Business News

Cross Media 2012 draws large crowds from print, marketing and creative industries to inaugural event

Friday 07. September 2012 - Cross Media 2012 saw an impressive flood of visitors from all corners of the print, publishing and marketing sectors to its inaugural event, with exhibitors reporting a positive and enthusiastic response to the innovative applications and solutions across the stands. Together for the first time in one place, a flux of marketing professionals, print service providers, publishers, advertising and creative agencies descended on the Business Design Centre in London on the 3-4 September to gain insight into the current capabilities and future potential of cross media. Organiser Informa Exhibitions confirmed visitor numbers of over 2,500, of which 59% were marketers, 28% print professionals and 13% publishers, demonstrating the vast appeal of the event to the various sectors in the marketing mix.

Incorporating its recently acquired event, mediaPro, Cross Media is aimed at businesses that wish to discover how cross-platform campaigns can improve ROI and help them recognise the commercial possibilities and opportunities that are available in the fast evolving marketing mix. More than 70 exhibitor brands from the marketing, creative, printing and publishing industries generated an engaging forum of shared creativity, expertise, vision and communication.
The six specialised theatres – covering cross media, digital and direct marketing, print and innovation and publishing strategies – held over 60 seminars with 78 high-level speakers from different facets of the communications industry. The impressive speaker line-up included presenters from Crew Clothing, Tesco, BBC Worldwide, Royal Mail, Microsoft, Sony, Adobe, Pensord and Advanstar, and drew large crowds who were all eager to hear from the industry experts and take part in the lively Q&A sessions afterwards.
“We are extremely pleased with the reaction from visitors to our rich content programme. With most theatres, the queues before each session resulted in a limited amount of standing-room only available before it even kicked off, and on a number of occasions even that was filled pretty quickly!” comments Nick Craig Waller, Event Director of Cross Media 2012. “One of the Digital and Direct Marketing theatres was known as the silent theatre as the seminars were delivered via headphones for absolute focus. This proved a very popular initiative with attendees, and we will certainly look to include this again in 2013.”
A number of the seminars, complemented by interviews with exhibitors, visitors and organisers, were broadcasted live through the Cross Media 2012 website and TV screens placed strategically throughout the Business Design Centre. This allowed both visitors and those who couldn’t attend the event to keep abreast with the up-to-the-minute happenings of Cross Media 2012.
In addition, The Paperhat Consorcio managed the official Cross Media 2012 twitter feed, which was displayed on a 50″ monitor on its stand and the TV screens around the event. A great testimony to the power of social media and it being used as one of the preferred methods of communication, the @CrossMediaShow twitter handle, coupled with #CrossMedia2012 mentions, recorded more than 1,100 interactions between visitors, exhibitors and organisers during the two-day event.
Exhibitors have been quick to praise Cross Media 2012.
Antony White, European & UK Product Business Developer (Solutions), Canon Europe, comments: “Considering that this was the first time that the Cross Media Show has been held, the quality of visitors was impressively high. The response to Canon’s cross media proposition was very positive, with visitors keen to explore new concepts and initiatives to deliver the most effective integrated campaigns with Canon’s help. Print Service Providers showed an increased awareness of this growing market, reflecting the progressive shift in mindset also evident at this year’s drupa.” White continues: “Visitors attended the seminars to understand commercial opportunities and challenges, they showed a willingness to embrace innovative services to add value and a growing propensity to invest, or if they’ve already invested they want to know how to maximise their ROI. The foundations are in place for the Cross Media Show to become an important event for printers, marketers and creative agencies – ultimately any business interested in providing the most effective cross media campaigns.”
Cross Media 2012 allowed us the opportunity showcase our cloud based Cross Channel Marketing Hub to other markets we haven’t been dealing with much until now, and we have seen great interest from these industries,” comments Mike Owen, Marketing Director, Europe, ClickSquared: “In addition, we could review and compare the rest of this complicated cross media industry first hand and met a number of potential future partners with complementary products. All-in-all, Cross Media 2012 was a good event for us.”
