In Focus
April 2013 – Siemens at the Hannover Messe. An illustrated chronicle.
On April 8, 2013, the largest industrial tradeshow in the world will once again open its doors in Hanover. Construction of the Siemens booth in Hall 9 is already in full swing. Ever since 1947, Siemens has been one of the exhibitors at what was originally known as the Export Fair. To find out how Siemens’ exhibitions at the tradeshow have changed over the past 66 years, take a look here.
The first tradeshow in Hannover (since 1961: the Hannover Messe) ran from August 18 to September 7, 1947 and was organized by the British military authorities. Siemens was among the nearly 1,300 companies – all from Germany – participating in the event. There were five exhibition halls altogether. Due to limited financial resources and a lack of suitable materials, products in the Siemens booth were simply lined up side by side.
Postwar conditions had a major impact on the early tradeshows. Visitors to Hannover tended to be very focused and were “generally interested only in what was available again. For this, displaying the products in a very straightforward manner is perfectly adequate.” The Siemens booth was correspondingly simple. The company’s factories displayed their products on some 200 square meters in Hall 4. A contemporary observer criticized the exhibition, noting that the Siemens booth was “crammed with equipment, every department apparently wanting to show every device available. The objective, of course, was to obtain new export orders. The booth looked more like a warehouse.”
The Hannover tradeshow quickly became a symbol of the German Economic Miracle. In 1950, non-German companies also began exhibiting at the “German Industry Tradeshow.” Starting in 1951, Siemens’ horseshoe-shaped booth was situated in the Europahalle (Hall 9). Due to lack of space, an upper floor was added at the back of the newly-designed booth, which now covered 500 square meters. The upstairs area housed cloakroom facilities and a kitchen as well as reception and meeting rooms. True to the motto “Light attracts people,” neon lamps were the dominant design element.
In 1954, the distinction – introduced five years before – between a consumer goods and an investment goods tradeshow was no longer made. As a result, Siemens again exhibited its full range of offerings. The company’s main booth now covered an area of 700 square meters. Additional products like household appliances and radios were displayed at separate stands in other halls and outside on the exhibition grounds. But the booth’s size was not the only thing that had changed. Its design had been transformed as well. No longer merely juxtaposing individual products, the booth was now an exhibition space for entire product groups.
Due to the increasing complexity of the Siemens portfolio, the company’s tradeshow team began – with the approval of Siemens’ production facilities and sales departments – to give the main booth a new focus every year. At each tradeshow, the company’s exhibition was rounded out by presentations on a selected topic – one that had not been initially communicated externally. “Energy and power plant construction” was the topic of the first year, 1955.
In 1958, Siemens’ exhibition covered a little more than 4,200 square meters of floor space. The main booth alone – which had now been moved to Hall 13 – occupied more than 1,400 square meters. As every year, the 1958 tradeshow was attended by large numbers of Siemens managers and political leaders. The picture shows German Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard touring the Siemens exhibition.
As markets, customers’ needs for information and trends in exhibition design developed, so did Siemens’ tradeshow presence. It was no longer possible to communicate the actual performance, quality and usefulness of increasingly complex systems by simply showcasing individual products and system components. Now, it was also necessary to explain – in films, graphics and slide shows – how the technologies, products and systems on display actually worked.
In 1961, Siemens’ tradeshow team introduced their first special exhibition. Entitled “Electronics in the Organization,” it was situated in the main booth in Hall 13 and featured a live demonstration of the ways in which the various data collection, transmission and processing systems used to rationalize business processes could be integrated into a single overarching system. The innovative presentation was, unexpectedly, extremely popular with both the media and tradeshow visitors. As a result, special exhibitions quickly became a key component of Siemens’ presence at the world’s largest industrial tradeshow.
In the 1960s, Siemens’ special exhibitions focused primarily on solutions for automating work and information processes in industry and administration. On average, about 250 people were involved in the construction, commissioning and presentation of the systems that were exhibited in Hannover and in maintaining the Siemens booths at the tradeshow.
