1.6 Million Square Foot IFA 2014 Relaunches Web Site with Responsive Design

We have been amazed at the mobile traffic growth on our clients’ exhibition and event web sites, which is of course part of a larger macro trend. Global mobile data traffic grew 81% in 2013, and will increase nearly 11-fold between 2013 and 2018, according to Cisco.

This fast-growing trend is making it increasingly important to “mobilize” your web sites, so we take a look at IFA’s major initiative in this area.

The giant technology show, which was held several weeks ago in Berlin, relaunched its web site for the 2014 edition, with responsive web design (RWD), to better serve smartphone and tablet users.

Some points worth noting about IFA’s execution…

> The new IFA show web site automatically reformats based on the screen size providing an optimal viewing experience across all devices.  Check it out right now on your desktop (yes, RWD applies to desktop as well), and expand and shrink your browser window to see how the layout changes.  Then visit it on your smartphone or tablet.

> Scrolling is one direction only.  All content is accessed via vertical scrolling i.e. there is no horizontal scrolling.

> Primary navigation menu is minimized on small screens into a list icon which reveals a drop down menu when clicked.

> The site has larger buttons/links than last year.  This is crucial to avoiding the “fat finger effect” i.e. people clicking on the wrong links because they are too close on smartphones. 

> The organizer significantly reduced content on its home page from last year and made the page more navigation centric to quickly take key target sets (exhibitors, visitors and media) to info tailored for them, both of which improve the experience on small screens.

Whatever media you use to promote your shows, more and more people are going to visit your web site via smartphones and tablets, so even if you are not promoting your shows though mobile media, start delivering a better experience to your mobile traffic if you haven’t already started.

If you are actively marketing via mobile display, mobile retargeting, SMS, QR, NFC, etc., an end-to-end mobile funnel is essential.  Taking those who click to your standard desktop web site instead of a mobile destination defeats the entire purpose of marketing via mobile in the first place.

Whether you use RWD or another strategy to “mobilize” your web site, offer a web destination that best meets your audiences’ changing media habits.

Posted on October 1, 2014