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Kati Eismann on why Adam Hall isn’t afraid of a competitor & why trade shows are no longer essential

Kati Eismann, global marketing director at Adam Hall, reflects on her journey from the music industry to professional audio, and shares her insights as to why the brand doesn’t have a competitor, how the company has grown by 10 times in 10 years, why trade shows are like “throwing money out of the window”, why immersive is the future – but why Adam Hall will not be a part of that – and teases a groundbreaking new product that “doesn't exist on Earth yet”.

You have transitioned from the music industry to professional audio and event technology. How did that transition happen, and where did your career start?

It's gone full circle. I started out very early in the music and event technology business. At the age of 14, I was volunteering at a small festival in Germany. It was a music and youth festival that now attracts 30,000 visitors, but back then, it was around 2,000 visitors. I was preparing sandwiches and bratwursts backstage for the artists at that time, so I was caught by the sparkle of the live event technology industry. 

I did that for four to five years, and then I started learning something after school which was very boring, but I always remembered that magic of music and live music. I got the offer at the age of 19 to start in a promotion agency; I didn't have a clue what I meant, actually! But nevertheless, I was so curious, so I decided to start there. I started promoting bands during their live tours by calling TV stations and local newspapers to get interviews for them and to promote the tour.

How did you move into working for major labels, and what were your experiences like as everything shifted to digital?

I worked for the three big major labels: Universal, Virgin and Warner Music. I worked for them for almost 10 years as a product manager and later in A&R, so I was always very close to the music industry itself. That was more than 15 years ago. Then the big digitalisation hit the market, and the major labels didn't have an answer. They thought, ‘Oh my God; what can we do to work against it?’, instead of, ‘What can we do with it?’. 

It was a bit frustrating being responsible for the signing of artists because behind every artist is a human with a soul and wishes and dreams. All of a sudden, the big major labels were forced to hunt for the big next thing and big next artist, and I wasn't capable of promising them that they would become a big star under our umbrella.

All the old strategies we used to bring artists up do not exist any longer, because it's all data-driven nowadays. You can predict a certain, let's say, fame for an artist, and you can achieve it by buying clicks and really smart digital campaign strategies. But it was high pressure back then because you couldn't predict it. 

If a label called me today and said, ‘Do you want to become a marketing director for a record label?’, I would say no, because I would be so afraid of not knowing how to do it nowadays, because it has changed so much. The core mechanics haven't changed. It's just the channels that have changed – and the speed.

I did that for almost 15 years, and by then I had seen a lot. I would never say I have seen everything, but I explored the music industry in the golden times of the ‘90s and ‘00s, so I thought, ‘It's time for something else’. Then I had a short four years in the fashion industry because the strategy behind fashion was quite similar to music at that time. 

Of course, I was always very close to music and was always interested in it. The years went on, and I had my own agency where I always had my fingers in the music biz somehow because I brought brands and artists together.

I see this part of the industry as an enabler for the artists and the music industry.

How did you move from that to working at Adam Hall and into the world of live sound and audio technology?

Almost five years ago, I got the offer to become the marketing director at Adam Hall, where all the puzzle pieces came back to me because I remembered being 14 and sitting on a flight case in the backstage area of a music festival. I knew some brands which belonged to the Adam Hall Group, but I wasn't aware that I have, throughout my whole career, been in contact and in touch with the products of Adam Hall, So it was like a homecoming. I said it must be destiny that I now have the honour to fulfil this position.

What are the key differences you’ve noticed between working in the music industry for labels like Virgin, Universal and Warner Music, and the pro audio/live events industry?

On one hand, there is the glamor of the stages and the fame artists bring along because the technology in the music industry isn't really seen at all, like the lighting designers or the sound engineers. But without this technology, not one single artist is heard or seen on stage. I see this part of the industry as an enabler for the artists and the music industry. 

It's a big industry that happens behind their backs. When I was on tour with bands, even myself being a tour manager, I never realised about all the technicians backstage and all the stagehands and all the technology.

we don't have a real competitor.

You once orchestrated a partnership between Marc O’Polo and Robbie Williams. What’s your personal favourite achievement or moment from your time in the music industry?

At that time, I had my own agency, and the mission was to bring brands and artists together. Marc O’Polo was turning 50 years old and wanted desperately to have a design collaboration with a musician. We found out that Robbie was wearing Marc O’Polo in the ‘90s because he was a big soccer fan, and back then, Marc O’Polo gear was very famous in that scene. It was a strong brand. We developed a collection of 12 pieces and we had a great live concert. 

Robbie invited the design team and me to his home in London, where we sat together for two days and worked on the designs. It was one of the biggest adventures – bringing both words together and exploring how an artist is behind his own walls at home.

