Web Relaunch: e-Spirit Puts Trade Fair Brands on a Common Footing

Dortmund, Germany, May 11, 2011 --(PR.com)-- Deutsche Messe AG, one of the world’s leading trade fair organizations, is placing additional emphasis on its leadership position with the design and content of its websites: The company has selected the FirstSpirit content management system (CMS) created by e-Spirit as the central platform for updating, managing and editing the websites of its 100+ national and international trade fair brands. The company’s portfolio includes trade fairs such as CeBIT, the digital industry’s biggest, most international event, and Hannover Messe, the world's leading showcase for industrial technology, and the web relaunch project enables it to meet its high expectations of modern online communication and fulfill its service promise to exhibitors. Exhibitors benefit from a more appealing online presence, with target-focused information, improved user navigations, logical structures and interactive services. The first project migrations have already been completed, and the new-look versions of www.hannovermesse.de, www.cebit.com, and www.domotex.de are now online.

The new CMS and the website relaunches are the means by which the trade fair company will strengthen the core business of its major trade fairs with modern and competitive online communications and online services. One focus is to convert website users into exhibition visitors and also ensure that existing visitors will visit time and time again. One way of achieving this is to ensure that there is continuous traffic on the fairs’ websites even between events.

Efficient, economical website management

Using FirstSpirit as its central content management platform brings a range of impressive advantages for Deutsche Messe AG: From now on, it can easily create websites with consistent structures for its different trade fairs and manage them in an efficient, economic way. The open systems architecture of the CMS and its standardized, stable interfaces also make it easier to integrate external systems or embed the CMS into any pre-existing IT landscape. Implementing the CMS is the responsibility of adesso AG, which has also taken on the development of web front-ends that are based on FirstSpirit. Migration is easier thanks to the hassle-free integration of layouts, existing functions and services and the ease with which content can be transferred from the old system to the new CMS. Together, these all ensure a fast time-to-market. FirstSpirit makes it simple to modify release and publication workflows, and to implement user rights authorization concepts.

More service and interaction thanks to web 2.0 elements

The websites of the different events run by Deutsche Messe AG have grown steadily over the years, and the larger range of content has had an effect on their structure and usability. Similarly, the expectations that exhibitors, visitors, and Deutsche Messe have of a modern website have also changed: People now expect customization and service options, such as context-sensitive suggestions for users and interactive elements like discussion forums. Any new system is also expected to facilitate the quick creation of landing pages, micro sites and pages for guest events. FirstSpirit meets all of these demands effortlessly.

Future-proof solution

FirstSpirit’s multi-client and multi-project capacity makes it possible to create the websites of different trade fairs individually and manage versions in different languages, using centrally stored templates and content. The CMS features a series of standard modules and functions which enable online editors to work on and manage several projects easily, and it also makes for short project times. The scalable system can be augmented with new modules depending on customers’ needs. At the same time, FirstSpirit is extremely user friendly, which means that it is intuitively easy to use and does not require extensive training.

Deutsche Messe AG says that over the years, expectations and requirements have increased regarding the trade fairs’ websites, so the company decided that it wanted to reflect its innovative image online with a modern look and a future-proof technological structure. Only a high-end solution can do this – one that grows along with the company’s expectations, is extremely user-friendly, intuitively easy to use and which can be perfectly integrated into the existing systems landscape. This is the reason why the solution from e-Spirit and adesso was chosen.

###