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Expo

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AHR Expo Las Vegas – Energy efficiency in the desert

End of January 2017, the AHR participation (largest trade show for Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration in the US) was on punker’s agenda, already for the 6th time in a row. The presentation of the new, highly efficient punker D-Series was a home run – this year’s show in Las Vegas was all about energy efficiency.

The exposition took place in the Las Vegas Convention Center (Jan. 30 to Feb. 1, 2017). Honestly, we had some doubts if Las Vegas was the right place for an industry trade show. But only 30 minutes after the opening these doubts proved wrong: The enormous appeal of ‘fabulous Las Vegas’ brought a visitors record already on day one. Obviously, many visitors combined a visit of Las Vegas and the trade show by arriving already the weekend before.

Our booth in the Central Hall was crowded by visitors on Monday morning: Frank Mueller (Area Sales Manager North, Central and South America), Juergen Beinke (Director Global Sales) and myself had many opportunities to spread the enthusiasm for our new energy efficient D-Series. While the interest in energy efficient solutions was still low during the 2016 AHR Expo in Orlando, it had sparked very strong interest by this year.

Energy Efficiency Everywhere

The yearly survey amongst the trade show visitors by the ASHRAE Journal (monthly journal published by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) confirmed the increased awareness of energy efficient solutions: 60,5% of the 700 respondents indicated that energy efficiency is the most important aspect for their customers (ahead: 74,2% Reliability, 70,4% Cost). Only 4% indicated that customers are not willing to pay more for energy efficiency, almost 80% confirmed the increased willingness to pay more, another 80% is actively on the lookout for ‘green’ or sustainable products on the trade show. However, only 25% of the respondents notice a support or even incentives by the state to change to energy efficient products or technologies.

By presenting ‚Increasing Energy Efficiency with the new punker Diffuser Technology’ in the New Product & Technology Theater of the AHR Expo, Frank Mueller and Juergen Beinke succeeded in demonstrating to even more trade show visitors, how the punker D-Series fan wheels increase the energy efficiency of free blowing HVAC systems and reduce the operating costs at the same time.

“Made in USA” and “America first”

Apart from energy efficiency, another aspect was a hot topic in many business discussions: The question if our products are made in USA. Already in 2016, we put a strong focus on showing that we are producing in the US. The significance of ‘made in USA’, however, has even more increased, mainly due to the ‘America first’ attitude of the Trump administration and their announcement to impose punitive tariff duties on certain imports from Germany. Whatever the reason for this question was – the fact, that punker produces in the USA for the US market is key to our successful business relations in this market.

Next AHR Expo is from Jan. 22-24, 2018, in Chicago. Already looking forward to your visit on our booth No. 3337!
Markets Together

From the Idea to the Booth – 2016 AHR Show Orlando

When exhibiting at trade shows, companies always present their best side. Exhibition stands are supposed to appear effortlessly inviting, professional and innovative. In the months leading up to AHR Expo in Orlando, Florida, I came to find out just how much strategic thought and hard work goes into actualizing a successful presentation.

Coming up with a concept

The 2016 AHR Show in Orlando had the target to relaunch our HVAC wheel series to the market. The decision was made early on that there was a need for a new marketing concept, especially for the American market.

In the end of November 2015, the punker LLC team had the first brain storm meeting to discuss new ideas for the show. Members of the team included Ryan Kilkelly (Managing Director), Michael Greene (Quality Management), Jessica Owens (Inside Sales) and myself, Frank Mueller.

An abundance of ideas were laid out on the table but only two made it out of the meeting. It was decided that we need one display stand to proudly announce that Hickory manufactures in the USA and another to showcase the R63D-HVAC wheel and include technical information.

The display stands we had used in the past weren’t useful for this goal. It was decided to redesign the booth and purchase new display stands.

The different ideas of the “Made in the USA” campaign ranged from an American flag made using backward curved and cross flow wheels to powder coated wheels in the traditional US colors; red, white and blue. Ultimately, it was decided that three R63D-HVAC wheels were to be coated in these colors, which also happen to be punker’s standard corporate colors.

