Kojichu

Exhibitions are centers of public relations - a great chance for companies, to schmooze their customers and show their products in a very good light. But that raises the question: Are the big trade show halls able to compete with the other PR efforts of their exhibitors?

When I say „big trade show halls“, I mean first of all Tokyo's biggest sites „Big Sight“ and „Makuhari Messe“. A visit on their homepages shows a lot of the public relations strategy: Ok, you could expect the mandatory show calendar on the cover page, but for me as a wannabe-journalist there is something I have to complain about: Why is there no area for the press? I miss some information about how to be admitted, what am I allowed to photograph and about the domiciliary rights.

Well, somebody might say now: „Oh, this journalist-guy wants to make some demands.“ No, but it should be the demand of the operators to inform the journalists, because every reporting of an exhibition is a kind of promotion, as well for the exhibition halls as for their customers. And finally this is what it's all about: promotion.

Now I want to compare this page with the German „Messe Düsseldorf“ ones. Except of an information area for journalists, at first glance everything looks quite similar. But when you start reading, you will see tons of euphemistic PR-phrases: Of course, the „ always friendly and competent staff“ in Düsseldorf, one of „Europes biggest economic regions“,that is looking forward to help us. Nearly every sentence feels similar to that. On the „Big Sight“ homepage, texts are more written in keywords. If that is better or worse, everybody should decide on their own.

You can also find some information about the company both on German and Japanese homepages. The companies want to show transparency, unfolding sales, capital and contact addresses of high-ranking officers. An interesting fact is, that there is a subside that shows the organigram in the companies on Japanese homepages. That doesn't exist on German homepages, but ranks and titles are quite important for the Japanese business life (you can find more information in the text about business cards).

In the end, here`s something from the Japanese kitsch corner: For the page operators, much more important as a press-area seems to be a subpage with information about some „Big Sight“-mugs and „Big Sight“-rice cookies (available for 1000 Yen). Exclusively available on this page.

Surely, you won`t find THAT on a German page.