Brief & issues
Founded in 1979 in Deauville, IFTM Top Resa has been the event of choice for the entire tourism industry for over 42 years. For all these years, the show has remained the only BtoB event of its size and importance for tourism professionals. The show’s ambition is to continue, year after year, to be the privileged and exhaustive showcase of the market, in all its components and evolutions. How can we make the customer experience even richer and more interesting? That’s the question the IFTM Top Resa team asked itself when considering the identity and complementarity that could be generated by an annual digital communication program, enriching and extending the 4-day trade show experience. After all, that’s what the existence of a physical trade show is all about: succeeding in establishing itself over the long term as an expert, cross-disciplinary player in all the trades and sectors it aims to embody.
How do you create content for a one-off event and meet the needs of exhibitors and visitors? How can the various media complement each other to boost awareness of the show, while meeting the challenges of marketing exhibition space and visitor badges?
The agency’s response
Travel-Insight’s mission is to keep the audience informed, while providing a digital complement to the physical show. Because industry expertise must be real and tangible all year round, a presence on social networks is not optional for a player like IFTM. In order to best respond to the need for brand awareness and marketing of its offer, IFTM’s identity translates into a multi-format existence.
Federating, engaging and animating: this is the show’s credo, as part of a 360° dynamic. To offer tourism professionals a way of promoting their business through interesting videos, arousing the curiosity and commitment of the community through a modern format in tune with current events. The Canap’ d’IFTM featured the testimonials and experiences of some of the biggest names in leisure and business tourism, who shared their views on the challenges of today’s market, as well as their internal and personal developments. It’s a collection of stories and confidences perfectly in tune with the conversational challenge of social networking: to create an open space for discussion and inspiration. The format, adaptable at will, then spread to live formats, live at the show, as well as a “home-made” version, allowing anyone to provide their own testimonial – perfect portability!
The Canap d’IFTM concept has since become an IFTM brand, easily recognizable and identifiable within the industry. This common thread running through the show’s communications tends to mutate and transform itself according to the environment in which it evolves, so as to remain constantly connected to developments and trends in the tourism industry.
Alongside this collective and highly shareable format (participants are tagged and videos are cross-posted), Travel-Insight provides the IFTM trade show with the elements it needs to maintain an annual content marketing strategy. The show is thus part of a multi-format approach, adapting its messages to the technicalities and raison d’être of each platform: Linkedin to celebrate the employer brand, Facebook to reach as many people as possible and appeal through simple, effective marketing tools such as Call To Action, and Twitter to play on the spontaneity and hot news of the show, particularly during the physical edition of IFTM.
The other missions we undertake to develop IFTM’s communications :
- Creating speech platforms
- Communication on social networks
- Sponsored campaigns for badge creations
- Press relations for professionals
- Creation of photo & video content for communication needs
- Developing partnerships for communication needs
