"Industrial Customer Day is a top opportunity"

With a total of 1084 exhibiting companies, in January 2019 the new trade fair merger of PSI, PromoTex Expo and viscom underlined its claim to be Europe's largest combined event for the promotion of advertising and selling. "An outstanding result which clearly makes its mark at the international level", says Michael Freter, Managing Director of Reed Exhibitions Germany, about this year's event, which celebrated its premiere in Düsseldorf from 8 to 10 January.[1]

The success of this concept, which is unique within the industry, was reflected in an increase in visitor numbers at all three trade fairs.  The Industrial Customer Day on the final day of the fair was once more an essential part of the programme this year.  More than 1000 customers from industry took the opportunity to visit the trade show at the invitation of dealers. After the positive experience of the last fair Cybergroup was once more represented with a large part of its team in order to receive and accompany its 50 invited customers at the fair. This is the only way that the Industrial Customer Day really makes sense for dealers and customers: together. 

Christoph Luthe, Key Account Manager at Cybergroup, accompanied three contact persons from the company's long-time customer Ford. The automobile manufacturer's team was particularly surprised by the complexity of the topic of promotional products: "The Industrial Customer Day is a top opportunity! We were quite overwhelmed by the unbelievable variety of products on offer, so it was ideal to have a contact person with us," says Thomas Juraschek, Head of Commercial Vehicles at Ford Germany. Michael Bender, Head of Commercial Vehicles Marketing and Sales, was also surprised to find that "even branded suppliers offer individualisations which are ideally suited for high-quality merchandising within our product range".

With their special stand displaying the Camo Collection of the Ford Lifestyle Collection at an intersection between the three parallel trade fairs, Cybergroup and Ford impressively demonstrated that the teams are not lacking in ideas. In his lecture in the joint Best Practice area under the title "Generating attention with camouflage" Kurt Reinhold from Vehicle Personalisation Marketing at Ford of Europe presented cool images, new products and extraordinary insights into the project.

In an interesting presentation he provided background know-how about the cooperation between Ford and Cybergroup, describing the development of the cool design and its implementation as an innovative concept based on the new Ford Performance Parts product line. The design was first implemented on the Ford Mustang and then adapted for the Ford Fiesta ST. For the further development of the project, Ford then relied on its long-term merchandising partner Cybergroup. The further creative steps finally led to a unique presentation at the PSI. The project shows, in a unique manner, how a brand can not only attract attention but in doing so also break new ground.