Brochure survey for the Event Industry

Are brochures still necessary?

We conducted a survey of 500 event industry professionals to ascertain whether printed brochures and hard copy printed proposals were still relevant with the growing sophistication of e-mail and website technology. We stated that if we were not to reprint a new brochure we would donate £1000 to WWF (not the wrestlers) and focus our attentions on web based technology. An impressive number responded (240) to give the following answers.

The name of the winner of the case (x6) Veuve Clicquot Champagne pulled from our ice bucket this afternoon was Laura Taylor of KPMG. Sorry if your name isn’t Laura and do not work for KPMG! Your input was valid anyhow and we very much appreciated it.

RESULTS

1 – When assessing new suppliers do you feel it is important to receive a printed brochure?

2 – With existing suppliers do you feel it is necessary to receive a printed brochure annually?

3 – By which method do you prefer to receive proposals from new suppliers?

4 – By which method do you prefer to receive proposals from existing suppliers?

5 – When presenting a proposal to a third party (colleague, client, etc.) which of the following do you wish to have?

An e-Brochure was attached to the original e-mail survey. This was a word document containing the same information as the Taste of the Vine printed brochure. Survey recipients were asked the following question.

6 – Does the attached e-brochure fulfill the requirements of a printed brochure?

Additional Comments Made
Quite a number of respondents kindly gave additional thoughts in favour of printed materials for the following reasons:- They are more impressive when presenting to senior management
- They acts as an aide memoire when leafing through files for ideas
- Differences in operating system software. 3% could not open the e-brochure
- More pictures were needed (more pictures, more memory on the e-Brochure)
- One respondent wanted something to touch! - We were of course flattered, though declined!

Summary
In summary it seems that most felt that the e-Brochure was sufficient in content, though judging from the answer to question 1, something tangible as well as the information was required for those assessing a new supplier, though for a far smaller proportion of those dealing with existing suppliers.

Based on the above findings Taste of the Vine will be reprinting a brochure, though will donate £250 to WWF anyhow. We will conduct a similar survey next year to see how the position has changed. Watch this space!