frankly… Episode 96: Automotive Events Aren’t One-Size-Fits-All

In this episode of frankly…

The transcript below is AI-generated and may contain minor inaccuracies. Tune in to the episode audio to hear the full conversation! 

Transcript

Dan

Hello, welcome to Frankly.

Rachel

Hi there.

Dan

So today we are talking with Leslie Clark Dagg, and we’re talking about event planning, specifically in the automotive and mobility industry. You know, we’re only in August, but this is the time that we start to hear about budget planning and about what we’re doing in 2027 and starting to get all those things in line and in order for the next year.

Rachel

Dates are opening up. They’re looking for speaker submissions. If you think about it, January is only really a few months away. And if you’re thinking about the beginning of the year, anything in the Q1 of 27, now’s the time.

Dan

Yeah. So we’ve been working on putting together some things to help automotive communicators plan and put together their event priorities for next year, start thinking about what it makes sense to be part of, when it might make sense to do your own event. And that’s a lot of what we’ll talk about today. But if you want to learn a little bit more, we’ll also link in the description. We’ve got some good assets, some downloadable information on the site that you can take a look at if you’re starting to plan.

Rachel

Dan’s underplaying it. It’s a fabulous asset. So if you are planning or in the automotive industry at all, whether you’re a supplier, tier one, tier two, OEM, whatever you’re doing, I would really check it out. We’re going to talk to some of the pieces in it today, but it’s a really good guide. And if you have to have discussions with leadership on what you should be doing and how to sell it to somebody higher up than you, I really think it gives you some of the tools to do just that.

Dan

Yeah, planning questions, checklists, kind of things to think about if you’re planning to attend one thing versus another, what do you consider? So yeah, check it out. We’ll link it below, like I said, and we’ll get into some of it here. But with that, I’d like to welcome Leslie to Frankly.

Leslie

Hello. Thank you for having me.

Dan

Yeah. Thanks for joining us. And Just to kind of start things out, tell us a little bit about your background, your career path in automotive and mobility communications, and kind of your current role here today with Franco.

Leslie

Sure, yeah. So I’ve worked in the automotive and mobility PR space pretty much my entire career. So more than 20 years now. And most of that has been with automotive suppliers. I think maybe over the years I’ve worked with suppliers who have supplied almost every part of the car. When I think about it, from the exterior paint on the outside to interior materials, safety systems, infotainment, seats, tires, everything. So kind of run the gamut there. And a lot of my expertise has been focused on earned media relations over the years. But now here at Franco, I do have a more integrated communications role. So really helping automotive mobility tech companies across all their content spaces. And planning the strategy and what works best and who they’re trying to reach, thought leadership, and just staying on top of the media landscape is kind of outside the client work. That’s another big job. That’s always moving, it’s always changing. And over the years, seeing that change and how it’s impacted just the coverage and then that leads into events that we’re talking about today. So it’s just kind of been a kind of a big evolution together. Just it’s been really interesting having a front seat to all of that over the last 20 years.

Dan

Yeah. So talk a little bit about how you’ve seen maybe events in this landscape change over that time. Like what are some of the big things or a couple things that you see for clients?

Leslie

I feel that really stands out. It seems like back in the day, there was no question who was going to be where in terms of not only exhibitors and companies, but media. There was a handful of shows. Everybody was going to be at the Detroit Auto Show and then CES and some others. There was no question. That was it. You go there, everybody’s there. You don’t wonder.

Rachel

You’re not asking someone, are you going? It’s, hey, what days are you going to be there? Where are you going to be at?

Leslie

What days are you there? Where’s your booth? These days, there’s just been a proliferation of more niche shows. There’s so many more. And even at the bigger shows, it’s not guaranteed anymore. Now you do have to ask the question. And I think some of that is companies being smarter saying, okay, where do we really need to be? Where’s the best return on investment for what we’re actually trying to achieve? But you really have, it’s great to have all these options, but then you really have to sit down and strategize because it can be overwhelming as well. And I also think another change is, it’s not to say it doesn’t happen anymore, but I think the spectacle back in the day was a little bit bigger with car reveals and big launch at a booth.

Rachel

Your top executives were there. Like the head of whoever was gonna talk about that thing, like they were there. Yeah.

Leslie

Yes.

Rachel

Versus maybe now it’s like, oh, director of this, which is still great, but it’s not your CEOs, VPs all the time.

