Articles - Getting the Best Creative: Reengineering RFPs to Drive More Effective Solutions - 360 - Jack Morton Worldwide's Experiential Marketing Blog

July 22, 2004
Getting the Best Creative: Reengineering RFPs to Drive More Effective Solutions

by Eric Steidinger

Tradeshows and exhibits offer customers direct access to brands, products, value and services. The potential for marketers to educate and invigorate partnerships one-on-one in this arena is undeniable. For vendor agencies, the tradeshow market offers a brilliant outlet for integrated environmental design, messaging, media and collateral. For everyone concerned, exhibits are good business.

But from a branding perspective, exhibits are among the most neglected points of communication in the life of a brand. Since "true invention attacks the roots," I began my examination of this phenomenon at its starting point: the RFP. Think about it--the standard RFP process yields agencies desperate to "wow" their way onto the tradeshow floor with the latest designs and gadgetry rather than deliver knowledge-based creative that is on-brand and strategic for their clients. Marketers risk leveraging creative that only has impact for a day.

Increasingly, tradeshow marketers agree that dealing with multiple specialty vendors is frustrating and wasteful. They want their marketing agencies to offer exhibit design and fabrication in-house. But even as they agree to integrate everything from lead generation and tracking to exhibit staff, they may neglect to integrate the RFP process--sharing brand and industry insight with vendors to get the best possible (i.e., most effective) creative and challenging vendors to deliver best practices.

This June, I led a workshop with approximately 40 participants at the annual meeting of the Healthcare Convention & Exhibitors Association (HCEA) in Austin, Texas. We addressed this vital question: How can RFPs be reengineered to drive more effective solutions? This diverse group of marketers and vendors launched into a lively discussion, displaying mutual eagerness to address an area of shared challenges.

We discussed seven vital criteria for generating an effective RFP--to inform creative that drives brand-oriented results.

1. Define clear objectives
Too often, RFPs describe soft goals instead of hard ones. What does it mean to ask a vendor to be a "standout on the floor?" Or to build a "high-tech, leading edge" booth? Marketers have firm targets for sales and ROI and are encouraged to share them. Vendors encouraged them to consider providing 3-5 goals, ranked in order of importance, offering cost objectives and market share (financial) goals, broader message goals of the brand and firm numbers for desired visitors, leads generated or demonstrations completed. Marketers can also help their case by disclosing ROO metrics. What is the desired "end state" of attendees? Some experiences lead audiences to want to learn more--and others to buy on the spot.

Why offer all this information up front? Because the scope of marketers' ambitions can be matched by the solutions agencies offer, if they have the insight. Disclosing the details arms agencies with the information to get strategic in their creative thinking and render goals achievable.

2. Describe and define target audience(s)
Marketers know their targets better than anyone. Agencies have the means to conduct independent research for the purposes of a bid, but rarely will their findings rival in-house client expertise on the demographic, purchasing power/behavior and psychographic of the target audience. Our workshop participants even encouraged marketers to address audience segmentation (in the case of multiple targets at one event) and disclose whether they would consider multiple practices to reach them.

Agencies can leverage powerful creative in support of their clients--but only if they know the message that must be communicated and who is receiving it. What does the audience know and feel now, what do marketers need them to know and feel, and what do they need to understand in order to drive change?

3. Provide corporate and brand overview
To distinguish an exhibit from those of competitors (again, reaching beyond the "wow" of the moment to true branding), vendors need to understand the look, feel, voice and value of a brand. Again, they can do their own research to a point, but within the confidential confines of an RFP process, why not share what they most need to know? Vendors responded with enthusiasm at the idea of discussing a brand like a person--how is the brand perceived? What does the brand stand for in the marketplace?

Executive and project overviews, recent campaign collateral, expert analysis, Web sites and available annual reports can effectively (and easily) provide historical and current information on the brand. To get the most of their tradeshow investment, marketers should challenge vendors to develop creative within the context of corporate core values and solid branding knowledge. Sometimes there are gray areas in a brand's strategy--marketers can share those as well. You never know when the right vendor might evolve into a strong strategic resource.

4. Share decision criteria
It seems simple, but this helpful step is often missed. Vendors want to provide best-in-class creative while acknowledging managerial and corporate preferences. To help them do it, marketers can clearly define the review process, prioritize criteria (vs. providing a simple, unweighted list), set budget parameters and, if possible, offer feedback following RFP review. Who are the decision-makers and what are their roles? Are there specific agency strengths or areas of expertise that are absolutely non-negotiable? Vendors who have this information will supply the most on-target proposal they can.

5. Request agency overview
Here's where marketers get to put vendors to work. Having supplied a soup-to-nuts overview of their own organization, they are well within their rights to require one in return. To find the best partner, marketers should challenge agencies to disclose their full breadth of services (beyond the needs of a single exhibit), their core values, corporate culture, history and details of their relationship with the marketer's industry. If the review process permits, marketers can even require vendors to submit "blue sky" creative to see what agency capabilities can really produce.

Taking the opportunity to learn about bidders may reveal unexpected value for this or other projects. Agencies will in turn consider their full capabilities while developing creative, resulting in stronger integrated programs.

6. Challenge agencies to demonstrate best practices
Again, marketers should put vendors to the test. They should require agencies to describe at least two differing samples of past programs (and the results of those programs, when they are not confidential) that can offer a parallel to the bid at hand. What are the key differentiating characteristics that set this vendor apart from their competitors? What new strategies would they leverage for the exhibit? If discovering potential for a long-term partnership is a goal of the RFP process, marketers can challenge vendors to disclose how they track industry trends and how they see the industry in 3-5 years. Putting vendors in this frame of mind ensures that they will measure themselves against the industry's finest as they develop their creative, lending the brand a competitive edge.

7. Require measurement strategy
Marketers who have shared their goals can shift the burden to vendors to help measure effectiveness. Any numbers of components can be measured to show a program's value, such as booth traffic/volume, leads generated, lead follow-through to matched volume sales (i.e., new business) and follow-up appointments scheduled. Vendors should be ready to offer measuring strategies like badge tracking (RF, scanning) along with the capability to integrate electronic touchpoints--systems wherein contact is recorded--into exhibits themselves.

New and better strategies for measuring ROI/ROO are always in demand--why not ask vendors for their best ideas? In response, agencies will keep brand goals firmly in mind when developing creative, knowing they will be defending their choices--ideally celebrating them--at the program's completion.

By the end of our workshop at the HCEA conference, attendees were looking at one another with new understanding and appreciation of each others' industries and the challenges they face in creating strong exhibits. The RFP process can yield the same results--if both sides are willing to dig a little deeper, dispel a little more of the mystery on how they work and ask the questions they really need answered. Knowledge-based creative that cements brand identity and achieves measurable goals is within reach--for both marketers and the agencies who serve them.