AIME 2009, Asia-Pacific Incentives & Meetings Expo, has been recognized for its innovative direct mail campaign at the UK Meetings Industry Marketing Awards. AIME was named a finalist and finished in fourth place in the award for Best Direct Marketing Campaign.
The AIME 2009 Director Marketing Campaign – Your Passport to AIME 2009 – was designed by Tonic Communications for Reed Travel Exhibitions.
“The objective was to develop a direct mail campaign that would encourage previous visitors and new prospects to pre register and attend AIME 2009,” said Event Director, Rosemarie Sama.
“We wanted to enlist a quirky and relevant design that would create ‘talk ability’ and generate ‘word of mouth’ within the industry,” she said.
The ‘AIME Passport’ was designed to communicate how inspiring a journey to AIME could be. The traditional passport was given a glamorous twist with special paper stock to simulate a real passport printed with a lush metallic silver cover. The passport concept related closely to the travel nature of the show, and the size was perfect for carrying in a bag.
The two-part campaign included the passport and a follow up boarding pass to remind people of times and dates, inserted in trade press.
“The Passport Campaign was an enormous success with total attendance at AIME 2009 growing by 10% and trade visitor numbers by 12.5%. This exceeded our target of a 10% increase in trade visitors. In addition, our independent research showed that 13.2% of visitors found out about the show via direct mail and 1.3% via a follow up insert,” Ms Sama said.
AIME is the premier meetings and incentive event in the Asia Pacific. Held annually in Melbourne, Australia, AIME attracts an audience of more than 3,500. The event includes 850 exhibitors from 50 countries and generates close to $650 million worth of business.
AIME is organised by Reed Travel Exhibitions (RTE) on behalf of the Melbourne Convention + Visitors Bureau. RTE organises 14 events worldwide. AIME forms part of the RTE portfolio of Global Meetings and Incentives Events along with EIBTM (www.eibtm.com), GIBTM (www.gibtm.com), CIBTM (www.cibtm.com ), AIBTM (www.aibtm.com ) and the ICCA Exhibition in association with ICCA Congress (www.iccaworld.com).
