Recently, the General Office, the Ministry of Commerce and other departments have successively issued the "Opinions on Developing the Silver Economy and Improving the Well-being of the Elderly" and "Opinions on Promoting the Innovation and Development of Time-honored Brands". The two seemingly unrelated "Opinions" also proposed to use the function of the exhibition to promote industrial development through innovation. It can be seen that the huge role of exhibitions in industrial innovation has been paid more and more attention.
The post-pandemic international geopolitical and economic environment is very different from that before the pandemic. Foreign trade exports have shifted from the "old three" (clothing, furniture, and home appliances) to the "new three" of electric manned vehicles, lithium batteries, and solar cells, and China's economic growth momentum has changed from investment-led to consumption-driven, which has made great changes in the external environment for the development of China's exhibition industry.
From the point of view of technological progress,The use of online exhibitions, metaverse exhibitions, digitalization, and artificial intelligence has made it possible for exhibitions to have a longer-term, higher-frequency, and deeper impact on the industryYes, the recent launch of SORA by OpenAI has made the application of artificial intelligence in the exhibition industry a hot topic of discussion again.
From the perspective of historical development, exhibitions and industrial innovation go hand in hand, and China's exhibition is going through the stage of moving from a big country to a strong country. Innovation and high-quality development have become the most significant symbols of China's exhibition industry.
So how does the exhibition promote the development of the industry through innovation? The author believes that in order to focus on the development of industrial exhibitions, it is necessary to innovate from five levels.
One isInnovate the definition and cognition of industrial exhibition functions。Traditional exhibitions are divided into ** class, consumer class, comprehensive class, etc., according to the degree of subdivision and divided into comprehensive exhibition and professional exhibition, the function of the traditional exhibition is the trading platform, economic "barometer", urban living room, etc. Currently,"Industrial exhibitions" have become a new category and hot spotIn addition to the above functions, industrial exhibitions should also be able to promote industrial development in a forward-looking manner, and realize the functions of industrial vane, new urban think tank, attracting engines, disseminating new forces, integrating innovators, and integrating operators. The more representative ones are the World New Energy Vehicle Conference hosted by the China Association for Science and Technology and Hainan Province, the Wine Industry Innovation and Investment Conference initiated by Zhihai Wang Chao and Yunjiu Media, and the Li Man Pig Conference.
The common denominator of this kind of exhibition is that it has played the role of a strategic leading industry of the exhibition, and has a huge impetus and leadership for industry innovationIt is a brand exhibition with relevant industrial clusters and the focus of the park.
The second isGain insight into the needs of the industry and customers to enhance the value of the exhibition. The value of the exhibition industry should be obtained from the innovation and development of the industry it serves, not just from transactionsIt cannot be obtained from the complacency and closed-door construction of the exhibition industry. If this is solved, the industry exhibition can have more value in the industry, for example, Xu Feng's three new exhibitions for the selection of cutting-edge scientific and technological achievements in the exhibition, exhibition innovation and investment competition, etc., directly aimed at the exhibition industry technology innovation and exhibition industry venture capital, to meet the needs of the industry in scientific and technological progress and creation, a large number of start-up companies and projects to participate in the three new exhibitions. In this case, the participation of the entire industry chain will be higherThe exhibition has become the hub and center of industrial progress and innovation, and the role of the platform has been maximized.
The third isContent innovation, leading the industry. Whether it is an industry conference or an exhibition, industrial exhibitions will focus on the following common content:Forward-looking, leading, progressive, innovative, conflictual, topicalAccording to these commonalities, different themes, exhibition areas, exhibition methods, etc. are designed. Due to the important value of content, unlike transactional exhibitions, which are mainly middle-level, industrial exhibitions have a higher level of participants, and the participation of decision-makers from major organizations and enterprises in the industrial chain will be higher.
Four areInnovate the concept of holding conferences and exhibitions。Due to the "industry isolation" of the traditional mode of holding conferences and exhibitions, the organizers and participants are often highly vertical, and even the more vertical the more valuable, but for industrial innovation exhibitionsInnovation often comes from cross-border forces"Peers can only catch up, cross-border can surpass", in the holding of exhibitions, both vertical and cross-border
As a practitioner in the exhibition industry, when integrating the resources of the organizers, we should have the cooperation concept of embracing all rivers and learning from each other's strengths, and introduce more industry organizers of different natures to participate togetherWhen combining exhibition elements, it is necessary to have forward-looking thinking and introduce resources with future value or reference into the exhibition. For example, in order to create an industrial new energy auto show that promotes industrial progress, the participants should not only be enterprises in the automobile industry chain, Internet companies and game companies are also a very important cross-border participant - there are two reasons, one is that the new forces of car manufacturing are often the best in Internet enterprises, and the other is that the definition of the car by new energy vehicle companies is not only a means of transportation, but also an important personal life scene, and games and movies have gradually become the standard configuration of new energy vehicle functions.
Fifth, yesCreate new scenes and innovate forms。In the final analysis, the exhibition is still to create a gathering scene of the industrial chain crowd (whether online or offline), the form must serve the content, the industry has demand, and the exhibition industry should plan a new gathering scene to meet, thereforeIn addition to the scenes, exhibitions, festivals, performances, and competitions, there are more emerging scenarios in the form of industrial exhibitions, such as TED-style speeches, talk shows, and the "Eight Immortals Campfire" at the Sanxin Exhibition. In terms of function, it is necessary to consider "entering the house" to meet the needs of some deeper and higher industries and enterprises. In terms of space, it is necessary to combine online and offline; In terms of time, it is necessary to create the value of 365 days a year.
The "Whale Tide Future E-commerce Conference", co-hosted by Zhihai Wangchao and Blue Whale Private Domain, initially mainly provided functions such as docking and trading. Through the study of the needs of participants, the organizers found that for e-commerce, exhibitors and participants not only need to listen to the exhibition, due to the characteristics of the Internet industry, many participants and exhibitors hope to get direct guidance and communication from future e-commerce leaders. As a result, Whale Tide has created the "Whale Tide Private Board of Directors", which is effectively connected through a more valuable, targeted and fruitful private domain community, and adopts a combination of online courses and offline activities to provide higher value-added services for high-demand groups among the participants and exhibitors. At present, nearly 600 private directors have joined in only half a year, and the annual service income outside the exhibition has exceeded 10 million yuan. At the same time, the "Whale Tide Future E-commerce Conference" has become an ecological "private domain + e-commerce" industrial Internet platform.
The above two "opinions" are a microcosm of China's economic and industrial changes, upstream industry changes, transformation and innovation will come, "opinions" mentioned vigorously play the exhibition function, which is both a challenge for China's exhibition industry, but also a rare opportunity, illustratedThe convention and exhibition industry will achieve high-quality development through innovation and self-iteration, and will likely play a more important role in the national economy and assume the important task of building a platform to promote industrial links.
*: China ** newspaper).