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editorial |
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 n May of this year, EXHIBITOR
issued a press release announcing the results of its 2011 Virtual Events Survey. The abbreviated findings in the release, titled “EXHIBITOR Research Shows Virtual Events Unlikely to Soon Replace Face-to-Face,” included statistics that showed less than 30 percent of marketers are currently allocating a single cent of their budgets to virtual events.
Within hours of the press release being issued, the virtual shit hit the fan. I was accused by virtual-event supporters of crafting biased questions, and a thread began on LinkedIn about how the report represented a “disservice to the benefits of virtual.”
Some of the most interesting
comments represented serious backpedaling on the part of virtual-event advocates, many claiming that the question of whether virtual events would replace live trade shows was irrelevant, and “the wrong question to ask.” In fact, one comment claimed that “None of us in this industry would propose to replace a successful face-to-face event with a virtual alternative.”
How quickly the dialogue has shifted. As recently as a few weeks ago, I was reading press releases, tweets, and online articles positioning virtual events as alternatives to live events (some from companies represented in that thread). I applaud Heykel Aouriri of virtual-event firm Expos2 for his LinkedIn post that read, “If virtual event evangelists/sales teams hadn’t originally positioned the solution as a replacement a couple of years back, then surveys asking those questions would have no relevance.”
But the most amusing part of the digital debate is that we never asked the question most dissenters seem so fixated on. The title of the release, which is what bore the brunt of the barrage from first responders, was just a broad conclusion we derived from the aggregate data. Survey respondents were not queried on whether virtual events were going to overtake live efforts. In fact, we did not present a single either/or choice regarding live events versus virtual alternatives. In questions where we asked about perceptions and preferences regarding the two, we also offered options such as “a mix of both is best,” and “I like virtual events as much or equal to live events.” Still, given those options, 68 percent of respondents who have participated in virtual events say they prefer live events.
But the press release and the
research report (which can be viewed at ExhibitorOnline.com/Research) both state that “as more marketers become increasingly familiar with virtual alternatives, the impact of virtual events on our industry will undoubtedly increase.” In fact, the report indicates nearly half of respondents who have used virtual events reported those events helped them increase brand awareness, and 39 percent found their cost per lead at virtual events was lower than comparable live events.
If reporting the aforementioned statistics represents a disservice, I am left scratching my head. Would it have been favorable to falsify the findings, or sweep them under the rug? I stand by the survey and the data, which I believe accurately depicts the foreseeable future of our industry as a mixture of live, virtual, and hybrid events.
And to those who implied our survey was crafted to further an agenda of building up face-to-face by tearing down virtual, I have one response: Our mission is to provide exhibit and event professionals with the tools and education they need to produce high-performance programs with measurable results, regardless of whether those programs feature live or virtual events. Part of that mission manifests itself in our efforts to provide unbiased data that depicts our industry as it is, not as others purport it to be. I welcome all criticism of our research efforts, but if that criticism is primarily driven by disagreement with the data, exactly whose agenda is it that’s getting in the way?e
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EXHIBITOR
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