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A restyled logo and a new image for the 2014 edition with the objective of focusing on machinery and sustainability, strengthening presence on emerging markets and performing capillary communication action: Samoter is already on the move.
Intermat in Pairs – the International Exhibition of Equipment, Machinery and Materials for the Building Industry (16-21 April) – was the occasion for the official presentation of Samoter 2014 to the international press, clients and category associations.
SAMOTER 2011: facts and figures of the past, challenges in the future
The 28th edition of Samoter was attended by more than 900 exhibitors (29% international from 37 countries) ovre a net exhibition area of 108,906 sq.m.
Visitor attendance over the four days of the event confirmed initial expectations: there were, in fact, more than 98 thousand visitors – 86,200 Italian and 11,848 international (11.70%) from 110 countries, posting an increase compared to the 2008 edition of 4%.
Very interesting results emerge as regards the quality of visitors, since 70% were decision makers (managing directors, directors, company managers, owners and buyers).
Press coverage was ensured by more than 300 accredited journalists, more than 50 Italian and international media partners, and 879 articles published world-wide (676 Italian and 203 international).
The Samoter web site was also very successful, with 2 million pages visited (an increase in hits of 18.6% compared to the 2008 edition), thanks also to the availability of multilingual minisites created to enhance visitor access to all information.
SAMOTER 2014: The power of sustain.ability
The hallmark of continuity with the 2011 edition will be sustainability, in terms of economic, social and environmental responsibility, and the effective support role in the building and earth moving field that is the special feature of SAMOTER, as the protagonists of the new communication concept for the 29th edition of the Exhibition.
Samoter 2014, in short, resumes the topic of sustainability in the construction sector through a positive and proactive image – an operator supporting certain items of machinery, typical icons of the sector – that has the objective of representing effective support for the field by combining the power of machinery and the skills of people.
SAMOTER 2014 strengthens its positioning on international markets.
The event – and its historic fulcrum of machinery, plant and equipment for the building industry, sites and major works – today more than ever before seeks to be a landmark on a European scale and an international stage for a sector that, despite the global crisis, still drives the world economy, standing as the reference partner for companies, institutions and category associations in the construction world.
Samoter 2014 has many geographical areas of interest. As well as historic markets in the main European countries such as France, Germany and Spain, the strategy has been broadened to include the Balkans, Eastern Europe, the Arabian peninsula, the Mediterranean area, central Asia, the Far East and Latin America with focused promotional and communication action as well as initiatives designed to attract more qualified buyers.
Communication and marketing
For the next edition, Samoter continues its focus on important investments in communication, confirming its attendance at all the most significant international exhibition appointments in the sector, travelling overall to around fifty countries.
To bring visitors into even closer contact with the Exhibition, brochures will be prepared in multilingual versions: Italian/English, French/German, Spanish/Portuguese, Russian/Chinese, Arabic/Turkish, Rumanian/Polish.
The event site, in Italian and English, will be constantly updated and expanded with topics for analysis and links to international partners, while minisites will be presented in Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Turkish, Spanish, German, Rumanian, French and Polish.
A major innovation involving the website in 2014 on the one hand will be the significantly oriented and extensive implementation of social media, first and foremost Facebook, Linkedin, twitter and youtube, while on the other there will also be the activation of a Samoter Forum as a sector platform and vehicle for promotion, communication and stimulus for effective interaction with visitors.
All this will be flanked by the launch of an Academy/Laboratory area dedicated to training initiatives that may even be held during the Exhibition itself as well as events promoting the exhibition in collaboration with external partners.
A targeted Italian and international press campaign will also ensure capillary presence in sector magazines and dedicated portals, alongside agreements with important publishing groups and a massive promotional campaign – not the least through the qualified network of international delegates.
With a view to upgrading Direct marketing, the e-mailing of regular Newsletters to 80,000 selected operators continues, helping to ensure constant updates not only about the world of sector exhibitions and associations but also crossways topics such as the Italian and international market, international tenders and technical standards.
The theme of sustainability will be crossways to all event sectors through the SAMOTER SPECIALS: courses dedicated to individual trade sectors such as earth moving, concrete, road building, drilling, crushing, hoisting, vehicles and components. Every sphere is clearly identified by an icon and an identification colour. A number of theme-days will back up thes4 itineraries through events, seminars and conventions, thanks to collaboration between VeronaFiere and the main Italian and international associations.
In keeping with tradition, the 29th edition of Samoter will once again reward particularly original and avant-garde creativity, design and products/services in the market through the Technical Innovation Competition, dedicated to producers of machinery and technologies, and the Samoter International Award assigned in recognition of efforts promoting development and success in sites on a national and international scale.
Samoter and WOC Renew Cooperative Agreement
Building on the success of a cooperative agreement signed in 2009, Veronafiere and Hanley Wood Exhibitions have announced a new cooperative agreement that will provide for a mutual exchange of services and marketing programs benefiting Hanley Wood’s World of Concrete (WOC) and Veronafiere’s Samoter trade shows. The agreement, which will cover WOC 2013 and 2014 and Samoter 2014, will include various cross-marketing activities. As part of the agreement, WOC will have an expanded exhibit presence at Samoter 2014, to showcase key elements of the show, such as decorative concrete.
