Business publisher and trade show producer Miller Freeman, Inc., New York,
has tapped DM unit Wolf Direct, Buffalo, NY, as the agency of record for attendee marketing at the Big Apple’s upcoming 17th annual PC Expo New York.
Characterizing Miller Freeman’s PC Expo business as a significant win, Janet Stanek, senior vice president and managing director at Wolf Direct, said, “We are thrilled to partner with the team at Miller Freeman. We have a knack for hi-tech client work, and our IBM hi-tech business-to-business experience was what they were looking for.”
The 1999 PC Expo New York, which will be June 22-24 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, is one of the country’s largest corporate computing events. Complemented by more than 500 exhibitors, the event will detail state-of-the-art equipment, trends, software, client/server systems and technology solutions for an expected audience of 100,000 attendees.
According to Stanek, Wolf Direct will tackle the entire attendance-driven program for attracting qualified individuals to the event.
“Our primary effort for the ’99 show is to lift the bar of attendees. We’re looking to attract more at the middle manager level and above, to attract more highly-qualified attendees to the show.”
Stanek said one of the most important components in Wolf Direct’s strategy is to “brand on target.” She also highlighted the importance of tightly coordinating the overall DM effort in conjunction with other advertising and promotions associated with the show.
“What we’re doing is actually quite a nice integrated program,” she said.
“The campaign will start in a couple of weeks and go through May. It includes several direct mail pieces, [which] we will be sending out based on attendance history and upon a national mailing strategy. But there is a regional concentration — all integrated with the print campaign and the Web-site campaign.
In addressing planning and how the agency will target such a range of industry prospects, Stanek said, “This will be a tiered mailing, meaning we’ll focus on those companies that show a better propensity to attend. And separate mailers will each be created based on who we are talking to within the company.”
Wolf Direct is a unit of the $400 million Wolf Group, Buffalo, which recently won the entire brand and integrated services advertising for the $32 billion Marine Midland Bank, a subsidiary of HSBC Americas, New York.
Fulfillment for Wolf Direct’s DM campaigns will be handled by Miller Freeman, which also publishes specialty business and consumer title magazines, references, directories, newsletters and CD-ROMS.
