Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
This week witnessed the first half of wireless trade association CTIA’s on-going dual-trade show format, with the “spring” event held in Las Vegas. Thankfully, this process of holding both a “spring” and “fall” event will be coming to an end for 2014 as CTIA has but one “late” summer event on the docket for next year.
As is typical for any trade show I attend, the details from that event are blurry at best and thus my recollection of the “big” news from the show is often clouded by a lack of sleep, meeting with more people than my mind can absorb and traversing more miles than my legs can take. Also, this event was in Las Vegas, and well … there’s that.
Knowing that this would be the case, this year I attempted to “Memento” my trip by making random notes in order to jog my memory on things that happened, but that I knew I would forget. I didn’t go so far as to permanently “ink” those notes on my body – as far as I can remember – but I do have a notepad filled with about four words that I can actually read.
“Success?”
I think this was in connection with what has become one of the best (worst) things about industry trade shows: the small talk that is required in order to break the ice or fill in those uncomfortable silences in conversations that arise when you sort of know somebody, but not really enough to chat about more than current events.
One of the most common of these “ice breakers” is always “how is the show going for you?” A simple enough question that for some reason more often than not elicits a general opinion on the size of the event. This has been especially prevalent over the past several years as trade show attendance has reportedly declined in-line with a souring economy, with the most common response I hear being that the show is “slow,” “small” or “near-death.”
For myself, I am incapable of judging any sort of scale or scope of a given crowd that I blame on being dropped on my head as a baby. I could be in the middle of a crowd of two people and more than likely if asked I would say there were 2,000 people in that crowd. This is also combined with a memory that I equate to a mobile phone from the late 80s and has been filled to the brim with useless information thus preventing anything else from sticking.
As such, when I get the “this show is slow/small/near-death” from those small-talk conversations I typically just shrug my shoulders and say “huh,” or just nod my head in agreement.
This was again the case at this week’s CTIA event where the word I kept hearing was that the show was “slow/small/near-death.” A little shoulder shrug and “huh” was all I could offer up.
Now I know that these sorts of events tend to feed of “buzz” in that the more people that appear to be at the event makes more people want to attend lest they miss out on something important. And because of this I can forgive those that put on trade shows for massaging the number of attendees in order to generate maximum buzz. For instance, I heard at one event that will remain un-named that they counted attendance based on the number of days a single person paid to attend the event. Thus, if someone paid to attend the show for three days, they were counted as three people in the overall attendance figures.
I will admit that news from the event was a bit light on the gravitas scale, with most of the bigger headlines coming from events happening outside of CTIA. (Thanks Clearwire!) But this has become the case with many events as wireless carriers and device makers have begun to shift their news release focus to their own dog-and-pony shows where they are the one-and-only piece of news. (Thanks Apple!)
At the end of the day, trade shows do indeed serve a purpose and even for those with a negative eye towards the proceedings admit that they are good locations to concentrate meetings and put faces to e-mail names and Twitter handles. Was CTIA a success? Well, I usually figure the less I remember from a show, the more successful it is.
”U.S. Cellular = Louis C.K.”
This note I recognize a bit more as I am still in shock by the chutzpah shown by regional carrier U.S. Cellular in putting together a hilarious video that playfully poked fun at its rivals. This is not done nearly enough in any industry and thus U.S. Cellular is now my favorite company in the whole world.
For those of you that missed it, take a look at the video and try not to fall in love with U.S. Cellular:
Best of all, this was played during the opening day keynote where there is typically maximum attendance and for once made the opening day keynote something I don’t usually take a nap through. Well done U.S. Cellular.
Finally, my last decipherable note was: “JLo no-no”
This note is reference to Verizon Wireless’ “big” news from the show, which ended up being a well-attended press conference where it announced a new partnership with Jennifer Lopez, Brightstar and Moorehead Communications to offer a unique shopping experience for the Latino population, or I would guess those that want to shop in a location with a Latino flavor. The idea itself is somewhat interesting, as anytime a carrier can bring in a celebrity the interest from those outside the industry is increased.
However, from talking to other reporters covering this press conference, few seemed to be impressed with what Jennifer Lopez was bringing to the table. Many pointed out that details of this arrangement seemed scarce, with all that could be deciphered was that there would be a handful of boutique retail locations opened up where the decorations would be a step above the traditional retail faire and the Latino angle would be enhanced.
Further impacting Verizon Wireless was the fact that historically it has used such press conferences to tout some sort of network or device breakthrough that would send shivers down the spines of rivals. This announcement, while it did have that JLo-pizzazz, lacked the innovative stance I think reporters have come to expect from the carrier. It was all-show, no-go.
Maybe we just need to cut Verizon Wireless a bit of slack, seeing how busy it has been of late in just about every other facet of the mobile space. Why can’t “big-red” have some fun every once in a while?
Seeing as the next CTIA event this fall will be held in fairly-innocuous San Jose, Calif., there is a greater chance that my memory from the event won’t be as clouded as this week’s Las Vegas shindig.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.
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