Leslie

No, not all the time. And I think too, And what media look for, I think, has changed a little bit. Like having the big reveals is always great. Having a tech demo that’s really brand new and really impactful is great. But I think media are also really looking for executives that are going to talk to the tough topics these days. And especially as the industry gets more disruptive, there’s if having that get commitment from some of your spokespeople to actually, when you’re on site of these events, actually show the thought leadership and be willing to talk. I think that makes I think it’s always been a standout point, but maybe now more than ever.

Dan

Yeah, and I think that also kind of comes into how media has changed too and how media has narrowed down quite a bit because, when there was more of that reveal, when there was more of the tech on display versus the thought leadership on those kind of like trending topics, there was also 35 tech reporters in the automotive industry that were like very like honed in on those topics that would be very interested in seeing what is the engine technology in this vehicle or what is the down into the tiers what are these suppliers showcasing at these events where today that’s still obviously a part of the media, but at the same time, it’s a handful of folks that are really laser focused on that. And most of them are also doing something else with their time, like another beat that they have to cover.

Leslie

That’s a great point. A lot of these, like you said, it’s just kind of shrunk down. And so you have a lot of reporters covering a lot of things. And I always say to clients, you know, you always want to think of the media as a customer too. Think about, they have so many deadlines, they’re getting 400 pitches a day. To get them out to a show and investing, to be there, what are you giving them in terms of newsworthiness, something that ties into an industry trend or issue? You have to think about it from their perspective too. You’re also obviously thinking of networking and customers, potential customers, of course, as you have to. But from the media aspect, thinking about how that has just shrunken down and they’re pulled in so many directions, just keeping that in mind when your expectations.

Rachel

I almost feel like in Really kind of since COVID, when these media rooms started to shrink more and more, I feel like the entire industry knows those. There’s always at any point in time like 3 topics that it’s like everyone wants to cover these, everyone wants to talk about them versus beforehand, there were trending topics, but it didn’t feel so like these are the three things you must talk about. And I think that the shrinking newsrooms have really kind of played into that.

Leslie

Absolutely.

Rachel

It feels like this is what we have to talk about. We only have a couple people to do it, so you have to find the people that are going to talk about it. And what those topics are has changed. And something in here I’d love to hear really from kind of both of you is even year over year, what that topic is changing. So what you prepared for at this show last year is not the topic that you’re going to be asked about this year if you get on stage or you have a media interview. So what are you guys seeing in the past few years? What are these topics and what should people be prepared for at these shows?

Leslie

Well, I think maybe even Dan, if you agree, even just a few years ago, what is your EV strategy was such a huge thing and that still remains, but now it’s EVs being crawled back a little bit.

Dan

And it’s more like regional now with that. Here in North America, or at least in the US, it’s definitely crawled back. Globally, maybe less so, but yeah.

Leslie

And then, last year, 2025, is all tariffs, all about tariffs. And I think, we’ve spoken previously on the importance of being able to have an executive to talk about that. You can and you have the messaging, because that’s again, like Rachel, like you said, these are the top, there’s these few topics that are stand out. And I think now, obviously, Chinese competition is a big one. Everybody’s talking about, everybody knows about it. It’s not a secret. Everybody has an internal strategy. I think that’s a big question that a lot of media are looking for some insight on from some of the leaders in the automotive space, tier ones.

Dan

Yeah, and I think as EV has kind of like, EV tech has taken a backseat, you see more on the software and autonomy side of things now. And when you think about it from a supplier standpoint rather than a OEM standpoint, who has to cover a lot of these at the biggest level. But for us, when we’re working with suppliers more, it’s less about, you know, you’re not always changing the core thing that you build. You’re not building a different product. You’re still building a, you know, a drivetrain. You’re still building different interior components. Yeah. But now it’s not about enabling the transition to EVs here in the US. Now it’s more so about enabling the transition to a software defined vehicle or something like that, where you can, or it’s about creating efficiencies and affordability. And I think that as communicators, that takes a big change in just the way that we talk about things or talking to your engineering teams to learn like, okay, it did this for EVs. Now what can I say it does for something else? There’s usually a benefit. You just have to find that.

Leslie

Yeah, I think like you said, Dan, software defined vehicles, that’s another spot. Sensors. And then of course also AI disruption. I’ve noticed that popping up a lot. Just how is AI impacting your business? How are you utilizing it? Just how?

Dan

Does automation fit into factories and workforce issues and all these things?

Leslie

Yeah, skill shortage.

Rachel

So then knowing all of that and those being kind of like our trending topics, but we know that the product isn’t changing, but these companies still need to be out there showing their product, talking about their innovations. What should teams think about when they’re prioritizing budgets and time even? For their event strategy in 27.

