Image courtesy of the Cobo Center
One of the most striking things about the announcement from Detroit Auto Dealers Association, which organizes the big North American International Auto Show, was the conceptual video presentation shared with all their stakeholders upon announcing an entirely new experience for 2020.
The association considered not just how to make small evolutionary changes to capture an increasingly fragmented audience, but announced a revolutionary change in the experience including new dates, places and activations that make up the Detroit Auto Show. They are communicating early with exhibitors, attendees and press as well as pulling in key revenue stakeholders such as the city of Detroit and their vendors to reset expectations.
Industry blogger Michael Hart outlines the changes in this excerpt from his post at michaelgenehart.com.
- The show will move its dates from late January, when it has been held for decades, to June.
- It will expand beyond the confines of Cobo Center to a number of venues, both inside and outside, throughout Detroit.
- The show will now include a number of interactive and immersive activities intended to engage the public, moving away from a traditional show where attendees simply walk around and look at cars.
- It will reduce costs to exhibitors by eliminating overtime labor charges during a move-in that now stretches from November through January and by simplifying exhibit builds.
Some organizers of the country’s handful of most iconic events occasionally look up and ask themselves, “How could we ever turn this ship around?”
The Detroit Auto Show has done it and there are four important lessons any event organizer – big or small – can learn from their experience.
First, do what the industry you serve wants, not what makes you the most money.
It’s no secret that the auto industry is in transition with consumer demands changing faster than it can keep up with and economic realities bearing down on it: Just days after the announcement of changes to the event, all the Big 3 Detroit car makers issued statements pointing out their financial forecasts for the year would be worse than previously indicated.
The exhibitors are more than happy to stop spending millions of dollars on ultra-customized booths that they then shoehorn into a relatively small Cobo Center, and only Cobo Center.
Second, the car show acknowledges that the industry’s marketing calendar has changed and nobody waits for the late January event to introduce their newest models. There is nothing sacrosanct about late January in Detroit.
Third, they recognize there have been drastic and swift changes in how companies – all companies – communicate with their consumers and they now need to be part of the solution, not the problem.
Finally, they don’t fall for their own hype. Iconic as it may have been for so many years, the Detroit Auto Show is there to serve the automotive industry, not the other way around.
Any organizer can take the elements changed by NAIAS and make changes to their own events. Brave ones consider them all, and smart ones will be analyzing their financial models so they are ready to revolutionize their own businesses.