“Overall Cross Media 2012 has been a resounding success for us,” reflects Peter Sommerville, Marketing Director of Denmaur Independent Papers: “It was fantastic to be part of such a diverse and exciting show that has the real potential to grow”. Sommerville continues: “There was a real community feel to the event, with every exhibitor embracing cross media, providing a broad church of media based visitors with help and guidance for their future business decisions within the context of the burgeoning digital age. Judging by the activity on our stand, our company’s timely launch of a new coated digital paper, Amadeus Primo, gives us great opportunities in new markets, a potential galvanised by cross media. I look forward to the next event.”
John Davies, Business Strategy Manager, European Software Business Unit, Fujifilm Europe, states: “Cross Media 2012 gave us a new platform to showcase the Fujifilm brand, and we are happy to have participated in the first ever show of its type. It was a novel opportunity to engage with a diverse audience of marketers, brand owners and print service providers: we had the opportunity to demonstrate how our brand-new XMF ColorPath colour management solution can be easily and successfully integrated within different print environments to run successful campaigns.”
“Cross Media 2012 has proved the perfect platform for us to launch our new product, Catfish,” comments Douglas Gibson, Managing Director, ISL: “Our stand has been really busy over the two days, and I am pleased with the number of decision makers we met. In addition, Cross Media attracted a broad audience of print and marketing professionals, which created the opportunity for us to meet with a number of potential new prospects – something we wouldn’t have been able to do in two days otherwise!”
Mark Hinder, Production Print Market Development Manager, Konica Minolta Business Solutions, says: “Cross Media 2012 was a great opportunity for us to demonstrate our full dynamic communication solutions and offerings in the cross media sector and we made many new contacts as a result. We had a great deal of interest from organisations wanting to understand how our exclusive business development programme can support the development of their cross-media marketing strategies and support their investments, so for Konica Minolta, this was a very successful show.”
Clive Martin, Kern’s Strategic Business Manager, adds: “We’re delighted to have been invited onto Konica Minolta’s stand at Cross Media. It was a great opportunity to show how easy it is to integrate the PageMailer with printer vendors and software products with great results.”
“Cross Media 2012 completely exceeded my expectations! The Business Design is a great venue, especially when it has the vibe and buzz I’ve seen during Cross Media 2012,” comments Tony Hodgson, Director of PODi for Europe: “The event has definitely raised awareness of cross media and shows huge promise for the future, while the presentations and panel discussions in the seminar theatre offered fantastic content to visitors.”
Gary Peeling, Managing Director, Precision Printing Co. Ltd, comments: “Cross Media 2012 in the Business Design Centre was the perfect location for marketers and brand owners to visit. That, coupled with the great content this event delivered, will make Cross Media one of the key events to attend in years to come.”
John Murphy, Managing Director of ROI360, adds: “The response we had to our stand by far exceeded our expectations. We received three times the amount of leads we had initially forecasted for the event. The imaginative and engaging event, coupled with such a great venue, means that there is a strong platform for Cross Media 2012 to continue to grow, and to go on addressing the importance of cross media across the print and marketing industries.”
Darren Coxon, Managing Director of Pensord, summarises: “For a first show it really hit a chord with publishers and this was reflected in the popularity of the seminars held in the Publishing Strategies theatre. We received great feedback at our stand, with visitors quick to emphasise how useful the seminars were, who were also very enthusiastic and interested in our wide range of publishing services. It was a fine branding exercise and came at an important time for us with regards to Pensord’s launching of its new multi-channel content delivery service.”
Nick Craig Waller concludes: “We are extremely pleased with the outcome of our inaugural event. For marketers, creatives and publishers, Cross Media 2012 provided the ideal platform to view the latest technologies, solutions and applications they need to execute their cross media campaigns. In addition, print service providers were able to hear case studies and panel discussions about diversifying their offering to marketing service providers. Judging by the fantastic attendance of all these seminars and initial feedback from exhibitors, these topics clearly hit the mark and we will continue to build on this for Cross Media 2013 and its extension into Ipex 2014.”
Cross Media 2013 will take place from 23-24 October 2013 at the Business Design Centre in Islington, London.