Leslie

I think one of the top things is just, first of all, audience. So who do you actually need to be in front of? Like we were talking about a little earlier back in the day, there was no question who was going to be where at what event. Now it’s asking yourself, where are we exactly trying to get in front of? And where are those people going to be? And there’s so many events that can be hard. I actually, one thing that I, if companies have the ability to do it, I’m a big fan of, if you’ve never been to a show or you’re interested in a show, sending somebody to walk it ahead of time to check it out and see who’s actually there on the floor. There’s nothing that can replace that. So especially for your audiences. Are you looking for network? Are you looking for potential new customers? Is media your biggest focus? And then doing some research to find out exactly where they’re at.

Dan

I think that is honestly the biggest driver of it is, you don’t want to show up in a room when you’re hoping to talk to engineers and you show up and it’s, a group of HR folks. Like you’re going to run into some different, you’re going to run into different things. And like we were talking about with so many events, there are so many options, you know, for operations and manufacturing, there’s at least a few shows even this fall coming up. For the engineering audience, you have things like SAE’s WCX event in the spring. For purchasing, you might run into somebody else at the auto show or somewhere else down the line. So that is truly, I think, the biggest portion of it. And then just understanding at the very top, what is your budget? How do you want to come across to those groups? Like how deeply do you want to get into conversations? Are you looking more for that like top-level visibility of something like a trade show versus a really in-depth look with just a handful of customers to say, here’s what we have, here’s how you can specifically use it or media, here’s how it fits into the bigger picture.

Rachel

I think like I always like to ask clients, is it a marketing sales show or is it a communication show? Like what’s the first driver? The other function is gonna support, right? There’s something to be done by, but if it’s a marketing and sales focus of getting in front of customers and purchasing, then there’s probably not gonna be a lot of media there for, you know, it’s gonna be more niche and that’s okay. It serves a purpose, but it shouldn’t be like, you know, from us from an agency standpoint, I don’t wanna spend a lot of our budget on that because it has a different purpose. If media attends, we’re happy to reach out, but we shouldn’t be throwing a bunch of our budget at it. Versus if you say like, oh no, we’ve got someone speaking or we want someone speaking because we have this big thing to talk about. Great, this is a communications show. Like let’s put that first and foremost. What needs to be in the booth? Who needs to be on the floor? Let’s start pitching people even if they’re not attending to see if they can go, right? Like there’s a lot of the way that you approach events. And then again, marketing’s gonna support that. Marketing sales should be there because your customers probably still there, but not in the force they would be on the opposite side. So, they go hand in hand. And another reason why I think comms, marketing and sales all need to be so aligned with these things. But that’s always like one of my first questions I ask people. Like, who’s driving this participation?

Dan

Yeah. And I think that also helps drive kind of like the scale of the show that you want to go to. So like, if you’re looking at media as an objective and you have a really technical product and you want to get into those trade publications and things like that, you don’t want to be at CES necessarily. You don’t want to be the smallest fish in the pond and try to battle for even the slightest bit of attention and those kind of things. If you’re a startup with a technical piece, it’s going to be really tough for you. Whereas at some of these other events that are a little bit more focused and draw the handful of media that really makes sense for you, you’re going to get more quality results out of that than you are going to out of issuing a press release among a sea of press releases at something else that might be too big.

Leslie

Right. Also too what you have to show, you have to think if you have demo or tech, does that show good at a booth? It’s not always like we should have a booth because we always had a booth at this show. This coming year, what do you have to show? Talking about the audience, but also what are you bringing? Where does that show best? Is this something brand new or is it more of a thought leadership opportunity? And you have your executives who are prepared to talk about some of the top issues and are prepared to take some tough questions if there’s a media presence at that as well.

Dan

That decision of whether or not to submit a speaker application or to sponsor a speaking application as it’s becoming more and more frequent. Those are sometimes some big ticket sponsorships. And if you’re going to go up there and not be able to talk about some of those things, you run the risk of not just falling flat, but just not having the right draw, not being able to draw the crowd to that session, especially in some of these events that have really crowded agendas. That’s a great point. You have to be ready to talk about that. So kind of like flipping to the other side of the event world, we talked a lot about events that are hosted elsewhere. There are trade shows that are things like that, are things that you attend, you exhibit at, you sponsor, you speak at, whatever it might be. And Rachel, I’d be interested to get your thoughts on this because I know you’ve done a lot of it. But what are some things that might be a good driver for a company looking to do their own event? Like what might be a good reason to not leave behind the other side of it, but bring that into your strategy?

