When Maison&Objet announced the cancellation of its trade fair in September, many buyers were disappointed they couldn’t visit the show held in one of the most beautiful cities, Paris.
However, the organisers launched a digital platform instead, enabling visitors to still see all the new products that would’ve been at the fair and attend virtual presentations by leading experts.
“Thanks to our skills in generating quality traffic, we obtained more than 300,000 visits during the 15 days and tripled the number of leads (qualified contacts), while observing a visit time on MOM exceeding 11 minutes―great visibility for the brands and an exceptional performance in the digital world,” says Philippe Brocart, general director of Maison&Objet.
“In addition, the daily programming of two talks, the launch of a new podcast―The Design Entrepreneurs―and daily selections made by big names in the design field fed the community with essential information to prepare for recovery. Our audience was engaged and ready to work together.”
The digital fair, which ran from 4 to 18 September, attracted 4,300 brands from 77 countries showcasing more than 50,000 new products through 6,400 digital showrooms, while several e-conferences on trendy topics received more than 214,000 unique visitors, two thirds of whom were located outside of France.
“Maison&Objet’s mission is to support companies in their development physically and digitally throughout the year.
“One of the strengths of our organisation, in the context of Covid, is that our digital platform was not born out of this crisis. We created MOM (www.mom.maison-objet.com) in 2016, an online platform for active year-round contact between brands and international buyers. And since then, the tool has had time to prove itself.
“Deploying a high-performance solution to replace our physical tradeshow as a response to the current situation was therefore quick and effective: we received immediate enthusiasm from brands and buyers.”
Indeed, MOM has been a successful platform since its launch and Maison&Objet organisers can see the benefits of continuing a digital offer to supplement the physical fair.
“We hear the need for buyers and brands to come together again in a physical format. The Digital Fair proved to be a promising transition between two events to allow the sector to continue its activities with simple and adaptive tools.
“In the future, we are also thinking about new additional services to the show. We may also create other types of Digital Fair dedicated to specific markets, sectors or even geographic zones.”
The next Maison&Objet is held from 22 to 26 January 2021.
