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CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Role of Trade Shows in the Industrial Communications Mix

Personal selling is usually the largest component of the business marketing

communications mix (Lilien and Weinstein 1984). Like advertising, trade shows are

typically

viewed as complementary to direct selling activities. Trade shows can uncover

previously

unknown or inaccessible buying influences, project a favorable corporate image,

provide product

information, generate qualified leads for salespeople, handle customer complaints etc.

(Hutt andSpeh 1992, p. 481). In addition, trade shows can satisfy competitive objectives (e.g.,

gathering

competitive intelligence) and serve to enhance employee morale.

It is useful to examine the role of a trade show in the marketing communications mix,

in

terms of the stages involved in the buying and the selling processes (Figure 1).

___-________________---Figure 1 about here

____________________----

Robinson, Faris and Wind (1967), and several other researchers have characterized the

industrial

buying process as a series of stages (see Wind and Thomas 1994). Buyers in these

different

stages (Column 1 of the figure) have different information needs (Column 2). This

multi-stage

process leads to different communications tasks for the seller (Column 3). Note that

some of

those tasks (like generating awareness) are performed more cost-effectively by

impersonal

marketing communications while others (like offering customization) by personal

contact. Most

suppliers, therefore, employ a mix of communication vehicles. In general, personal

selling

becomes more cost effective than the impersonal communication vehicles as the buyermoves

closer to the supplier selection phase.Trade shows are somewhat of a mix between direct selling (usually there are some

sales

personnel at the booth) and advertising (the booth is designed to generate awareness,

explain/demonstrate the product and answer key questions, even without the personalinvolvement of booth personnel). Trade shows can play a cost-effective role in the

communications mix, especially in the early stages of the process -- need recognition,3

development of product specifications and supplier search. The cost-effectiveness of

trade shows

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diminishes as the buying process progresses toward evaluation and selection, but

increases interms of providing feedback on product/service performance. Similarly, using the

sellersvocabulary, trade shows can be cost-effective in prospecting, opening a relationship,

qualifying

prospects and even presenting the sales message (Churchill, Ford and Walker 1993, p.

42.)

At any time, a selling-firms universe of current and prospective customers will bedistributed among the phases in the first column of Figure 1, ranging from being

unaware toseeking purchase reassurance. A single trade show has varying effectiveness in

helping this

process flow; multiple shows can have cumulative, synergistic effects. We would

expect that (a)

the more the audience overlaps between two shows; (b) the more the product mix at

the two

shows by the s me exhibitor remains constant and (c) the closer the two shows are intime, the

greater the carryover effect of one show on the other. We will comment on these ideas

further

later in the paper.

Trade Show Performance.

While researchers have acknowledged the importance of trade shows in the business

marketing mix (Cavanaugh 1976; Moriarty and Spekman 1984); they have alsoacknowledged

that little systematic research about trade shows exists (Rosson and Seringhaus 1990).

Descriptive studies have found that firms with complex, less frequently purchased

products, withhigh sales levels and high customer concentration were more likely to participate in

trade shows

(Lilien 1983), while better performing firms (as rated by the G.rms themselves)exhibited more

products, had more customers, greater sales volume, had specified show objectives

and had used

fewer horizontal shows (Kerin and Cron 1987). Conceptual measures of performance

like

audience activity and audience quality (Mlizzi and Lipps 1984; Cavanaugh 1976)

have been

suggested, as have operational measures such as (i) the proportion of target audience

attracted toa firms booth, (ii) the proportion of booth visitors contacted by the booth salespersonand (iii) the

proportion of contacts converted into leads (Gopalakrishna and Lilien 1992).4

Based on the above, we focus on

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of a trade show and then relate it both to

carryover effect of past shows.one particular dependent measure of the effectiveness

contemporaneous decision variables as well as to the

Consider a single show. All attendees at the show are not in the relevant target

audience

for a given firm; rather they belong to one of two groups: those potentially interested

in the

products exhibited by the firm (~0) and those not interested (1 - ~0). For the firm, the

attractiveness of participating in a show depends on E(S)*vo, the expected number of

potentiallyinterested attendees at the show (where E(S) is the expected show size, measured in

terms of the

total number of attendees). Though the target audience has a size given by (E(S)*Q,

only a

fraction of that audience actually visits the f%ms booth. This proportion representsthe

attraction efficiency ($ of the booth. The attraction efficiency indicates howeffectively the

booth is able to attract members of its target audience. We define this performance

index as:

(1)

number of attendees from target audience who visitedthe firms boothAttraction efficiency, 7 =

__________________u____________u________~~~~~~~~-~-~-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

size of target audiencewhere target audience refers to the number of attendees at the show with an interestin the

products exhibited by the firm.

Note that v in the above framework provides a foundation for other objectives for

trade

show participation. For example, objectives like handling complaints from current

customers/dealers and generating quality sales leads from prospects both require the

firm to firstattract visitors to the booth and then make effective contact with them (handle

complaints, turnvisitors into leads, etc). These other objectives involve attention to issues like

adequate booth

stag, proper training of booth staff etc, but the first step--attracting the right booth

visitors--isa necessary first step. We focus on v as the key dependent variable of interest in the

model

structure next.