Rachel

Yeah. I think you both have hit this on the head. If you are going to be a small fish in a big pond, but you’re an established company, right? I mean, before we got on, we were talking about this, Leslie, you brought up a good point that if you’re kind of a new company where people don’t know you yet, get into these shows. Use, there’s foot traffic, there’s, you know, people know the event, they’re gonna be attending it. That’s gonna help drive you for a smaller price for just a booth maybe, just to get people to know your company. If you’re established, but you’re like, oh God, I don’t have breaking news, right? But I’ve got all this awesome tech that I want to show. I really think that if we can have our, not even our executives, but the engineers that actually have created this technology to walk people through it, if you want more time with your audience, whoever that is, whether that be customers or media or a combo of both, hosting an event’s a really good option. Or if you’re like a leader, so for me, if I think about Great Designs in Steel, the American Iron and Steel Institute is the voice of the steel industry. Them hosting a technical steel conference is like, duh. You are the voice. You own that conversation.

Dan

Who else is going to do this?

Rachel

You bring the best of the best in that area to your show, and you have them talk about it. So that’s kind of like, you know, again, if you want to go deep, I really that’s the best place to do it is hosting it yourself. Now, keep in mind, like Leslie said, there are, it used to be like five shows annually everybody went to. Everyone’s getting this. We’re all realizing that like, hey, I’m kind of getting a little more from media or more time with customers if I just do this myself. But we’re all realizing this.

Leslie

So it’s also creating this like crazy calendar.

Rachel

Yeah, the calendar is getting crazy. So you’re like, oh, this is like a good time of year. Then you pick it and you’re like, oh, and then that event popped up that week and that event popped up that week. And they’re all good events, but the competition’s getting fierce. So keep that in mind too as you’re doing this. You can only plan for so much. And your event is still a big deal. Like it’s still probably a good option to host the event. If you’ve used the checklist, you’ve gotten to the point where you’re like, nope, going through everything, this is what we know we need to do from a strategy standpoint, host the event, but just understand the outside factors that you can’t control. And we’ve really, I mean, clients that I’ve worked with year over year, when I look back at actually like the metrics of where did our coverage come from? Was it from speaking events? Was it from sponsorships? Was it from hosted events? Was it from direct media outreach? We’ve seen that some of the best coverage, even if it’s months later, comes from hosting those events because you’re giving them the in-depth look at the technology that they can store away and use to help other stories down the line. So your name can keep popping up. And I love that aspect of a hosted event.

Leslie

I think that’s a great point because at some of these larger trade shows, like as we’ve been saying, they always serve their purpose, but sometimes media have to hit, I’ve got to hit 16 booths. And you’re more likely to end up in a roundup story, which is fine.

Rachel

Great.

Leslie

But when you, because you want to be part of those conversations, which you want to be mentioned in the roundup. But when you have your own event, like Rachel, you were saying, you see some great coverage that’s really dedicated. And I think it’s a great point when both your audience and your message or your technology is very specific, a little bit more technical, or you’re trying to reach very specific audiences. To be able to control that at your own event can be a really smart play.

Rachel

Well, and I would actually even give the piece of advice when you are thinking about tracking your media coverage and being able to show the metrics behind it. Something we started doing for clients is tracking, and I’m going to use the term high quality because that’s how we talk about it here. Coverage could be high quality for a lot of reasons, but we define that as was your key core messages that you want included, was that communicated in that story? Was it more of a feature about you with less of your competitors mentioned, right? Was it really focused on your company and were your executives placed in it, right? You had some good quotes. That is a high-quality piece of coverage. That’s gonna happen more from high level executive interviews, technology in-depth pieces from you hosting an event, a roundtable or something where you are having those more in-depth conversations. And that’s not everything. You want a mix of, like you said, the roundups and things like that. But something that we track for clients is how many pieces are high quality and then where did they come from? Because that then helps you make that decision for next year too, when you go into your strategy for events. Because most of your events are probably not going to save you money, let’s be real.

Dan

It’s certainly not going to save you time or effort.

Rachel

No, because it’s got to be worth it.

Leslie

You’re doing everything. You’re doing the invites, the registration, the logistics, the plan of the day, catering, all of that. I will say from that, just real quick on that point, one way it can be a savings, I mean not overall, is if you have tech demos or vehicle demos, and that can get very expensive to ship all over the country to different events. So keeping it at your location and bringing people in, I mean, that’s a savings right there. But I think like you’re saying from the time and investment effort overall of staffing, you’re owning it fully. So just, you know, I think there might be a misconception about, oh, I’ll host our own, I’ll save on time.

Dan

Yeah, we have great room to do this.

Leslie

It’s not a guarantee.

Rachel

So again, tracking it, you said walk the show, send somebody, of course, look at it. But on the flip side too, make sure you are doing a good job of tracking what’s coming out of these then.

