John Blyth, Marketing and Communications Manager, Ricoh Europe Graphic Communications Group
When you’re exhibiting among a literal sea of graphics at the world’s biggest trade show for printing, storytelling can make the difference between an exhibit with a flat message versus one that is three dimensional. For Ricoh, a multinational imaging and electronics company, design and messages inspired by the brand’s Japanese roots helped place personas on its products for easy recollection, and created a thread to fuel marketing beyond the show.
The “HENKAKUVERSE” experience at Drupa in Düsseldorf, Germany, which featured live theater, animal avatar graphics and exhibit walls composed of dragon scale-like shapes printed from Ricoh machines, helped “take the conversation in a different direction” at a time of great change for the industry as whole, says John Blyth, marketing and communications manager at Ricoh Europe Graphic Communications Group.
Ricoh Graphic Communications is part of Ricoh Europe’s production printing business, which is a thriving part of the wider, digital services oriented, organization. His role encompasses events across European, and those with global reach held in Europe, including Drupa, what he calls “the Olympic Games of the production print industry.” Following the brand’s success at the show’s grand return to Dusseldorf (with the brand achieving 210 percent of its sales goal, among other key results), we reached out to Blyth to talk change, saves and exhibit design.
Event Marketer: What’s changed in the last four years as far as portfolio strategy or exhibit design?
John Blyth: We operate in a hugely competitive industry where technology is evolving rapidly to meet the ever more exacting needs of buyers in the Graphic Arts industry such as commercial, direct mail, and book printers. Since Ricoh entered the European production print marketplace in 2008, we have adopted a policy of constant expansion, and upgrading of the entire portfolio, hardware, and software. We use the Japanese term HENKAKU to describe what drives and defines us. It means Transformational Innovation. Profound changes that have swept through so many industries have also affected ours and so they have seen us accelerate the process of portfolio development in the last four years.
How important is the host city today, and does it factor into any decision making?
Yes, we expect excellent transport, and especially flight, links to ensure it is easily accessible to overseas visitors.
A recent budget-saving decision worth sharing.
Will flip that and give an example of a recent budget/expenditure increasing decision. It would be simpler and easier to go fully online with our next marketing campaign, but we have decided to again print a physical mailer, which will be sent out to thousands of print businesses across Europe. Experience has told us that a highly creative, beautifully printed mailer in a striking envelope will get not only more attention than an email but will also more likely elicit a meaningful response—leading potentially to an order.
What do you like most about working in the trade show world?
Trade shows provide an unmatched opportunity to present your business directly alongside competitors, allowing potential clients to make informed decisions based on what they see, hear, and feel on the different stands. So, working on a major trade show stand provides the strongest of motivations, i.e., to shape and deliver something that stands apart and above what competitors deliver. The recent Drupa in Düsseldorf was the consummate example of this: visitors flocked to the Ricoh stand which was hugely fulfilling.
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