At the beginning of the 1970s, the contents and layout of the Siemens booths, which now covered nearly 7,200 square meters, were completely revamped. Discussing the terraced design of the main booth in Hall 11 (previously Hall 13), which featured several different exhibition and meeting levels, Siemens’ employee magazine noted that “what the architects […] have conceived here was no longer a somber tradeshow booth but a huge technology boutique.”
Triggered by difficult economic conditions, questions were raised in the early 1970s about the company’s ongoing tradeshow participation. However, a Siemens-commissioned study of the importance of tradeshows for B2B business revealed that a presence at major international investment goods tradeshows was indispensable for the image of Germany’s largest electronics company. Referring to the Hannover Messe, in particular, a report to the Siemens Managing Board at the end of 1974 stated: “If we were to terminate our participation, we would lose an opportunity to showcase the company and its importance as a market leader and no longer be able to provide our customers with the information they expect.”
To ensure that the company’s individual tradeshow exhibitions met the requirements of its Corporate Design, the first binding regulations for tradeshow and exhibition design were issued in 1975. Among other things, the regulations specified the materials and colors to be used at tradeshow booths. The spatial organization of booths was also regulated. Continuously updated, the tradeshow design guidelines were used until the early 1980s.
In addition to general technology trends and developments in the fields of energy, communications and information, electronics and healthcare, the 1981 special exhibition “Momentum for Growth – Innovations from Siemens” thematized for the first time the social and political consequences of progress. The exhibition in Hall 11 attracted some 100,000 visitors. Panel discussions on the topic “Technological Progress between Trust and Skepticism” also drew large crowds.
In 1985, Siemens exhibited its products and solutions in the area of information and communications technology for the last time at the Hannover Messe. Starting in 1986, the tradeshow was divided into two parts. CeBIT (Centrum für Büroautomation, Informationstechnologie und Telekommunikation) was set up as a separate tradeshow. The Hannover Messe Industrie continued to focus on energy, manufacturing and systems engineering.
After several years of preparation, new Corporate Design regulations were approved in the 1990s. Their objective: to ensure that Siemens’ image was based on uniform, internally consistent and sophisticated design principles worldwide. The new tradeshow concept – with its “light, transparent, consistent, but recognizably sector-oriented design” – was applied for the first time at the 1995 Hannover Messe. Since the tradeshow coincided with the World Climate Summit in Berlin, the Siemens exhibition focused on climate and environmental protection. At the main booth in Hall 11, experts answered questions about the company’s broad range of environmental projects and products.
In 1997, both the Hannover Messe and Siemens had reasons to celebrate. It was the 50th anniversary of the world’s largest tradeshow and the electrical company’s 150th. “Fascinating Future” was the name Siemens gave to the forward-looking exhibition in its 8,000-square-meter pavilion. Highlights of the special exhibition in Hall 25 included a 70-meter time tunnel through 150 years of Siemens history and a 3D cyberspace tour of the factory of tomorrow. People unable to attend the tradeshow in person could now experience the Siemens stand in 3D for the first time via the Internet.
In 2007, the Hannover Messe AG and the national competitiveness initiative “Germany – Land of Ideas” joined forces with political leaders and the business and scientific communities to launch the TectoYou young careers initiative. The aim of the initiative, which was associated with selected tradeshows, was to interest young people in technology and present them with exciting career perspectives. As one of the major sponsors – and the largest exhibitor at the Hannover Messe – Siemens took part in the initiative and enabled some 1,000 students to travel to Hannover.
In 2012, the Hannover Messe – and thus the Siemens presence there – focused on “greentelligence.” At its main stand in Hall 9, the company’s Industry Sector showed how efficient production solutions from Siemens can facilitate Germany’s transition to a new energy system while increasing companies’ competitiveness. Other Siemens presentations underscored how productivity and efficiency can be driven by more closely networking industrial production processes. The stand covered roughly 4,000 square meters and took just over three weeks to set up. It was all over in five days. But thoughts began turning to the 2013 event already in the summer of 2012, when Siemens’ tradeshow team started concretizing plans for the company’s main stand at the next year’s event. The company’s exhibition at the 2013 Hannover Messe will showcase the increasing integration of all technologies in industry
March 22, 2013 – Sabine Dittler and Christoph Frank