The UFI Marketing Award has been recognising exemplary marketing initiatives since 2001. The theme of this year’s award was innovative formats and how they help to make successful events. The winner needed to demonstrate best practice by successfully implementing an innovative exhibition format.

All finalists presented their projects to the UFI Marketing Committee as the UFI European Conference was taking place in Verona. After the presentations, the jury collectively selected Informa Brazil as the winner.

Elena Chetyrkina, UFI marketing committee chair, commented on the winning project: “The winning entry shows the importance of using modern technologies and customer-oriented thinking. Informa Brazil has adopted a content marketing strategy for its trade shows that delivers real results in terms of lead generation and revenue streams. It demonstrates how valuable digital content strategy is and how the use of digital tools enhances the customer experience.

“Informa Brazil was rewarded for moving away from a purely square-metre sale approach and for also generating revenue by monetising the content and qualified audience. The winning entry shows how a sales department can successfully create and implement a digital transformation campaign inside a company to stimulate innovative thinking,” adds Chetyrkina.

Informa Brazil was delighted to be this year’s winner of the UFI Marketing Award. “It is a great honour,” said Lilian Burgardt, head of digital products for Brazil at Informa. “We are grateful for the unique opportunity to present our vision to market leaders about how to integrate face-to-face and digital media, thereby supporting the evolution and transformation of the exhibitions industry. Personally, it is still a source of great pride to be part of a team of talented people who devote themselves, each day, to make this 360 strategy happen. UFI’s recognition also shows that Informa is on the right track by putting the audience (face-to-face and digital) first, implementing a cross-platform strategy in its B2B events for 365 days a year to connect brands and people.”