PacPrint has begun but without input from Landa corporation.
Organisers have banned the Landa corporation and all its all local representatives including Michael Mogridge from entering the show which opens, after the digital print company declined to exhibit but wanted to piggyback the exhibition.
The exhibition organiser has the right to decide who does and who does not come into the Melbourne Exhibition Centre.
The banning order came after Landa refused to buy exhibition space, but asked to ask the organisers if it could host presentations at the forum, and indicated it would be using the show to set up meetings with potential customers through the four days of the exhibition.
The Landa Nano website advertises PacPrint as an event for the company, saying “Michael Mogridge, Director of Sales Asia Pacific & Japan will be visiting PacPrint, meeting with customers, brands and partners interested in hearing more about Landa’s digital printing solutions. To schedule a time to meet with Michael, please click on the button below.”
PacPrint organisers, wary of non-exhibitors using the show to connect with printers and effectively pushing their marketing costs onto the paying exhibitors, want to protect the exhibitors. Adrian Fleming, PacPrint chair, says: “We invited Landa to exhibit at the show but they declined. They then asked if they could host presentations at the forums and we obviously said no, we can not have non-exhibitors reaching an audience that has been paid for by the exhibitors.
“We also understood that Landa wanted to set up meetings with potential customers at the show. We will not allow guerilla or ambush or suitcase marketing. It is patently unfair.”
PacPrint understands that ambush marketing hits a raw nerve with paid up exhibitors. In 2005,CPI which at the time was the Komori agent, bought a tiny booth at the show and used it to take PacPrint visitors on a free helicopter ride to its showroom in Braeside.
Landa’s Australiasan representative Michael Mogridge says, “We were not marketing, just meeting with people who have expressed an interest in Landa technology. And why are they picking on Landa, I am sure there will be reps from Heidelberg and KBA at the show.”
However, Fleming says, “Landa was promoting PacPrint on its website, inviting people to come and meet Michael Mogridge at the show. The 150 paying exhibitors who are making a major investment in PacPrint are rightly not expecting to effectively pay to support someone else’s marketing activities.
“Yes there will probably be reps from the offset guys that are not here, but they are aware that they cannot engage on any marketing activities. The PacPrint board has made it clear from the start that it will not tolerate guerilla or ambush or suitcase marketing.”
Mogridge says, “Landa has made it clear that it will only exhibit at drupas, so the next time we will have a stand anywhere will be in Dusseldorf in three years time.”
