NAB Show: New audience, new opportunity

Challenge

Audience reboot on the horizon

NAB Show, owned and produced by National Association of Broadcasters, is the largest annual conference for media and entertainment where industry professionals come to find the latest tech trends, learn new techniques, and network. NAB has a front row seat to the changing media industry, so the team saw an opportunity to expand its NAB Show audience and deliver an elevated experience — but how?

National Association of Broadcasters teamed up with long-time partner Freeman to create a new strategic approach that would hook new audiences, create personalized experiences, and set new event standards.

Solution

From insights to on-site — attendee experience gets the spotlight

Our experts in audience acquisition, mdg, A Freeman Company, dissected years worth of NAB Show event metrics and developed a forecasting model that revolutionized the way the organization targeted attendees. With updated attendance metrics, the focus shifted from quantity to the quality of attendees and thus, new attendee personas were born.

These unique personas outlined who was attending, and why, which led to a revamped event marketing strategy that targeted attendees based on how they consumed content. To preserve this new approach, and capture usable data for future events, a dashboard was created to help track new marketing campaign metrics and allow for real-time adjustments based on current trends.

To ensure attendees had a seamless experience on-site, the show floor was reorganized into designated content “destinations” that aligned with the attendee personas and their content interests. To take the personalized experience a step further, our team designed experiential zones within these content destinations allowing attendees to see product demos, hear latest technology trends from industry leaders, and collaborate with similar content curators.

Result

The renewed NAB Show — fresh, exciting, and connected

The NAB Show team saw incredible engagement at its event and received impressive feedback from the exhibitor advisory council and attendees. The team also surpassed event goals: Exceeding its paid media strategy by 98% —acquiring nearly 18,000 new attendees — and increasing international attendance, which made up 24% of the total attendee count.

“We had an opportunity to rethink our strategy and figure out how we needed to better connect with our community. In working with Freeman, we created a better value proposition for our attendees which ultimately brought a new freshness and excitement to the show floor. The research informed design and marketing, which helped inform the overall on-site experience.”

– Justine McVaney
Senior Vice President for event planning at NAB