Roland Renshaw, the project manager, describes how it was created and what distinctive features it offers to visitors, “Bürkert approached us with the idea of promoting their products during the twelve months between exhibition dates, exhibitions are still a great way to show your products off to new people, but by their nature they are transitory. We needed a method of giving people fast access not just to the products, but crucially to the people behind them. Technical products are bought and sold by technically competent people, and so the face-to-face nature of sales is essential in the B2B world.”
“We filmed the stand in HD and developed the site using the structure from the 3D designs for the exhibition stand; blending them with high resolution photo stills from the exhibition stand itself. Much like a lot of modern movie FX composites, it allowed us to create a completely photorealistic 3D environment. The site is very easy to use though, it uses the common Flash plug-in for the animation, so the ‘virtual’ exhibition stand can be accessed and viewed from virtually any PC with internet access. Unlike other sites that rely on open access video hosting such as YouTube, our site hosts and supports it’s own video content so it gives the visitor a clean and clear higher-resolution viewing experience.”
Helen Christopher, Marketing Manager at Bürkert UK continues, “We believe at Bürkert Fluid Control Systems we provide pioneering products and systems to help customers with their process engineering, but we also believe we are unique in the way we communicate with them too. We see this as adding to the traditional exhibition experience, not replacing it. Buying habits are continually changing and one of the problems with conventional exhibitions, apart from allowing yourself the time away from your workplace to visit, is that you don’t always get to talk to the right technical expert on a product as they may be busy or you have limited time at the show. Our solution was to film each of Bürkert’s technical experts explaining the features, benefits and applications for each of the main product ranges displayed on the stand. Visitors to the virtual stand can watch a 3D guided tour of the stand and then click on the areas of interest. Each subject or product range is then described in person by the expert in a short movie.”
Visitors can download a wide range of product literature from the site as well as making direct enquiries for more information. Anyone who registers will also be sent exclusive show promotional goodies, a Bürkert catalogue, and will be able to gain access to the exclusive downloads area. For those who missed a live Bürkert exhibition, you can now visit anytime.
Products featured on the site include the company’s new range of Element valves and sensors, designed to give extremely precise performance in clean process environments. The new Ultrasonic Flow Transmitter for low volume, high accuracy measurement, the LiquidFLOW Controller, the mxCONTROL dosing controller, Robolux valves and a process automation overview which discusses the new AirLine range of pneumatic control valve islands. The Airline range allows connection directly to PLCs and other DIN rail mounted I/O from leading automation hardware vendors including, Siemens, Wago and Phoenix Contact. All of which are covered in the movies on the subject.