Another one is when I was working for Warner Music as a junior A&R and product manager. I was in my early 20s, and one of my childhood idols was Nena, and we recently signed her and she produced an album. No one bought the album. It was a flop. I said, ‘Damn, this can't be; she's my childhood hero. It can be that this woman isn't successful any longer’. 

By then, she was close to her 40s, and so we thought, ‘What do people want to listen to when they go to her concert?’, they want to listen to her old hits, like 99 Red Balloons and Anyplace, Anywhere, Anytime. So we developed a concept to record her old hits and put it out as a new version, and this became a huge success.

We invited Kim Wilde to do a duet with her, and her song and duet version was quite successful. Against all odds and against everybody in the industry saying, ‘You cannot sign her. It's impossible to make her famous and successful again’, it happened. The recording of old songs or albums hadn’t happened like that before. So it was, for Germany at least, something very new, and it became a pattern for other longer-lasting artists. 

If someone says, ‘No, it won't work’, it gives me that last piece of energy to really prove that it is possible. This was one of my earliest success stories and that has kept my energy up since the day.

we make 80% of our turnover with 900 out of these 16,000 from our customer database.

Adam Hall has a diverse product portfolio. How do you ensure the company stands out in such a competitive and dynamic market?

Every day is a challenge because the market after COVID has changed. We managed to survive through the COVID phase quite well because we discovered very early that the secret of surviving this catastrophe, economic-wise, is to keep a good, high stock of the products people need at home. This brought us through this crisis until today, and we managed to have a big rebound. 

Nevertheless, the company has become so huge. We grew within the last 10 years by almost 10 times. 10 years ago, we had 80 employees. Now we have 400 and we have six brands under the umbrella of the Adam Hall Group – all for live event technology, so the challenge is there every day.

On the other hand, we don't have a real competitor, because we have sound, light, industry gear, cable protection systems and flight cases, all under one umbrella. There is no comparable company on earth that is like that. That's a big advantage. On the other hand, promoting 11,000 SKUs on your yearly schedule is a bit insane! So there are always some angels sitting on your shoulders. 

It's a question of focusing on and knowing your data, knowing your groups, knowing what they need right now and within the next shorter period, and being able to deliver what they need – and do that with the best manner and sense for quality.

How has the digital transformation affected your approach to marketing, especially in a technology-driven industry like event solutions?

I always wonder how Universities teach that because they cannot update their curriculum every six months. No segment in all industries develops so fast and is as dynamic as marketing. How I manage it is not me alone. I make sure that the team is diverse and even very young in order to be using the state-of-the-art marketing techniques, technologies and strategies needed. 

We have a very strong digital marketing team of nine colleagues, and they are very smart and know exactly what to do and when. I stopped, for instance, almost every print advertisement because we shifted it all towards digital. That doesn't mean that we don't collaborate any longer with print, but we doubt that print itself will survive. It is simply not read by the next generation any longer, so we need people who know exactly how to read the data and how to play with the opportunities we have in the Meta, Google and performance marketing world.

at ise 2025 will have a groundbreaking new product that doesn't exist on Earth yet.

In an industry as niche as event technology, how do you engage and retain a loyal customer base?

We have 16,000 customers that we have in our customer database located in 120 countries. If I really dive deep into our data, I can tell you the secret that we make 80% of our turnover with 900 out of these 16,000 from our customer database, so we focus on the ones that are relevant to our core business and that give us valuable feedback. 

We just recently started implementing a CRM system which makes it possible to learn more about the value of our customers and communicate in a much more efficient way with our customers globally. 

Secondly, we have invested a lot into relationship communication managers, so each brand has its own communication manager who is dedicated to working with influences, musicians and producers all over the world who are relevant to our industry to give us back valuable feedback and test reviews, and this is how we engage and push customer loyalty.

How does customer service fit into this?

I believe that we have probably the best customer service. Whenever you have an issue with the technology we have sold you, we instantly are able to help you with the latest technical issue within four days. So we either come to you and visit you and help you, or you send us the product and we repair it, or you get a new one. 

This kind of approach to service is a very important thing to us, because we know this is what makes people happy, and this is a big differentiator in the industry. If you look at questions of sustainability in the future, it will become more and more important.

We won't be the immersive player in the field. That's not what our heritage is and will never be.

As you mentioned, the pandemic disrupted the event industry significantly. How did Adam Hall adapt, and what role did marketing play in ensuring resilience during this time?

I heard many stories about companies shutting down their marketing departments during the pandemic, and here, it was the other way around. Of course, we also had some decreasing time in the departments, but we got asked, ‘Marketing: what's your opinion? What should we do in this crisis?’. Early in the pandemic stage, we saw that many people shifted their working areas and their content-producing areas. 

So we decided to immediately shift focus back from the pro audio and pro light products, more into the MI area, so music instruments and home recording gear. With the help of data, listening to social media and social listening, we knew that if we focus on that and stop all the other activities when it comes to pro audio and pro lightning communication, we might survive this. 