Leslie

Yes, absolutely.

Rachel

Because, and if you can, work with marketing and sales to see like, did you get good leads? Did you have good conversations versus how much media interaction do we get? That’s going to help you make those decisions a lot quicker and with backing next time.

Leslie

Yes, yeah, that’s a great point. If you’re, especially if you’re didn’t go to a show or you’re unfamiliar with it, look at the media coverage that came out of it, who covered it, what outlets, what type of coverage, and then talking to, like you said, the sales teams and seeing what their experience was.

Dan

Yeah. So, you know, I think we’ve covered this in a variety of ways throughout this conversation, but if you had to give one piece of advice to a newer marketing professional coming in and kind of like looking to plan out their year for the first time. Where would you start or what’s one piece of advice that you might give to them?

Leslie

I think define success before you book anything. And specifically, not like, oh, we want more eyes on us. What does that mean? We talked a little about, is it media? Is it sales leads? Is it networking? Just be very specific. And then also ask yourself, if the budget is, you know, does this actually deserve this budget? What are we trying to achieve? What do we have to work with?

Rachel

Or does your budget let you achieve that goal?

Leslie

Do you even have it? Do you have it? No, maybe not. So I just think being very upfront with yourself and asking the hard questions before you commit to anything. What is the ROI? What do we need to achieve bare minimum? And I also think finding events where there are different avenues of success too. I always said, like Dan, you made the point of CES, don’t go out there if you’re just looking for media coverage. Go out there if you’re looking for this, this, this. So maybe just for each and every event weighing that and asking those tough questions up front.

Rachel

What about you, Dan? What’s your piece of advice?

Dan

I think my advice would be something that we talked about a little bit already, but being able to look at the audience of each one because it is getting to the point where it’s so diverse with the events out there, understanding, like you were talking about, not just what the goal is, but what the goal is for each of your individual groups and where you can best reach each one of them. So, I guess do everything that you can to understand who actually and realistically will be attending these things and how much money you can allocate to each one of those.

Rachel

Which I will say as a new professional, I felt like. Yes, well, who’s going? I didn’t know. Here’s something I think is helpful. Look up what media coverage came out of that show last year. Were your competitors covered? And if they were on what? What were they showing or what were they saying that got them that coverage? Not even just like, oh, they were a lead sponsor of that. Like, that’s great, but they paid for some of that too, right? But looking at from that perspective of it’s hard to know where your competitors are all the time, you hope to be tracking them. But are they getting coverage at these shows or are they hosting something and getting coverage? That can help you understand maybe who’s there a little bit.

Dan

And I would go one, maybe another step, but a different step too would be to look at the titles of like panels of keynotes and who the speakers were. Because if you can understand what the titles were of people that were speaking at the event and what those topics that they were covering, they usually fall into one category of engineering versus purchasing versus marketing versus operations. To see what’s on the agenda can help you kind of put two and two together to see who’s in the room that would actually care about those topics. And I think that’s less of a media conversation, more of a different types of audiences, customer audiences, things like that. But that’s the place that I usually actually start when I’m looking at events is what was last year’s agenda, who was on it, and what did they talk about?

Rachel

Yeah, I just think that’s like giving that caveat is so important because when I was starting out, I was like, you want me to figure that out? How? It just felt like I was going into a sea of Google, like, who goes to?

Dan

And the sponsor packet says everybody goes. You have to go a little bit further.

Rachel

I think if I were to build off of all of these things is do you have something to say that people will care about?

Leslie

You gotta be honest about that.

Rachel

You have to be honest because if you are newer and you’re the one putting the plan together, but then it’s going up, leadership wants to be in all these places. Of course they do. But it’s not worth the money or you won’t get accepted if you don’t actually have something to say. So be honest. If you do have something to say, is it newsworthy or is it just straight promotional for your company? Because that’s not worth it. No one’s gonna want that. Number one and number two, can you talk about those hard things? And if the answer is no, that’s okay. But then don’t expect to get a speaking spot year over year. Don’t expect to, don’t pay for a speaking spot to say nothing. Right. Those I think, you know, when we talk about asking the hard questions, that’s where there has to be some like courageous truth between you and leadership teams when you’re thinking about putting a plan together. So all those things combined, good plan, I think. Well, Leslie, thank you so much.

Leslie

Thank you for having me.

Rachel

This was a great conversation. This and more in that downloadable asset, how to build your 2027 mobility event strategy on our website and linked below. Check it out. Use it to your advantage, truthfully. And happy planning.

Dan

Happy planning. See you next time.