Category: Best Use of Special Events and Stunt/Live Advertising
Advertiser: DEUTSCHE MESSE
Product/Service: HANNOVER MESSE
Agency: INSGLüCK GESELLSCHAFT FüR MARKENINSZENIERUNG
Technical Direction: Ralf Schafstall (Production Office)
Set Design: Karim El-Ishmawi/Martin Jacobs (Kinzo Jacobs El-Ishmawi Middleton)
Set Built Up: Michael Mietzke (Ipoint Messe- Und Eventbau)
Audio: Markus Krane (Krane & Rabe)
Lightdesign: Henning Schletter
Video Production: Stefan Ihmig/John Tettenborn/Daniel Aigner/Stefan Haberkorn/Gerson Reschke (Braumüller | Selle)
Artists: (Cosmic Artists)
Media placement: Opening Ceremony - Event - 3 April 2011
Insights, Strategy & the Idea
With 13 flagship trade fairs and a number of innovations, the HANNOVER MESSE is in full force in 2011. The special Metropolitan Solutions exhibition - which showcases innovations in major cities and urban infrastructure - is on display this year for the first time. Current topics related to the trade fair and the exhibiting industry are to be presented at the opening ceremony. The high demands placed on the event’s content should go hand in hand with an emotional appeal of the guests.
The approximately 2,400 invited guests include national and international VIPs in business and in politics, CEOs of the most important exhibiting organisations, opinion leaders, and media representatives.
The creative team wants the opening ceremony to introduce a constant stream of new ideas, and they want the event to present industry-specific issues and up-to-date, expert knowledge in impressive ways—just as the HANNOVER MESSE itself does.
Creative Execution
This year’s opening event will employ a convincing combination of live presenters and highly innovative presentation technology to depict the innovations of tomorrow: 3-D Mapping. The creative team’s goal is to transport the public into the different industry sectors.
The stage is tiered three-dimensionally, which gives it an industrial, urban feel while also creating space for 3D mapping. A media production which presents the structure and key issues of each industry in highly associative, innovative ways is in development for the opening. The production brings guests on a journey through wind farms and production lines, along rivers of liquid steel and glowing city skylines, past imposing water turbines and loud stamping presses. The soundtrack underscores the urban and industrial imagery by combining specific material and machine sounds with well-known acoustic elements and playful interpretations. This thrilling introduction is followed by appearances by the evening’s prominent speakers.
Results and Effectiveness
Both the opening and the trade fair as a whole received a great deal of national and international media coverage. More than 3,500 guests, including 220 journalists from all over the world, attended the opening ceremony. According to a media-response analysis, 3 topics received an especially large amount of attention, amongst others the opening ceremony. Nearly 3,000 people followed the ceremony live via the Internet, and more than 21,000 afterwards. Michael Rose, DMAG’s head of protocol and corporate events: “I do not think any of our previous opening ceremonies received such invariably positive feedback. A spectacular start to the trade fair...”