THE VISITOR CENTER: A HYBRID AND RESILIENT COMMUNICATION PLATFORM

What defines the corporate culture, what are the driving forces behind successful growth? These stories are best told by the people on their home turf. Brand spaces offer the ideal setting and the appropriate storytelling tools for authentic and uncomplicated film productions, as the examples of Kärcher and Lapp show. They took this opportunity together with Hypovereinsbank. The own corporate brand space is also ideally suited as a location for theme and product communication, as shown here in the clips from Bayer and Bosch.

When industry trade fairs are cancelled, or have little prospect of adequate visitor numbers, or practically ignore international target groups, or can no longer provide an appropriate brand experience due to hygiene restrictions, the in-house exhibition emerges back into focus. Those who have designed their spaces to be multifunctional, with modular architecture that quickly enables new topics, are now at an advantage. With an existing brand presence, there is no need to develop and temporarily build a new environment as setting; exhibits needn´t be transported to trade fair locations: this helps to reduce costs and saves time. In the own brand space, longer running times and, above all, individual opening hours can be offered to reach the target groups - all increasing the quality of encounters, dialogue and lead generation.

Being and feeling safe are "hygiene factors" in the true sense of the meaning. The protection of our own staff and customers is top priority. Hygienic conditions are easier to implement in brand spaces than on the exhibition grounds, where many factors are outside the sphere of influence and space is scarce and expensive. Especially for international target groups, this format offers great potential for increased coverage, even beyond purely physical events. Examples of successfully implemented digital in-house exhibitions in the company's own brand space show that significantly more international customers participate and more new customers are acquired - in contrast to formats that tend to focus on maintaining existing national customers. Marketing managers are currently confronted with severely depleted budgets and at the same time higher demands and expenses. Shifting budgets to hybrid in-house exhibition concepts can be a key to meeting this challenge.

Even if visitors cannot yet travel physically, it´s easy to make personal appointments at the visitor center. Shop Streaming makes it possible: with existing technologies such as Hero, step in and take part in a tour of the brand exhibition or the presentation of a new product. In combination with virtual spaces and pre-produced content, this can create a unique format – be it one-to-one or via stream one-to-many. And why not give incentives to buy right away? Customers can be made suitable offers or individual promotions in the same step, just one click away from conversion.

When it comes to keeping external or internal stakeholders up to date and bringing them to the table, brand spaces and foyers can be stage and place of identification in one - whether for corporate events such as executive meetings, sales conferences or customer events. The brand space forms the visual heart: close to the headquarters and the employees on site, it connects colleagues and staff from all over the world with each other. Those who have already invested in flexible media technology have a clear advantage - such as Bayer´s Baykomm in Leverkusen or Bosch Powertrain Solutions in Feuerbach, where all the tools are already in place to hold hybrid town hall meetings. Brand spaces can have a special effect through their iconic power: How about a "lighthouse" event from the 232m high platform of the "Beacon of Innovation" in the thyssenkrupp Elevator test tower?