Plan early, provide news and keep in touch with editors.
Those are the key ingredients for getting a client promoted at a large trade show when several PR firms and internal public relations staff are clamoring for attention for a total of more than 700 clients, according to industry experts who were at SUPERCOMM '99 in Atlanta earlier this month.
SUPERCOMM is the nation's largest trade show for telecommunications companies, including carriers, equipment makers and related firms. A total of 775 companies had displays at this year's event.
The communications for the show was handled by Stakig Advertising & Public Relations, McLean, Va., which had responsibility for the press room, the convention daily, the convention TV news coverage, the convention Web site and for promoting its own clients.
"We do separate the part of the company that's working for SUPERCOMM and the part of the company that's doing public relations for companies at the show," says David Swanston, president of PR division, who was editorial director for the show.
With the exception of the time involved with the show, Swanston spends the rest of the year on the other side of the desk, seeking to promote clients to the press.
"When we have a client that's going to be at a major trade show, we start making plans six months in advance," Swanston said. "We decide what product announcements will be newsworthy and we start working on what will be schedule for release at the show."
The company also starts contacting the press well in advance of the show. Many trade publications have large "convention special" issues and need plenty of copy. While much of that copy will be written by the publications' own staffs, there will be also plenty of room for guest editorials and articles written by PR professionals on behalf of their clients. Yet many PR firms with clients at SUPERCOMM missed deadlines or submitted little more than company brochures when asked for "pre-press" articles that would appear in the convention daily, Swanston says.
Stakig works closely with its clients to make sure they meet deadlines for publications covering SUPERCOMM and other trade shows. Press that is covering the actual event gets booked well in advance, Swanston says.
Yet some PR executives tried to make arrangements for press interviews at SUPERCOMM, rather than before the event. "By the time the reporters get off the plane, they're already booked," Swanston says.
In making their plans before the convention - or when they arrive at the convention in those instances they are not already booked, they need to have real news to pitch to the editors rather than announcements for the sake of accouncements, according to Swanston and other PR executives.
For example, Microsoft had excellent attendance at its press events, even though several other events were going on at the same time.
While Microsoft's name drew the media's attention in the first place, admits Francine Grace, Plaza president of Plazapr, Boca Raton, Fl., there would have been little coverage if the company didn't discuss news of interest to the telecommunications media.
Microsoft has made its name in computer software, not in telecommunications. So it was important to include Microsoft's telecommunications partners in press releases, as well as having representatives of those partners present at press events, Plaza says. Microsoft, a Plaza client, provides the operating platform on which many of the telecommunications companies' products run.
(Francine Grace Plaza, PLAZApr, 561/477-9762; David Swanston, Stakig Advertising & Public Relations, 703/734-3300)
Phil Britt, author of this article and a reporter of the show daily at SUPERCOMM, is a freelance writer living in the Chicago area