Building a brand

It might be more than a year until the next FIT Show, which returns to the NEC from 29 April – 1 May 2025, but preparations are already well underway. FIT Show event director, Nickie West, discusses what’s happening behind the scenes at FIT Show HQ on a ‘no show’ year, and offers her insight into what it takes to build a brand.

A brand is the story a company tells across all touchpoints with its audience. It’s what set us apart from the competition and it’s the strength of FIT Show’s brand that has helped to secure our position as the UK’s number one trade show for the industry.

From the way our brand looks and feels across marketing material through to the language and tone of voice that we use – FIT Show has its own, very distinct brand identity. It’s something that lives and breathes. It’s also something that has evolved since FIT Show launched back in 2013.

Over the past decade we have established FIT Show as the cornerstone of the UK window, door, glazing, hardware, roofing and components industry. We have enabled installers to build a better business for themselves, and provided the platform for brands and suppliers to exhibit their products, meet the right people and make the right sales. We have seen thousands of visitors and exhibitors thrive with us, making us a major component for industry growth.

Whoever your customer, supplier, source of knowledge or source of income is, we bring you closer to them at FIT Show. Customers who are ready to buy the next best product and do business. Or brands who come searching for ambitious businesses like yours.

We’ve invested a lot of time in developing the FIT Show brand. From researching and developing personas, which are constantly reviewed and updated, documenting our brand story, through to enhancing the physical proposition of the show.

We know how important it is to invest in our own brand in order to sustain that competitive edge and ensure longevity.

For FIT Show’s 10-year anniversary campaign, we introduced the adage ‘We Built FIT Together’ and it couldn’t be a more fitting or accurate statement. Building a brand is a collective effort. From our inhouse team, third party suppliers, exhibitors and visitors. Our stakeholders all have a role to play in shaping the FIT Show brand, a role to play in our brand story and a role to play in how the brand evolves in the future.

As custodians of the FIT Show brand, the team and I are steadfastly working hard behind the scenes to ensure that it goes from strength-to-strength. A huge focus of ours for 2023 was increasing the shelf life value of FIT Show for exhibitors, and working to increase the accessibility of FIT Show to a wider audience above and beyond the three physical days of the show. This culminated with the launch of FIT Show 360, our digital twin.

Our focus in 2024 is to strengthen our campaign touchpoints on a ‘no show’ year – we’ve listened to our market and will be delivering something special to meet demand.

As part of our forward planning for 2025, we’ll be building on the success of the 2023 campaign, with the support of the industry, and looking to broaden the show’s proposition in order to reach new audiences. Our objectives may alter slightly, our activities may change, but the FIT Show brand will continue to sit at the heart of everything we do.

What’s your brand story? It starts with the connection made when a customer hears your name for the first time, when they interact with your brand, from a website click to a social media post. It’s our responsibility to arm our customers with the story to tell.