IBC’s proud heritage of innovation continues with the deployment this year of up to 10,000 Touch & Connect devices to qualifying visitors to IBC Content Everywhere Europe. Touch & Connect promises to revolutionise the trade show experience for visitors and exhibitors alike.
Using the same near-field communications technology used by banks for contactless payments and travel cards such as London’s Oyster, Touch & Connect is a fast, fun and reliable way to exchange contact details or information by touch alone. Devices can be touched together to swap contact details, or can be touched to a ‘Tag’ to collect information from an exhibitor.
Each person has a unique online profile associated to their Touch & Connect device, meaning they can not only instantly exchange contact details but also gain access to the Touch & Connect portal. This is a gateway to a global community that helps keep like-minded professionals in touch all year round, rather than simply during the five days of the show. Within the Portal, visitors can view an easy-to-read timeline that provides an online record of exactly who they met, where and when, as well as all of their ‘tagged’ connections, exhibitor literature, videos and case study presentations on their own personalised webpage.
The online Touch & Connect Portal also has the option to link to social media accounts of your contacts, or simply get in touch by email or in person. Visitors will also be able to download limitless amounts of content from the various exhibitors connected with IBC Content Everywhere, saving both time and paper (a boon for all those that have carried around vast armfuls of marketing material in the past).
In addition, whenever an exhibitor updates a brochure or marketing materials that a visitor had previously collected via Touch & Connect, the portal makes it wonderfully easy to access the very latest information, ensuring you are always up to date and informed.
In the same way that IBC Content Everywhere is part of the warp and weft of the whole IBC show, there will be Touch & Connect Download walls situated throughout IBC. But devices are strictly limited to the first 10,000 collected on site, so, if you do meet the qualifying criteria and are offered the free upgrade, the advice is to collect your device early so as not to miss out.