Marketing played a big role because we generated the communication and we secured the target groups and they grew like hell during that time. It made us a survivor. This is thanks to the mindset of our company owners, as they understood that we all needed to work together. It changed the whole mindset, and I hope it will stay like that forever.

What innovations or advancements do you see as critical for the future success of Adam Hall in the event technology space?

What we see when we look around all the big trade shows when it comes to our kind of event technology and the AV industry, is that it's all immersive. Take the Sphere – the second one is now ready to be built in Abu Dhabi. This kind of technology is the future. So anything that you can make immersive and put it together on one network is the future.

On the other hand, I strongly believe that the real experience of seeing and hearing an artist – as pure as they can sound – is coming back. It's like the vinyl trend that also is coming back. It's stronger than ever. In the past 20 years, people have been buying vinyl again because they have re-explored the quality of the sound and are taking the time to really listen actively to music. 

I believe that smaller venues are coming back stronger than ever and therefore need good gear for the stages. The sound and light in these venues are very important, so I believe there is a counterpart to this immersive world too.

I always question the concept of trade shows; No one can measure the real ROI.

What can we expect from Adam Hall at the upcoming NAMM and ISE shows?

At NAMM we will present our pro audio product called MAILA to the US market for the first time, and we will present in a dedicated demo room. It's an outstanding product and is a line array system. It is a game changer in the industry because it's very scalable. It's user-friendly – probably one of the most user-friendly sound systems when it comes to line arrays. 

Also, we will officially introduce the LD Systems ANNY series – a portable Bluetooth PA system that packs in a pro-level performance for musicians and mobile gigs. There is one surprise that I cannot talk about yet, but you will only see it in our booth…

One week later, we will travel to Barcelona in Spain for ISE where we have two really huge booths, one for our lighting brand Cameo where we will present groundbreaking highlights when it comes to laser technologies. 

On the audio side, we have our Adam Hall integrated system booth, where we will have a groundbreaking new product that doesn't exist on Earth yet. It is software where you really can manage light and sound together with one tool. We will present this for the first time at ISE…

It's a seven-digit number we invest in trade shows per year. Imagine what I can do with that money somewhere else.

How important are events like NAMM and ISE for building relationships with your customers and partners, and how valuable are shows like this for brands in this digital age where all information is instantly accessible online?

The board of Namm and ISE probably won’t like what I’m about to say! But I have a big question mark about this because we have four showrooms in the world for our brands which are very attractive and very unique in comparison to others. We have our own theatre here in our headquarters. We have a showroom in Barcelona and also in New Jersey. 

If you are an exhibitor with a big booth at ISE or NAMM, you are one out of 7,000 that is trying to get the attention of 70,000 visitors. So just mathematically, my chance to win is low. I really need to invest a lot of time, power, communication and money to get the right attention of potential customers and existing customers to survive in that jungle. So I always question the concept of trade shows.

To attend a trade show, you need to have a really unique and outstanding concept that stands out from the masses, and that secures you the biggest attraction you can get. It's a seven-digit number we invest in trade shows per year in euros. Imagine what I can do with that money somewhere else with marketing. So I always question our company owners and say, ‘Are you still convinced that this is the right way to get the customer's attention?’.

Also, when it comes to sustainability, five years ago, we threw the whole booth construction away after a show. Now we at least use that for three or four years. That minimises the flexibility of bringing something new every year, plus think of all the travel costs and pollution we produce. 

For ISE, 60 people of our crew travel to Barcelona, so it's insane, and it probably is not the concept for the future to invest so much money into an outcome you cannot measure. No one can measure the real outcome or the real ROI of a trade show, really. Looking back at the past 10 years, it was kind of throwing money out of the window.

For the organisers of the big trade shows, it's still a good question for them: what do they do? What innovations do they come up with to make it more attractive in the future? I haven't heard an answer that satisfies me yet, but I will keep on challenging them.

Nevertheless, face-to-face conversation is the best and the most efficient way to communicate and convince customers of your products. It isn’t comparable to doing things digitally. So yes, it is still necessary, and it will forever be. It's just, is a trade show the right way, or is it an event I can do with a lot of magic, where the attention and the concentration is 100% gained towards my brands and not shared with 7,000 others?

Where do you see the live events industry heading in the next 10 years, and what role will Adam Hall play in shaping that future?

I believe that the demand for live events and experiences will grow. People want to get distracted from their everyday stresses with live music. The technology used will be more and more immersive, and the manufacturers of technologies need to keep it in balance for the audience. 

I believe that Adam Hall will play a key role in maintaining the live experience, quality-wise, to make it as good as possible. We won't be the immersive player in the field. That's not what our heritage is and will never be. There are many others on the market that are much better at that than we are.

Listen to the full conversation below: