B-to-B Events

2008 is barely a month old and it’s already shaping up to be a doozy. Campaign 2008 Wall Street woes and frequent use of the R-word in financial circles has everybody wondering what we’ll be facing in the months ahead. We asked six industry experts to weigh in on what we’ll all be talking about in the event space this year. Here’s what they had to say.

The players:
• Steve Baskin vp-sponsorships ING

Remember when we all hated watching teenagers obsessively text away using their weird abbreviated jargon that no one over the age of 18 could understand? Yeah well how many times have you texted the phrase “cu l8r” in the last week? Don’t lie. We know. When it was only for teens texting seemed so superfluous. Now it seems kinda convenient. But at events it’s also a way to stay connected at a lower cost and engage consumers on the spot.

Last month EM heard from Stefania Pomponi-Butler just one of a handful of Nintendo Wii’s Mom’s Night Out event hostesses to find out what got her writing rave reviews and sparking positive word-of-mouth on her popular citymama.com blog. This month we dig deeper to find out how brands can best navigate the volatile world of online popular opinion. Whether they’re talking about your brands already or if you hope they might want to some words of advice (and warning) from the blogosphere for engaging their influential fingers of fire.

Booth babes: evergreen or outdated? We asked staffing industry pros Larry Hess ceo of Redondo Beach CA-based Encore Nationwide Jerrie Williams-Spencer president and ceo of Roswell GA-based J Williams Agency and Joey Meyer president of Chicago-based Across the Nation Promo Model and Staffing to give us a report from the trenches:

Software company SAP connected with potential customers at this year’s National Retail Federation show by leveraging its own current relationships.

One example: SAP customer Harrods hosted a session showing how the retailer uses a single platform from SAP to increase operational efficiency.

“In many ways we find that people are much more receptive when it is someone that is not part of SAP that talks about us ” Andy Williams director-marketing retail for SAP told Buzz. “And that has really led to us using our customers to help us tell our story.”