Czar’s lead idea shaper, Tom Frisby, is on the cover of the latest issue of Event Design magazine. The article is all about vision, strategy and what's next in the world of face-to-face marketing with Czarnowski front and center, leading the conversation and jumping curves. What a great example of our gray matter in motion - and a huge acknowledgement that Czar is a thought leader in this industry.
Following is an excerpt from the article.
Idea Shaper
Monday, May 10, 2010
Tom Frisby likens the exhibit and event industry to a visionary theme park ride. “We have to connect with our customers—inform, engage, excite, and educate—leaving them breathless and alive,” says Frisby. The industry veteran and current vp-strategic services for Czarnowski think(form)—and leader of Czarnowski’s team of 30 creative idea shapers— has been pushing his clients and coworkers in this direction for 25 years. As a result, while many exhibit and event designers have spent the past year waiting for business as usual to return, Frisby has been looking forward.
From Frisby’s perspective, the economic turndown is an opportunity; a call to action. “When the landscape shifts as it has, we have to find new ways to make the ride exhilarating. I honestly think that the economy is driving a positive direction for the industry,” says Frisby.
To that end, Frisby has created an agenda: to expedite change by educating clients and helping them see the likely return if they depart from doing what they’ve always done. Frisby knows it’s going to be a challenge—and that the road is likely to include bumps, twists, and turns. But he’s focused and ready to enjoy the ride.
Starting Over
Frisby believes the industry’s current challenges relate to its reluctance to change—specifically that the industry has routinely identified success with either beautiful architecture or the number of show visitors’ names captured. “Our industry’s firm hold on tradition stifles its evolution,” says Frisby.
The solution? The industry must redefine success as its ability to make connections with people and affect the target audience’s beliefs and behaviors. “We need to think of ourselves as the bridge between our clients and their clients,” he says. Engagement and making connections is what face-to-face is really about.”
Shaping Ideas
Czarnowski brought Frisby on board in 2003 and Czarnowski think(form) was born. Currently, the Czarnowski idea shaper team includes a wide variety of specialties: people who understand how to create engagement, 3D designers, communications specialists, technology experts, independent partners who can integrate measurement, subject matter experts who understand the target audience inside and out, researchers, and designers who understand how to integrate sensory components. There are also marketers who can connect all of the dots and make sure the entire program meshes together in a cohesive way. Based in Czarnowski offices across the company, the idea shapers interface with Czarnowski account teams across the country, providing whatever specialized skill a project requires.
The New Definition
By Frisby’s own definition, the role of an exhibit and event designer is to be the bridge that connects a brand with its customer. The end product which the designer creates is the process which facilitates that connection—the series of interactions between the brand and its customer. When you look at a face-to-face encounter this way, architecture ceases to drive the exhibit and instead becomes one of the tools in the designer’s toolbox, alongside technology, graphic messaging, premiums, presentations, demonstrations, audio, and even scent. “So many event managers say ‘figure out how many demos we need,’ rather than ‘do people want to see demos?’” says Frisby.
Frisby sees the engagement model ripe with potential. “If we help marketers connect with customers on a much more personal level by creating new ways of engaging, we can turn pessimists into brand believers, and customers into brand advocates,” he says. At the same time, Frisby reiterates that the engagement doesn’t have to be technical or high cost—as much as it has to appeal to the senses.
Frisby sees creating new types of encounters as a somewhat new science. “There’s no question that we still have an awful lot to learn in the trade show industry about how to engage the customer,” he says. The job is to provide the customer’s customer—the target audience—with relevant information in a format they are comfortable with.
The hinge pin to accomplishing this is to really understand the target audience’s point of view. “I think sometimes we get wrapped up in our client’s marketing objectives and forget our audience,” says Frisby. The ideal engagement is what the customer’s customer wants. Delivering that ideal engagement means delving deep into how that customer learns, engages, and wants to receive information.
Moving the Marketer
Transitioning to the engagement approach may be proactive, but it isn’t easy. Frisby acknowledges that even when an agency or design team is ready to think from this perspective, their clients may not be. “What we’ve tried to do is to take this approach with the clients who are ready—the ones who have defined objectives and a definitive communications plan,” says Frisby. Most often, the key to these companies’ success are visionary individuals who understand the potential of face-to-face marketing and want to move in that direction.
From experience, Frisby knows that transitioning a corporate client from a tactical approach to thinking in terms of engagement takes months, or even years. The lone internal evangelist has to rack up small victories in order to slowly sway opinions, and earn the support of his or her internal marketing, pr, and product teams. It has to be done in a way where the client team gets excited, rather than feeling like the agency or designer team is telling them how to do their job. And it helps if the internal evangelist takes the lead.
While Frisby acknowledges that a design agency can’t force the transition, it can help facilitate it. Czarnowski pays close attention to each scenario. “We look at what influenced the lead individuals’ perspectives and how they then changed the perception and behavior of others within their companies,” says Frisby. From this, Czarnowski is distilling best practices methodology it will use to help other clients evolve in the same way.
The ideal scenario is to start the process by sitting down with marketing, public relations, and sales for an open discussion about the opportunities at a particular event—and what it would take to realize those opportunities. When you achieve that, everyone starts to recognize the potential return for their investment. “Their reaction gives you a good sense of whether they are willing to make the investment to really get it right,” says Frisby.
But when it’s right, it sticks.
