies that you don't recognize. The attitude to using the trade show will be the same as when you play an on line game, namely you will take certain time out to walk around the show, to immerse yourself in the experience and have fun! It is designed to be pleasurable as well as to be there for business. By contrast to a brick and mortar recruitment trade show, one does not need to travel to it (thus incurring expenses), but one can get the contact details of all the agencies that one wants to do business with armed only with your keyboard and mouse. The simulation will be playable in either full screen or windowed mode so you can have MS Word or notepad up to type in any email addresses, URLs contact names and phone numbers that you see in the show to become part of your own database of recruitment consultancies to contact in the future, or just write them down for future reference to call tomorrow morning at 09:00 AM.
So, how will this be marketed? As far as getting recruitment agencies involved, I will be taking it on myself to perform direct marketing by email, letter and on the phone to get as many agencies involved before the going live date of 1 August 2007. This will be the cheapest method and will therefore cut down the cost of marketing the trade show, and by inference, the cost to the stand owners themselves. The sale values of the first few stands plus some extra funding put in by myself, will go straight onto the cost of a website that will become Search Engine Optimized straight away (a process that can take a few months to “kick in”) so that by the time that the show is live (will all the stands finished and in place and the show is ready for download), the website will already be receiving sufficient traffic to make it a download success for the employer and candidate audience. I will in the meantime go through the process of building strategic partnerships with university websites, the REC and other industry bodies (as I have already started to do), as well as a press release campaign to ensure authenticity and awareness. Download links and links to the site will be seeded across the Internet on high ranking sites to increase SEO and to increase direct traffic too.
How it works:
The trade show will operate just like a modern 3D CG action computer game with cursor controls to move you forward and backward, turn left and right and with two more keys so that you can tilt the viewing camera up and down to read the ad boards/press releases and anything else that the recruiters wish to display including the contact details, website or job board, email address and phone numbers.
The show will be split up into different halls to cover some broad industry categories. You will have the opportunity to have your stand in more than one category if you wish and at no extra cost to your business.
As a candidate or employer walks through the appropriate door, he or she will be immediately transported to the entrance doorway of the next hall. To go back to the main reception and to choose another hallway, all you have to do is to walk back to the doorway. Thus it will feel like you are navigating a real life building. I am planning interconnecting doors too.
Your trade show stand will have your logo, a few pages of press release material and more (see below). Colouring can also be added to make the stand fit in with the colours of your logo.
the industry sectors and trade show halls will be
1) finance and accountancy
2) IT
3) catering and administration
4) Architecture and engineering
5) Creative and design
6) Driving, laboring, warehouse and factory
With enough public pressure, I can be persuaded to create another hallway in a different category, however I feel that the above best represents the broad spectrum of requirements.
There are 4 levels of involvement. As you move up the levels of involvement, the stand sizes increase thus creating greater visual impact, and they allow you to display increasing quantities of information. The stand layout will be similar in appearance to the London Boat Show:
Basic Stand:
Allows you to display your logo, basic contact details such as email, website (but not job board), address and one telephone (but not fax) number and one side of A4 press release or marketing data in the form of an ad board.
SME
This slightly larger stand allows you to display your logo, website and job board, as well as basic contact details such as email, fax, address and up to 2 telephone numbers, and 2 pages of A4 information in the form of marketing information and press releases.
National
This stand (being larger still) allows you to display your logo, website and job board, as well as basic contact details such as email, address, fax and up to 3 telephone numbers, and 3 pages of A4 information in the form of marketing information and press releases.
PLC
This is the largest and most optically pleasing stand of them all. It rises higher than the rest and has much more room for the demonstration of your logo, strap line, elevator pitch and business information. I am working on the REC stand of this size right now. It allows you to display your logo, strap line, elevator pitch, website and job board, as well as basic contact details such as email, address, fax and up to 4 telephone numbers, and 5 pages of A4 information in the form of marketing information and press releases. It retails at 500 GBP for the full year of membership.
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