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Client Case Study: Informa Markets

Discover how multi-lingual media relations campaign boosted Informa Markets' Fi Europe event, overcoming challenges and achieving remarkable press coverage.

 

The Background

Informa Markets is an organiser of global trade events, with an emphasis on the food ingredient sector. Fi (Food ingredients) trade shows throughout the globe are leading platforms for the F&B industry, facilitating ingredient buying and selling, inspiring innovation, promoting networking and providing cutting-edge educational content. Fi Europe is its most established event, attracting over 25,000 attendees from 135 countries, whereas some of the other events in its portfolio are newer and still evolving. Informa is a long-standing client of akp. For 8 years, we’ve been leading the global press campaign for Fi Europe and have delivered support for other Fi events, too.  
 

The Challenge

There are several factors that make this a challenging campaign. Firstly, as Fi Europe is such an established event, there is an element of fatigue and familiarity that has to be overcome. In other words, we have to work harder to find fresh angles and new ways of capturing media attention whilst ensuring the underlying messaging remains consistent. The other major challenge is the international remit of the show; Informa wants to reach F&B professionals in all of Europe’s major markets, as well as further afield - an ambition that is not going to be achieved with a single-language campaign. 

The Solution

akp’s solution is an international press relations campaign that leverages the multi-lingual and journalistic expertise within the team.

We generate press content in English and German and disseminate it globally through our established network of trade media, which encompasses online platforms, magazines, newspapers and social media. Our multi-lingual team is able to deal with the media in many countries in their native language, which gives us an edge when placing articles, setting up interviews and following up press releases. We can also provide localised text versions in other languages on request.

Given the intangible nature of the product and the already high level of awareness around Fi Europe, thought leadership content was an important element of our strategy in 2024. We used a journalistic approach to tease out our client’s knowledge of industry trends and developments. Face-to-face interviews generated the source material for a series of in-depth articles that positioned Informa as an authority on the food ingredients market. The articles were written by a member of our team who is a British native speaker with a background in food industry journalism, and were placed with key titles. Topics included: ‘Harnessing innovations in food manufacturing to build a resilient food future’, ‘Sustainable ingredient sourcing’, ‘Pet food ingredient market trends’ and ‘The future of the plant-based segment’.

We have also created noise around show highlights and special features such as the Future of Nutrition Summit, Startup Challenge and Fi Innovation Awards. Press releases are a core tactic here, and akp’s precision planning ensures timely preparation and distribution so no opportunity is missed. The Fi Innovation Awards are a great example of how the team pulls out the stops to meet deadlines - this year we had less than 15 hours from the winners being announced to the press release being issued.

The Results

The 2024 campaign has so far generated over 200 pieces of coverage, delivering sustained and targeted exposure for the Fi brand. The campaign culminated in attendance at the show itself (19-21 November), with the akp team travelling to Frankfurt and scheduling meetings with the international food trade press to strengthen relations and drive engagement.