On Wednesday, STILL GmbH, leading supplier for customised internal logistics has been awarded in front of 500 guests with the renowned German Award for Business Communication. When the campaign to promote the STILL cubeXX concept car won the “Golden Spark 2012” in the category “Best Event and Trade Show Marketing“ the intralogistics company celebrated its outstanding success at Europe’s largest permanent tent stage, the TIPI, in the vicinity of the chancellery in Berlin, Germany. This year, over 1,000 candidates had entered the competition in nine categories.

“The campaign shows that STILL knows how to create an emotional experience of its brand promise and how to anchor its message in the minds of the experts of the industry in extraordinary ways,” commented laudatory Robert Raback when presenting the prize. The desired award was received by Bert-Jan Knoef, Chairman of the STILL Management Board and Matthias Klug, Head of International Corporate Communication at STILL.
 
“Market leaders lead the market”, underlined Bert-Jan Knoef, Chairman of the Management Board at STILL. This attitude was the guiding principle during the development of the cubeXX campaign which aims to coin the brand image of STILL as a relevant innovation driver for the whole of the intralogistics industry and to set the company off from the competition that merely provides products.
Intralogistics is undergoing a radical change. So-called megatrends, such as the demographic change, the energy turnaround, racing technical progress, globalisation and urbanisation have changed the priorities in the world of business, said Knoef. The issue nowadays is to find new solutions for the challenges evolving from these megatrends. Process chains, interlinked by networks have clearly outpaced the importance of individual products. Against this background it is indispensable to set the benchmark, also with respect to communication, Knoef added.

Central element of the three-year campaign is the modular concept car STILL cubeXX. It bases on a study that researched future requirements for the intralogistics industry and combines the functions of six different classes of industrial trucks in a single vehicle. A touch screen allows to transform the machine into the desired condition – a novelty in intralogistics. Besides this, the cubeXX is fitted with a retractable cabin and can be operated in automatic mode or manually.

The development of the concept car had already started 18 months before its official unveiling at the world’s largest intralogistics trade show, the CeMAT 2011 in Hannover which offered a platform to 1,000 exhibitors and 50,000 visitors. The highly innovative vehicle was developed by an interdisciplinary team comprising product designers, engineers, scientists and creative designers. The result of the work is a vehicle that turns future visions of a fully networked, ergonomic and energy-efficient multifunctional machine into reality.

“We do not make a secret of the future“ was the slogan with which the wide-spread cross media campaign had started six weeks before the start of the trade show in May 2011. The range of communication channels fed by STILL is impressive: the company played all registers of communication starting with information on its own homepage and additional micro-sites flanked by a cubeXX app, a multi-language trade show newspaper called “Future Today”, social media, print- and online advertising as well as posters and postcards.

In an initial step, customers and trade show prospects as well as the international press received a customised mailing only vaguely pointing out the cubeXX study and the overall concept. Simultaneously, an enigmatic banner appeared on the different communication channels. The same image was presented consistently everywhere: Three slots of light mysteriously glowing in the dark were accompanied by the slogan “We do not make a secret of the future” and a countdown counting down to the start of the CeMAT. This built up a crescendo arching right to the grand official unveiling of the concept car on the 2,500 square metre fair stand of STILL on the opening day of the CeMAT.

Another highlight of the STILL presentation at the trade show was a brand musical especially written for the event. Professional dancers, music composed for the show and a sophisticated stage arrangement created the vision of a warehouse in the future several times every day. The vivid presentation enriched with all means of a multi-media music show at the STILL fair stand attracted four times more visitors to the outdoor section of the stand several times per day during show time. Star of the show was a fully functional cubeXX.

All of this was augmented by a design room presenting sketches and concept drawings of the cubeXX illustrating the complete development of the new concept car. The visitor experience on the fair stand was further enhanced by a perfume called “Future” which was especially designed by the artist Thomas Zitzwiz from Cologne and that was applied to the interior faces of the STILL stand to provide visitors a scent of the future. “Our future study is an excellent means to enter into a dialogue with our customers,” Knoef is convinced. And, the success of the campaign proves him right. A total of 150 publications, all of them positive, in expert media and on TV, a 22 percent plus of visitors on the STILL online platform and several thousand video displays in three months make the cubeXX campaign one of the most successful campaigns ever in the whole of the intralogistics industry.

Spraying sparks and brilliant winners: laudatory Robert Raback handing over the desired “golden spark” for best event and fair marketing to Bert-Jan Knoef, Chairman of the STILL Management Board and Matthias Klug, Head of International Corporate Communication at STILL (f. l. t. r.).