Frisby predicts a far more interesting and engaging trade show floor in the future—a development which will elevate the industry’s priority status when it comes time to allocate marketing budgets. That show floor will excite, entertain, educate, motivate, and connect. Says Frisby, “If they want more after the ride’s over, we’ve done our job.”
Following is an excerpt from the article.
Idea Shaper
Monday, May 10, 2010
Tom Frisby likens the exhibit and event industry to a visionary theme park ride. “We have to connect with our customers—inform, engage, excite, and educate—leaving them breathless and alive,” says Frisby. The industry veteran and current vp-strategic services for Czarnowski think(form)—and leader of Czarnowski’s team of 30 creative idea shapers— has been pushing his clients and coworkers in this direction for 25 years. As a result, while many exhibit and event designers have spent the past year waiting for business as usual to return, Frisby has been looking forward.
From Frisby’s perspective, the economic turndown is an opportunity; a call to action. “When the landscape shifts as it has, we have to find new ways to make the ride exhilarating. I honestly think that the economy is driving a positive direction for the industry,” says Frisby.
To that end, Frisby has created an agenda: to expedite change by educating clients and helping them see the likely return if they depart from doing what they’ve always done. Frisby knows it’s going to be a challenge—and that the road is likely to include bumps, twists, and turns. But he’s focused and ready to enjoy the ride.
Starting Over
Frisby believes the industry’s current challenges relate to its reluctance to change—specifically that the industry has routinely identified success with either beautiful architecture or the number of show visitors’ names captured. “Our industry’s firm hold on tradition stifles its evolution,” says Frisby.
The solution? The industry must redefine success as its ability to make connections with people and affect the target audience’s beliefs and behaviors. “We need to think of ourselves as the bridge between our clients and their clients,” he says. Engagement and making connections is what face-to-face is really about.”
Shaping Ideas
Czarnowski brought Frisby on board in 2003 and Czarnowski think(form) was born. Currently, the Czarnowski idea shaper team includes a wide variety of specialties: people who understand how to create engagement, 3D designers, communications specialists, technology experts, independent partners who can integrate measurement, subject matter experts who understand the target audience inside and out, researchers, and designers who understand how to integrate sensory components. There are also marketers who can connect all of the dots and make sure the entire program meshes together in a cohesive way. Based in Czarnowski offices across the company, the idea shapers interface with Czarnowski account teams across the country, providing whatever specialized skill a project requires.
The New Definition
By Frisby’s own definition, the role of an exhibit and event designer is to be the bridge that connects a brand with its customer. The end product which the designer creates is the process which facilitates that connection—the series of interactions between the brand and its customer. When you look at a face-to-face encounter this way, architecture ceases to drive the exhibit and instead becomes one of the tools in the designer’s toolbox, alongside technology, graphic messaging, premiums, presentations, demonstrations, audio, and even scent. “So many event managers say ‘figure out how many demos we need,’ rather than ‘do people want to see demos?’” says Frisby.
Frisby sees the engagement model ripe with potential. “If we help marketers connect with customers on a much more personal level by creating new ways of engaging, we can turn pessimists into brand believers, and customers into brand advocates,” he says. At the same time, Frisby reiterates that the engagement doesn’t have to be technical or high cost—as much as it has to appeal to the senses.
Frisby sees creating new types of encounters as a somewhat new science. “There’s no question that we still have an awful lot to learn in the trade show industry about how to engage the customer,” he says. The job is to provide the customer’s customer—the target audience—with relevant information in a format they are comfortable with.
The hinge pin to accomplishing this is to really understand the target audience’s point of view. “I think sometimes we get wrapped up in our client’s marketing objectives and forget our audience,” says Frisby. The ideal engagement is what the customer’s customer wants. Delivering that ideal engagement means delving deep into how that customer learns, engages, and wants to receive information.
Moving the Marketer
Transitioning to the engagement approach may be proactive, but it isn’t easy. Frisby acknowledges that even when an agency or design team is ready to think from this perspective, their clients may not be. “What we’ve tried to do is to take this approach with the clients who are ready—the ones who have defined objectives and a definitive communications plan,” says Frisby. Most often, the key to these companies’ success are visionary individuals who understand the potential of face-to-face marketing and want to move in that direction.
From experience, Frisby knows that transitioning a corporate client from a tactical approach to thinking in terms of engagement takes months, or even years. The lone internal evangelist has to rack up small victories in order to slowly sway opinions, and earn the support of his or her internal marketing, pr, and product teams. It has to be done in a way where the client team gets excited, rather than feeling like the agency or designer team is telling them how to do their job. And it helps if the internal evangelist takes the lead.
While Frisby acknowledges that a design agency can’t force the transition, it can help facilitate it. Czarnowski pays close attention to each scenario. “We look at what influenced the lead individuals’ perspectives and how they then changed the perception and behavior of others within their companies,” says Frisby. From this, Czarnowski is distilling best practices methodology it will use to help other clients evolve in the same way.
The ideal scenario is to start the process by sitting down with marketing, public relations, and sales for an open discussion about the opportunities at a particular event—and what it would take to realize those opportunities. When you achieve that, everyone starts to recognize the potential return for their investment. “Their reaction gives you a good sense of whether they are willing to make the investment to really get it right,” says Frisby.
But when it’s right, it sticks.
Frisby predicts a far more interesting and engaging trade show floor in the future—a development which will elevate the industry’s priority status when it comes time to allocate marketing budgets. That show floor will excite, entertain, educate, motivate, and connect. Says Frisby, “If they want more after the ride’s over, we’ve done our job.”
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