BSAVA CONGRESS 2013

Firt week of April, took place the British of Small Animal Veterinary Assotiation (BSAVA) Congress in Birmingham.
This Congress is one of the most popular ones due to its high level, good organisation and because the UK its the entry door to Europe for the US innovation and latest trends and new-news.
This article pretends to introduce the content of the congress to the novel ones, look at what was new and analyse what worked and what should be improved.

Note: as a personal article, nothing must be given for granted and must be evaluated just as an opinion.



0. ABOUT THE CONGRESS
1.  TELL ME HOW THE LECTURES WERE
2.  WHAT´S NEW AT THE COMERCIAL EXHIBITION
3.  OVERALL ASSESSMENT


ABOUT THE CONGRESS

The congress was held based on the same organisation as previous years.
Let´s see the congress in figures:

- 40 streams of veterinary CPD lectures
- 4 days: from thursday to sunday.
- 2 main buildings: a commercial exhibition space showcasing the latest industry advances. And the NIA, helding the lecture programme.
- 300 lectures (interactive, controversies, masterclasses...) presented by world-class speakers.
- 7 target groupd: vets, nurses, general practitioners, practiced managers, new graduates, specialists and experienced principals. All in all, made for all stakeholders!
 
- 8927 attendants (4000vets, 2000 nurses, 2730 exhibitors,150 students).
Similar figures to 2011 but 1.600 less than 2012´s peak due to less overseas vets.

- 89% from the UK and 11% from overseas. 
- 74% were practising vets and practising nurses.

Source: www.bsava.com



1. TELL ME HOW THE LECTURES WERE 

The Social Programme (lectures) is a well-structured set of events in order to promote the attendant´s knowledge about certain areas and topics. There are about 40 different streams to choose amongst and they are conducted by top worldwide lecturers and practisioners (and local professionals).
The lectures that about 45minutes most of them.
There are also workshops available to get in-depth of a certain topic.

Once we know a little bit about how it goes, would be time to comment some lectures.
Obviously one cannot give an objective opinion to so many lectures, therefore here are my comments about few of the lectures attended:

Lectures at Hall 4 are usually the most fascinating ones as the lecturers are great and the interactivity makes it easy and curious to follow. Assessing your knowledge is sometimes encouraging sometimes disastrous :)
I actually enjoyed hearing to dr Mark RIshniw (USA) on Sunday morning talking about echocardiograms, radiographs and diagnosing CHF. An accurate and powerful lecture that ended with a stream of followers wanting to now more!


Also wanted to mention some Renal Disease lectures: Managing Protein-losing Nephrophaties by Harriet Syme (GB) that was very clear, structured and well grounded; and Managing Chronic Kidney Disease in Cats by Larry Adams (USA) with a remarkable speech. Both took place at Hall 3, an enormous hall with a very high capacity but a bit unfriendly to both lecturer and attendants as the stage is a bit far away and you dont get the close atmosphere of other halls.

As a vet marketeer, I also wanted to make a point about the Management lessons. I feel that it´s a big opportunity for vet clinics to embrace all what marketing and management can bring to the current business: consumer understanding, tools&vehicles, decision-taking, HR solutions, CRM (Customer Relationship Management), Social Media, Experience Marketing....and much more.
A great effort is being done by the organisation (specially by Alison Lambert) to raise the awareness and the presence of lecturers that can open this world for vets to discover.
I personally attended some of the lectures from which i will mention three of them: 

(1) Richard Holmes (GB) - current Specsavers marketing director - spoke about the power of brands on friday afternoon. It was a good speech but too theorical from my side as most of the time was showing the Specsavers communication campaign evolution and did not relate much to the vet business. There´s a lot about brand-related content in the vet industry and would have been nice to have heard a much more applied lecture.

(2) Social Media and make it work was explained by Marc Abrahams on friday morning. I specially liked how he made the introduction of the topic but in my opinion failed to bring the most edgy part of it with examples foundamentally-based on his experience thus talking about his company too much and giving a biased opinion of how to work and mix Social Media for the vet practice; 

(3) The last lecturer I wanted to mention is mr Pere Mercader -current VMS analyst and an experienced speaker- which tried to make finance easier to understand and how to applied to the day-to-day business decisio-taking. It was the type of content that one can easily apply at the practice and that makes a difference. 
I strongly encourage to keep on building the management stream and most specially for vets to acknowledge the relevance of attending these lectures.  


