Trade shows and new media presence: The TS organizers’ perspective

Based on the complexity and the multiple facets characterizing the phenomenon of trade shows (TSs), the starting objective of the present dissertation is to identify, through a descriptive and analytical review process, the subject areas most dealt with by the papers published during the last twenty years (1997-2017) and focused on the TS topic and to outline the main trends emerging from the recent (2010-2017) TS literature. In a second phase of the work, two of the four trends, identified by the review process, have been specifically deepened from the organizers’ perspective. The focus on the TS organizers’ category represents an attempt to fill a specific research gap, which emerged from the review, concerning the scant attention of the TS literature towards this stakeholders’ target. The TSO perspective has been then adopted (through the use of in-depth interviews directed to 38 European trade show organizers) with a view to analyzing the implementation of the social media tools in the TS context and the reaction to the virtual trade shows’ (VTSs) advent, by enriching in this way the literature studies focused on the “TSs and new media” and “Virtual TSs” trends. The results of this dissertation make different contributions to TS literature (systematization of all the business and management articles, devoted to the trade show studies published between 1997 and 2017, analysis of the evolution of the TS literature of the last twenty years, classification of the areas of study most enhanced by the selected papers, identification of the main trends and the most studied TS stakeholders’ perspectives emerging from the recent TS literature and construction of a possible framework of synthesis) and to business management (elaboration of an index for the evaluation of the social media popularity of the TS activities, identification of the main challenges for exhibition managers who want to adopt social media in their communicative strategies, identification of the need to develop a social media strategic orientation in synergy with the realization of other specific actions, whose managerial importance emerged from the specialized literature). The limitations, characterizing this dissertation, provide avenues for future researches. More specifically, the present work paves the way for investigating the use of social media in the trade show sector further, by investigating for example the effect of SM usage for pre-show, at-show and post-show promotion on the achievement of sales objectives set for a trade show. Future research could also analyze the effect of SM usage in trade shows on the achievement of non-sales performance objectives, such as information gathering, exhibition image building, relationship improvement and achievement of contacts. For what concerns the other trends characterizing the TS context (relationship marketing, internationalization process and experiential marketing) from the dissertation emerges, on one side, the necessity to be skilled on each of them in order to remain competitive in the contemporary and foreseeable trade show scenario and, on the other, the awareness that the competitiveness of the TS sector is based on an integrate adoption of these trends and actions. Starting from this assumption, in the future, it could be interesting to investigate the relational, experiential and internationalization trends from the Italian TS organizers’ perspective, as well as in comparison with the rest of Europe, in order to identify the highest performing strategic trends and those that instead need managerial improvement.