Events, Meetings Will Continue to Get the Attention of Marketers Worldwide

Ninety-six percent of corporate marketing executives rely on events in their marketing mix and 93 percent view the importance of event marketing to be constant or increasing, according to EventView 2005-2006, the fourth annual study of face-to-face marketing trends sponsored by The George P. Johnson Company (GPJ) and the MPI Foundation. Additionally

EventView, formerly called the Global Event Trends Survey, is based upon interviews with more than 700 decision-making marketing executives and personnel in North American, European and Asia Pacific.

For the first time, "enhancing the customer relationship" rose to the top as event marketing´s predominant criteria for success, compared with brand preference, awareness, product knowledge and leads indicated in previous years.

In a year-over-year comparison with 2004 survey data, event marketing remains the top marketing tactic globally, as indicated by 23 percent of respondents.

As critical as budget dollars, closer integration with other marketing disciplines is identified as a key means to event success. For more than four fifths of respondents, aligning and coordinating with a broader marketing campaign´s sales, marketing and public relations strategies significantly heightens the success of an event.

New to the 2005 survey was a line of questioning on the topic of procurement and its influence on event marketing. When asked to rate procurement´s role in event marketing, more than half of respondents indicated it had some role in the selection of event marketing resources, with nearly a quarter reporting that procurement´s role will be increasingly influential in years to come.