Different goals, different results, different points of view

Last week we were in Barcelona promoting my wife’s company.

It was a slow fashion fair, 2 days event with speakers, live music and different brands from the eco-fashion sector showing their products and projects.

The event was very well organized taking into account the budget and that this was the first year. All was in the right place at the right time, the music bands were good, the food too, the space was in the midtown… then what could be wrong?

There were no people… Are you kidding?

I’m not kidding. The organization did communications in the Internet and in specific forums around the sector, journalists, TV and so on. There were fliers to share with people, but not so much effort to show it to the public.

The result was that so much journalists and bloggers were there, looking for things to write and taking pictures. Don’t get me wrong, this is fantastic and all this publicity in the national TV, newspapers and blogs is a fantastic thing to have, it is part of the investment we were looking for.

But……in my simple world I see two points of view.

First, the communications company main goal is to communicate, so I understand that the organization was so happy at the end of the weekend, they were able to attract different media companies and publish a lot of material for advertisement.

Second, the companies participating on the event, which their main goal is to sell. For sure in these type of events you obtains other type of return in the manner of advertisement; but you also expect some type of return in cash. It can be more or less, it depends on so many factors, but one imperative is to have people walking in front of the stands.

If in two days, 2000 people visit the stand and you don’t sell anything, then you have a problem. But if the stand is visited by around 200 people, including the journalists, then the amount of return you can obtain is so small.

At the end of the days, if there is not people, then something has failed. People in the other stands were not expecting thousand people there but the general opinion was the same I’ writting here. In general the main goal for all stands was to advertise their brands and cover part of the costs of the event. The first part was partially covered, but the second no.

This communications company is going to try to do the same event next year, trying to attract international brands, and better positioned companies. These companies are going to demand a minimum number of people visiting the stands, a minimum of famous people involved in the event, good names for the music bands and other things like that.

I hope the organization learn about it.