The concept for the HVAC display was simple, the R63D-HVAC and the new D light wheel were positioned in the center of the display while side panels included technical information from our brochure.

The Sales team at punker LLC then began the search for a company to create our vision. We found a local company nearby and began the process.

In previous years, punker has rented all equipment for the booth. This year, the decision was made to purchase all of the items. This move is sure to save punker from costly rental fees in the future.

In addition to support from the entire punker LLC team, we also received a tremendous amount of support and assistance from Frederike Walter from the Marketing Department in Eckernforde. Ms. Walter assisted in everything from the space rental, booth design, literature, wheels – you name it and she helped with it.

Planning the idea to the booth consumed a minimum of three months. A lot of planning went into turning our vision into reality and finally seeing our material waiting at our booth. There were plenty of days leading up to the show that “show planning” turned into a full time job for Jessica.

The AHR Expo 2016

The Expo took place from January 25th – January 27th. It is the largest show for the HVAC industry in the US. Exhibitors included many of our competitors and also many customers, too. This was truly a great opportunity to meet with our customers and especially for me to be able to introduce myself as the “New Area Sales Manager” of the Americas.

In my opinion, out of 42,396 visitors and 17,978 exhibitors, it was clear that the following three topics stood out amongst the rest:

  1. Energy Efficiency
  2. American Made Products “Made in the USA”
  3. Plastic Wheels

To our surprise, many of our competitors presented plastic wheels and expect to see a great market for them in the future. However, this is not our opinion. We will watch this closely as only time will tell.

In general, the show was well attended from potential customers around the world. Not only did we have visits from many US customers, but other countries as well, such as: Israel, Egypt, Saudi-Arabia, India, Mexico, Brazil, Canada and China were also represented.

Many visitors to our booth were interested in our HVAC product line, focused on the potential for energy efficiency. Energy efficiency will begin to make a strong impact on the sale decision following the continued efforts of the DOE’s bill for efficiency.

 

To see more pictures from 2016 AHR Expo in Orlando, visit the SmugMug gallery.

Markets

Climate World Moscow

Click  the white arrows on each side of the picture to see more images.

Every year in March, the exhibition center in Moscow hosts the Mir Klimata trade show, also known as Climate World Moscow. From March 1-4 2016, 249 companies were represented on this international trade show for heating, ventilation and air conditioning. Due to the ongoing economic crisis, this year only 3 exhibition halls were booked, whereas in 2015 a total number of 348 exhibitors were represented in 6 halls.

Being the regional manager for North East Europe, this trade show is a must see for me – and this year I was accompanied by our Director of Global Jürgen Beinke. The impact of the economic crisis became very obvious in our meetings and conversations – the construction and air conditioning industry is heavily affected. Although current construction projects will be finished, no new major projects are initiated. To counteract this trend, many smaller manufacturers in the HVAC industry are looking for alternative business opportunities like swimming pools or air conditioning or they concentrate their activities on the retrofit business.

However, key players of this industry like IZTT, Teplomash, Normalvent, VEZA or Korf  were represented on the Mir Klimata as ever. Apart from the Russian manufacturers, several important European companies like Systemair, Swegon, Nicotra-Gebhardt and ebm-papst participated as exhibitors at the show, some of them by their Russian representatives.

Due to the economic crisis, the show organizers put a lot of emphasis on international cooperation this year: for the first time, Turkey was the official partner country of the Mir Klimata and with EUROVENT another official partner was represented on the show. The Chinese exhibitors, however, usually having one full exhibition hall all for themselves, cancelled their attendance due to the negative economic situation, so that the remaining Chinese exhibitors, for example Sanmu Motors, were placed amongst the other exhibitors.

We were happy to meet our big Russian customers again this year on the show, moreover we managed to establish new, promising contacts, so that we remain confident on the future prospects for our business in North East Europe, despite the uncertain economic situation.