* Data certified by FKM – German Certification Authority approving data for more than 300 events worldwide – www.fkm.de
A STROLL THROUGH THE HISTORY OF SAMOTER
The first edition of Samoter was held in 1964. It was a major gamble, since the event was set up to present earth moving machinery that until then had been an integral part of Fieragricola (as of 1948). This proved to be a vital decision and one especially in line with the needs of the many small-medium companies for a specialist event for exchange, promotion and comparison with various technical experiences and the research and university world.
Samoter that year was the only international show in the field and a precious occasion for companies in the sector, which at last found a specific event for their products and the occasion for development that, over time, helped promote both economic and social progress.
In 1964, Italy completed that “economic miracle” that in the immediate post-war period had transformed a prevalently agricultural country into an industrial nation. On 4 October the President of the Republic, Antonio Segni, inaugurated the completion of the “Autostrada del Sole” – the motorway from Milan to Naples and symbol of the new times. Milan saw the first Metro line come into service, while the Italian Song Festival in Sanremo was won by Gigliola Cinguetti with “Non ho l’Età”. Italy was a young country firmly looking to forwards, in a world where information technology was taking its first steps (the Basic programming language appeared in the same year) but at the same time was also shaken by the escalation of the Vietnam war and when young people, fascinated by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, began their “protest against the system” that exploded a few years later.
Samoter, in the meantime, followed up the needs of a fast-growing market by extending trade sectors at the exhibition: earth moving machinery was joined by various other fields in the building and construction industry.
In 1971, the event joined the UFI (Union des Foires Internationales), the organism that brings together the organisers of major international exhibition events, and two years later launched the first in a series of prestigious awards assigned to public and private companies and countries particularly distinguished in design, major public works or the development of advanced technologies.
1973 saw the creation of the International Technical Innovation Competition, the Award that quickly emerged as one of the most qualified and selective “showcases” of the technical and technological evolution on show at the Exhibition which celebrated its twentieth edition in 2011.
At the end of the 1970s, the sector had to tackle a difficult market situation: demand for technological products shrank alongside the fall in major new works. The recession in this sector lasted until the early 1980s. As a result, many well-known brands disappeared from the entrepreneurial panorama, while others – through national and international alliances – found ways to compete even more efficiently on markets.
The Exhibition – after in-depth analysis with trade organisations – modified its calendar in this period to become a biennial rather than an annual show, thus allowing companies to programme their investments and product presentations in a more effective manner.
The Verona Exhibition Authority increasingly focused the event on the real needs of companies. The 1980s and the early 1990s were very intense years: the globalisation of markets imposed new approaches, continual innovation and promotion.
In 1993, the exhibition became a triennial event, following an alternation agreement with the leading international shows – Intermat in Paris and Bauma in Munich – that further strengthened the brand and expanded coverage of the sector by including other emerging segments in the field: tunnelling, rental-hire, distribution, technical-scientific projects and research.
1993 was also the year when Samoter joined the cycle of European exhibitions patronised by CECE, the Committee grouping the associations of earth moving machinery and building plant manufacturers.
In 2002, the Exhibition celebrated its 25th edition with 948 exhibitors from 31 countries and attendance by almost 90 thousand visitors (89,241) from 90 countries. Net exhibition area leaped to 94,388 square metres.
The last two editions were equally hallmarked by the continuity of such success: in particular, the 2008 edition attracted 1,026 exhibitors (30.70% international from 36 countries) over a net exhibition area of 131,156 square metres and 106,857 visitors.
The result as regards visitor profiles is particularly significant since a there is large majority of decision-makers (delegated managers, directors, company managers, buyers) that fully reflects the growth of the event in terms of quality.
There was also a net increase compared to previous editions in attendance by Italian and international journalists, as well as international visibility with 50 Italian and international media partners and 692 articles published worldwide.
The event in 2011 – with more than 900 exhibitors and almost 100 thousand visitors – confirmed the absolute calibre of Samoter in the international panorama notwithstanding the immensely difficult moment for the economy in global terms and the construction sector in particular. The crisis consequently had a major impact on the earth moving and construction machinery field and inevitably required a review of activities that all the exhibitions perform for companies in the field. In this regard, Samoter has for some years strengthened its role as a partner for companies, especially as regards internationalisation, by developing a series of initiatives not merely limited to the development of exhibition event as such but also and especially to accompanying companies over the three years between one edition and the next. Among such initiatives, special mention can be made of Samoter Tour, a travelling initiative helping to support internationalisation processes by small-medium businesses with a focus on b2b presentations and business meetings that in recent years has involved Bulgaria, Poland, Russia and Rumania. In parallel, the exhibition has also grasped the need expressed by visitors and exhibitors for a more interactive and dynamic exhibition highlighting demo areas where it is possible to see and test the machinery on show in the main exhibition.
Source: Samoter News Room