Trade Show Badges Trigger Targeted Messages

Alliance Tech's system employs long-range passive EPC RFID tags to identify conference attendees and play select informational videos on nearby screens, as well as generate sales leads.

By Mary Catherine O'Connor

Tags: Asset Tracking, Innovation, Privacy

Email Article Print Article Definitions Save Article

Aug 03, 2007—As an estimated 40,000 attendees stroll the exhibit hall at the Radiological Society of North America's convention this November, most will be wearing conference badges containing passive UHF EPC Gen 2 tags. This will allow Alliance Tech, a provider of management and information technology solutions for the meeting and events industry, to offer a number of attendee-tracking services. Such services will be aimed at providing the RSNA and the convention exhibitors a means to improve their interaction with attendees while deepening their understanding of those attendees' interests.

Smart Messaging, a new service Alliance Tech will debut at the show, is designed to enable exhibitors to target sales messages—in the form of advertorial videos—to individual attendees. Next to each display screen located throughout the exhibit floor, Alliance Tech will mount an RFID interrogator, which will collect the unique registration number encoded to each tag in its read range (the interrogators will be tuned to read tags only in front of the monitor).

Roger Lewis

Using an application linking it to the show's registration database, the Alliance Tech software will pull select data associated with each badge ID detected, then choose which advertorials to play, based on each advertiser's specifications. Such specs might stipulate, for instance, that when a cardiac radiology specialist is located in front of the monitor, only specific videos featuring products geared toward that subset of radiologists should be played. If more than one attendee is before the monitor, explains Roger Lewis, executive vice president for Alliance Tech, the software will call up a variety of videos to play, based on the different job titles or departments of the audience.

This offering builds upon the basic services package that Alliance Tech, in collaboration with event registration company Experient, offers for industry trade shows, conferences or other large events. The fundamental offering in this package is what Lewis calls "Lead Potential." This offers event exhibitors a means of identifying those event attendees who spend a specific amount time in their booth—how much time is up to the exhibitor—but never engage with the company's staffers long enough for them to collect those visitors' names, companies, titles or contact information through the conventional methods: scanning the bar code printed on a visitor's conference badge or reading the badge's short-range RFID inlay.

With the Lead Potential service, an Alliance Tech installs sufficient interrogators inside a company's exhibit space to read the RFID tag—Alien Technology's UHF Gen 2 tags and readers will be used at the RSNA show—attached to any attendee in the booth who remains for a specified amount of time. That amount might be 10 or 20 minutes, says Lewis, and can be set at the discretion of each exhibitor.

USER COMMENTS

Charles Benninghoff	2007-08-06 06:16:56 PM
Chicago Trade Show Security In addition to trade show security through electronic devices such as RFID, a whole new layer of security is also required - namely, that you are familiar with not only the company that provides your display but also the companies that are designated to install the display and dismantle the trade show display. Thus, it is always necessary to hire 3 qualified, reputable and reliable companies to obtain your display, put it in and, as well, take it down. That is, unless, of course you hire one company that is capable of doing all three in a professional and economical manner. One such company is CEP Exhibit Productions, Inc, a firm that has been situated in Chicago for more than 25 years. It also has offices in Orlando and Las Vegas. CEP has developed a portal-to-portal system that include manufacturing of custom displays and exhibits trade show floor-in to floor-out setup and dismantling called LaborSource. But, what ever your choice of display providers, or setup and dismantlers, make sure you know that your company's image and property security are delimited by the company you keep.
Reader	2010-07-13 03:59:43 AM
To be most effective Trade Shows are a great marketplace for industry buyers and sellers. Buyers come to the exhibition, in many cases, with a pre-set agenda of companies to visit. Many new and stimulating events happen during the exhibition, which creates a huge challenge for your company to try to stand out to attendees. Just setting up a booth on-site won't guarantee your success. Your task is to decide what message and which vehicle will get attendees to focus their attention on your company. While most attendees hear about shows through direct mail, you may find a mix of these mediums to be most effective. button badges

Login and post your comment!

Not a member?

Signup for an account now to access all of the features of RFIDJournal.com!

Trade Show Badges Trigger Targeted Messages

USER COMMENTS

Login and post your comment!

Related Content

News

Opinions

Case Studies

Features