PARIS — Trade show data security is now at the forefront of organizers’ minds. As trade shows have gone virtual during the COVID-19 pandemic, the amount of data organizers are collecting has exploded. Personal data, such as names, addresses, etc., and behavioral data (including past trade shows a person has attended and past matchmaking data) have both proliferated. All of this data now generated by digital and hybrid events can provide valuable customer insights.
But with that opportunity comes risks related to increased legislation, litigation, security breaches and a failure to meet customer privacy expectations, said Kai Hattendorf, UFI CEO and managing director, during a recent UFI Connects session on data ownership from an organizer’s perspective.
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“Exhibition organizers, venues and service partners all need to protect the data entrusted to us,” he said. Among the exhibition executives who weighed in on how to do this were Lisa Hannant, group managing director of Clarion Events; Douglas Emslie, group CEO of Tarsus Group; Hervé Sedky, chairman and CEO of Emerald; Hugh Jones, CEO of Rx Global; and Charlie McCurdy, CEO of Informa Markets Global Exhibitions. Here are three key points they said every exhibition organizer needs to understand:
- Barbarians at the gate. “Let’s be clear: Customers own the data,” McCurdy said. “They give us their consent to use the data… we are the custodians of that data, and it is our duty to keep it safe and use it appropriately for the benefit of customers in the market in which they operate.” But there are, as Emslie put it, “barbarians at the door” – including the plethora of tech companies now flooding the market – who could seek to use that data for their own purposes, regardless of what an organizer’s contract says. Customers need to be able to trust trade show organizers to properly manage and protect their data and control what these third-party platforms do with it, the panelists agreed. Emslie said, “if there’s one lesson for organizers… it’s that we are one data breach away from disaster for our industry.” » As one commenter pointed out, they used to do war simulations to see what would happen if LinkedIn moved into their space. And now that LinkedIn has invested in tech platform Hopin, it’s not so hypothetical. Hannant added that even if you have a watertight contract, data can be aggregated across multiple locations that are outside of the organizer’s control. “There are a lot of risks associated with not being a data controller, both reputational and legal,” she said. And those risks will only increase over time as multiple organizers create communities with a globally aggregated data set. Even if legal liability is passed to a third party, the reputational risk still falls to the event organizer.
- Building trust. “Trust is earned over time” when it comes to customer data, Sedky said. As experts in the field, organizers have built-in credibility, which they must protect by building the data privacy infrastructure internally or by collaborating with outside experts. The privacy of the data collected underscores the importance of protecting that data now and in the future, as customer needs evolve. “Ultimately, customers want value, and they trust us to use that data to create valuable solutions for them” and protect it, Sedky said. McCurdy added that as long as customers understand that organizers are protecting their data and using it in ways that benefit their business, “we’re going to have a very productive relationship with attendees and exhibitors.”
- Create standards. Hugh Jones stressed that going forward, developing industry standards for data ownership and security will be critical. Standards will be key to being able to leverage all of that data to deliver more personalized and impactful experiences, panelists said. Sedky said Emerald has created a centralized data repository that now houses about 85% of its broadcast and publication data. “Now that it’s all in one hub, we can start thinking about what kinds of solutions we want to build on top of that.”
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In terms of combating the barbarians at the gate, the immediate plan is to follow up on this webinar with a white paper outlining some of the key concerns and providing a battle plan that covers not only standards, but also compliance, auditing, enforcement and the transparency needed to maintain that all-important trust.
For further discussion and a fascinating Q&A, the webinar is available free on-demand on the UFI Connects website.
Contact Lisa Hannant on +44 (0) 20-7384-7700 or info@clarionevents.com; Hervé Sedky on (203) 840-5584 or Herve.Sedky@EmeraldX.com; Charlie McCurdy on +440 20 7017 5000 or Charlie.mccurdy@informa.com; Hugh Jones on +44 20 8271 2134 or hjones@reedexpo.com; and Doug Emslie on +44 208 846 2708 or demslie@tarsus.co.uk