In overall I would say that the level of lectures was high as usual, though personally I expected few more attendants from the US as they usually are the most remarkably outstanding lecturers.
And in Management an overall lack of attendance (40 to 80) for some really interesting talks.



2.  WHAT´S NEW AT THE COMERCIAL EXHIBITION

The commercial Exhibition is a meeting point for every single veterinarian that wants to find what´s new in the market, update information, renew contact with stakeholders and look for deals.
Pharmaceutical, petfood, instrumental, nutraceutical and accesories companies plus associations and vet referal centers were the main ones.


Every exhibitor was fighting (from a marketeer point of view) for a piece of awareness towards their offer. Following the classic AIDA model (Awareness · Interest · Desire · Action) we could see that each exhibitor used tools and vehicles specific to their aim: some exhibitors built on notoriety (ex.novelties such Metabolic or Pexion; or Bayer Jungle), some others wanted to get interest and desire (such as the instrumental and machinery) and others look straight to get sales (ex.Petface and accesories).
That interestingly drove to a series of actions that I have classified in 6 big groups of vehicles:

(a) Theme as main hook; an attractive stand with a clear USP (unique selling proposition) is a useful way to draw people´s attention and dare to approach and enter. Strong on notoriety.

(b) Interesting info is powerful to start a conversation to create interest and desire but not to built on notoriety and top-of-mind.

(e) Direct sales force is the classic method, too invasive for an awareness&interest approach but the best to get Action.

(f) Experience Marketing is the approach to build on an experience that might create a positive feeling/experience towards the brand. High impact, awareness and top-of-mind. But far away from getting action (sales) in the short-term.

Also to mention Riffles and draws which it was mainly instrumented via de voucher book. A good excuse for a visit but generally does not promote interest in what the exhibitor has to say. More than half of the exhibitors were giving away something.

And obviosly Goodies and catering which were almost at every single stand. Goodies exceeded all type of imagination and given in enormous quantities! Pens, notebooks, lanyards, bracelets, watches, candles, lipbalms, keyrings, stationery, mugs, needles, samples...too many to be able to really value them. Catering is also a good trick to get people onto the stand: popcorn, candies, muffins, juice, wine, beer, chewing gums, mints...a well managed catering could be classified as a light experience marketing vehicle.

As a marketeer we tend to classify and cluster consumers in order to better understand them behaviourally and attitudinally. Therefore I quit doing an analysis by industry (pharmacy, nutrition, instrumental, congresses...) and did the following classification:

 I have classified as SELLERS all those exhibitors that followed the conventional selling vehicles which are the classic stand with sales force, product and leaflets.
Its hard for them to get attention and most specially to stay in the vet´s mind after the congress; thus they need to gather the vet´s data and keep on contacting right after the congress.


 



















 

 

 
 

The WELCOMERS have been named as those exhibitors that wanted to get an additional positive first impact therefore tried to build their own atmosphere, a good way to disguise sales in a nice environment.

 

mind the flying huge flea!!

CHALLENGERS are the exhibitors that wanted to promote a positive experience (eg. fund-raising). Its a do-something-to-get-something activity. The consumer is centric therefore promotes the positive bonding with the brand.

Finally, I named INNOVATORS those that wanted to be consumer-centric. Break the stablished rules, get something outstanding and memorable. Pexion is the perfect example: an unbranded weird stand (a dog house) were you have a surprising experience and just at the end to get to understanding everything. This is an excellent way to raise awareness and to get the vet open-minded and willing to hear the message to be conveyed.

3.  OVERALL ASSESSMENT

- Attendance: positive but less vets than 2012
- Lectures & workshops: good quality as usual but need to promote certain streams (management, cardiology, internal medicine..) and more US lecturers.
- Catering: excellent quantity, decen quality.
- Welcome bag: best ever in terms of size, design and material. 
- Exhibitors: good number but little news thus increased number of goodies and food. Need for better marketing/commercial approaches.
- Organisation: very good as usual.

I would say the congress has score 8 out of 10 (last year was 8,5) which puts it as probably the best Congress in Europe so far. 

Looking forward to attend next year´s!
  


Any opinion, comment or thought will be great to be heard and shared within this blog.
Thanks for your attention :)