Internet World 2014 ExCel Show Review

A previous company of ours exhibited a number of times at Internet World, the last time in 2009 at Earls Court. At that time, the show was probably at or near its largest, in terms of surface area covered and exhibitors attending, but we had noticed that visitor numbers seemed to have peaked already.

My attendance today at the Excel venue, was the first time I had visited the show in many a year. The first thing that struck me was the obvious reduction in size, and the overall lack of big stands - it seemed like there were only half a dozen or so sizeable bespoke stands. The overwhelming majority of exhibitors were using the very basic default cubicles, and by and large deployed very little imagination to differentiate their stand from other offerings. Most of the staff already looked disinterested and bored when I was circling / circulating at circa 14:00.

I was on the lookout for inspiration and engagement, funnily the latter sentiment was very much the unofficial theme of the show, with many vendors pitching their version of engagement. Exhibition-wise though, the stands were very ordinary, as was the accompanying literature, uniforms, take-aways etc. Many stands had way too much panel text, and not enough clarity of purpose, yet even those who were singular in purpose mostly failed to communicate their USPs. There were a few vendors concentrating on the omni-channel holistic angle, but there were also a plethora of single-solution vendors - postcode lookups, lead generation, email targeting, product 3d imaging, payment gateways, mapping, smart search etc. I also noticed an increased presence of hardware vendors which I had not been aware of previously - there even seemed to be a stand solely selling mobile phone accessories. I’m all in favour of charities, but found it rather strange that the White Hat Rally Fun Drive had such a large and dominant position within the show - punctuated by a pink Barnardo’s Porsche.

I felt a little sorry for the Technical Director of key sponsor Anixter, who was having to present to an audience of 3, in one of the peripheral theatres. There was a real mix of popularity in the different theatres, mostly empty, but a couple of them drew real crowds - particularly ’The Marketplace’ with its short, sharp and fun ’Pitch & Hit’ digital entrepreneur pitching sessions - like Dragons’ Den without the Dragons.

The Show Website is as one-dimensional as ever though - there is no proper user journey from one part of the site to another - just independent content areas accessed via page-top navigation - the search results could do with being a little more intuitive also - you should be able to search by stand number as well as name and see talks and presentations company staffers are participants in. I even downloaded the App for the show, which has no connectivity with the website, but does contain some networking and minimal user interaction - again all very ordinary, and far from inspirational.

As a technology vendor and consumer, I was on the look out for new complementary technologies and to see what our competitors were up to - in fact the vast majority of these were absent. There were very few vendors from the CMS and Ecommerce sectors. I saw ’Social CMS’ mentioned a couple of times - this was our campaign slogan for Affino for one of our earliest shows - probably 10 years ago now. So much of what was being presented was somewhat old hat, and in some ways even worse, the way it was being presented was old hat too! If you’re selling old rope for new, the very least you can do is package it in a contemporary and appealing manner.

I took pictures of 4 of the best-looking stands (distributed within this blog post) - Sitecore had a very strong show presence, occupying several stands and with implementation partners Branded3 in tow. EPiServer and Barclaycard also had good looking stands. I was perplexed by the Google Juice Bar - which was very budget, and looked more like a student break-out room - surely they can afford to do better. Looking at all the stands though, there was no innovation present, there have been far better, more clever and more imposing stands in previous years. I fancy our previous company’s shiny piano black and colourfully lit stand would have still stood out impressively. It looked like a lot less budget had been invested in overall exhibitor attendance - in terms of total show presence - perhaps the end-results no longer justify the higher level of investment.

I also did not witness any great crowds of people mixing and mingling throughout the floorspace - in every way this particular show seemed like a stripped back affair. Compared with the consumer electronic, fashion or motorcar shows which consistently manage to wow audiences - it’s strange to see a technology show this ordinary. There really was no innovation or excitement to take away - no decent goodie or literature bags - I left with a very meagre selection. There was not even a particularly marked emphasis on the still burgeoning mobile channels and formats, which we have seen much more of in previous years.

Most show exhibitors attend to generate leads or at very least to meet key customers. However, even back as early as 2009, we noticed that fewer and fewer decision makers were actually turning up at these kinds of shows. The big question is whether this particular kind of show is still worthwhile for this audience (Is Internet World not specialist enough?). Selling techniques and sales channels have moved on, with most high level contracts now typically happening via more formal networking and personal introductions. I have achieved some considerable success at past shows, but perhaps for this industry their time has passed.

The Internet is a dynamic, immersive, immediately engaging environment, and I neither saw nor felt any of that interactive magic on the show floor. I feel that even with the bean bag seating and the new more informal education and presentation introductions, this show format is still way too static and one-dimensional. It’s really up to the organisers to revitalise or change this format to make it relevant again. I remember being excited and engaged at previous shows, today I just felt almost immediately bored and underwhelmed. There would have to be some dramatic changes for me to want to venture out to Internet World again.