Gaby Appleton leads the team responsible for building and commercializing digital products that connect buyers and sellers at RX events. She tells us about the company’s digital strategy and execution, her thoughts on AI in events, and what the next 18 months have in store for digital innovation at RX. 

Q. You joined RX as Chief Digital Product Officer in early 2021, when the event industry was still reeling from Covid-19. In what ways has the pandemic shaped RX’s approach to digital event tech?

The pandemic was a powerful reminder that face to face is where the magic so often happens. Far from being a threat to in-person events, as many feared, it triggered a massive acceleration in the development of technology which is transforming the customer experience by making participation easier and more productive.

Before joining RX, I was seconded to the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) to lead development of the Covid-19 contact tracing app, which was the second-most downloaded free app in the UK in 2020 with thirty million users. It taught me how willing people are to embrace modern technology if it offers genuine benefits, but also the importance of being transparent and really open about what you are doing with people’s data, lessons which now underpin all digital innovation at RX.

Today everyone has a smart phone and is comfortable using it. Our venues have much better connectivity and wi-fi, enabling us to deliver solutions in real time at the show. And the development of progressive web technology is opening exciting new opportunities to add value for our customers. Our industry is catching up fast, and RX is proud to be at the forefront of developments.

Q. How do you decide whether to build proprietary systems or buy services from vendors?

A. Some things, such as our core business, finance and sales and marketing systems, are so fundamental to how we operate as a company that we want to be able to see across our entire estate. That means building a global platform that captures and manages data consistently.

Another thing that is foundational is our show websites and directories. We took a build decision on those as most of our event platforms can be configured from the same global standard technology. We started small with a core group of shows and then built out to the more complex shows over time. Today virtually all our shows are on our core CMS and website.

Our Business Building suite of customer solutions, including Lead Manager App, Colleqt QR Code and Exhibitor Dashboard have all been built on top of those foundations. The advantage of having a global platform approach is that once you have built the foundations you can leverage them to quickly build other applications on top.

Occasionally we will bring in specialist vendors, for example for our hosted buyer events and comic cons, which require specialist scheduling and ticketing solutions; but where we can scale solutions, and particularly where it requires bespoke data and customer experience that we really want to be in control of, we would make the build decision.

Q. Can you share some insights into the digital product innovation process at RX. Where do you start?

A. We start by asking our customers what they really want from out events, and they tell us three things. They want us to get the right people at the show for them to meet. They want to collect as many leads, contacts, insights, and opportunities as possible. And they want to see a good return on investment for their time and money. These are the outcomes we really try to focus our product development on.

A good example is our recent launch of Colleqt QR Code which enables visitors to proactively use their smart phones to collect exhibitor and product information by simply scanning QR codes. Colleqt QR Code uses a progressive web app which works in your browser, because we know that some visitors are reluctant to download single use apps. It replaces heavy tote bags full of printed brochures with a downloadable list of digital contacts and content which are easy to find and share with colleagues after the show, which really speaks to the productivity of visitors at our shows. It’s sustainable, which is something many visitors are increasingly concerned about. And it automatically passes their contact details – with their permission – to exhibitors, who generate additional leads in the process.

Q. Tell us more about Lead Manager App and Exhibitor Dashboard and how they fit into your Business Builder suite of exhibitor solutions.

Lead Manager app is a smart phone app which enables exhibitors to collect sales leads by simply scanning the badges of attendees. The app captures visitors’ product interests and personal details, and exhibitors can qualify the leads in real time by ranking them and adding notes. ‘Exhibitor Dashboard’ consolidates all the leads from Lead Manager App, Colleqt QR Code, and the exhibitor’s directory in one place, giving them a data driven approach to measuring and improving their event performance.

Lead Manager App, Exhibitor Dashboard and some of our directory solutions are generally priced together as part of our core  exhibitor offering because we think there are some tools that are so fundamental to having a productive exhibitor experience that they should come together with space as a package.

Q. Besides Colleqt QR, what else are you doing at RX to improve visitor productivity?

A.  Visitor productivity is something we are particularly focused on right now at RX. Historically, most digital event solutions have concentrated on driving exhibitor ROI. We want to make the visitors’ digital experience of our events equal to the exhibitors.’

Take our proprietary registration and badging system, which we are currently in the process of rolling out globally to all our trade shows. Our goal is provide a really smooth visitor registration experience which remembers you if you have attended before; asks you pertinent questions about what you are interested in (but not too many so you get bored and abandon it half way through); and offer you some really helpful recommendations, such as exhibitors you might wish to meet, and conference sessions you might find of value.  You can then print out your own badge at home to avoid any registrations queues and get straight down to business on arrival.

We are also working on developing progressive visitor web apps that will improve your mobile experience at show by giving you all the information you need -  such as where is the food court, where is exhibitor X, what conference sessions are most relevant to me – quickly and efficiently, without having to download a native event app. 

Q. How many customers are using your digital services and what are you doing to drive up engagement?

A. The real test of whether a service is successful is how many customers are using it. We have been tracking Lead Manager App since it was first launched five years ago. Initially exhibitor adoption was quite low, at around 20-30%, but as we have rolled it out and customers have become familiar with it, we are seeing improvements every year, such that on some of our events, 100% of exhibitors are now using it. That’s testament to not only having a good solution but also amazing show teams who really know how to explain the solutions to customers and help them to get the most from it.

It's a similar story with Exhibitor Dashboard which we launched two years ago. The data was showing us that when exhibitors use the solution, they really love it; but not enough were trying it out. So, we stepped back, rethought the customer discovery touchpoints,  communication and education process, and now we have 70% adoption at events where previously it was 20%.

Q. What are your thoughts on AI in events?

A. AI is one of those hot buzz words right now and no interview about technology is complete without talking about it. We are fortunate that our parent company RELX has been investing in AI across the company for a quite a few years now. There are something like 11,000 technologists across RELX overall, so we have an amazing opportunity to learn from our counterparts in some of the other businesses, as well as trying our own experiments. From an internal perspective, we are looking at AI applications that help our engineers code more quickly and reliably, and accelerate software development and marketing – for example, using AI to translate English scripts for videos explaining how to use our Lead Manager App for our customers in China, Japan, France and Latam. I’m also interested in using AI to help our customers to connect. The industry has been using various kinds of matchmaking technology for some time now, but we are testing out ways to see if AI can help us to do that better.

Q. What do the next 12-18 months hold for RX’s global tech team?

A. We will continue to rollout out Colleqt QR Code and get it out to as any visitors and events as we can. We will also continue rolling out our registration system. It is already the single biggest registration platform compared to all our vendors, but we want to serve more events so that more attendees can enjoy a smooth registration experience. Finally, as I mentioned, we are developing cool new mobile solutions for our visitors which can be integrated with Colleqt QR Code to make their event experience as productive and enjoyable as possible – because satisfied attendees mean satisfied exhibitors. It’s a win win.