The Xeikon Café, an event hosted by the digital press manufacturer at company headquarters, was honored at the third edition of the IBIS Communication Awards. The awards honor the best Belgian communication campaigns and communicators, and is organized by BPRCA, the association of leading Belgian PR agencies, and 3C representing key communicators of companies and agencies. A professional jury was composed of academics, journalists, digital and corporate communication experts. Altogether 27 strong cases were competing for one of the 4 awards B2B, B2C, Non-profit and Corporate Communication, including brands like Coca-Cola, Landrover, AEG, Acerta, Chaudfontaine.

Duomedia, a B2B content & PR agency, along with Xeikon, accepted the 2014 IBIS Communication Awards in the B2B category. The jury praised the integrated cross-media and strategic approach with smart social communication tactics in high-tech B2B markets.  The Xeikon Café is a platform presented by Xeikon and its Aura partners, offering the opportunity to understand, evaluate and experience digital label and package production.

The combined PR and communication teams of Xeikon and duomedia aimed at raising brand & product and business awareness, increasing engagement and community building. Results far exceeded expectations with almost doubled visitor attendance at the event, international press participation and raised social influence by 60%.

Lutt Willems, director client relations at duomedia explains: “While communication technologies and mobility constantly change, there is a continued, even increasing need for face2face contacts. A community can better thrive and demonstrate its engagement by personally interacting with other members and interchanging experiences. Xeikon built on their unique community relations to expand and activate its pool of loyal ambassadors.”

A key element of the social media activity was the #Xeikonselfie contest which engaged & mobilized visitors before and during the event. Submitted selfies were printed on the spot using Xeikon digital presses and labeled on a Belgian beer bottle, which could then be picked up by the selfie owner.  Within the ongoing social media program, it generated a clear growth in customer interaction and engagement as well as followers.

Frank Jacobs, marketing communications manager at Xeikon, comments, “We used a multi-channel approach in creating awareness about the Xeikon Café and inviting people. During the event we managed to reach a perfect marriage between print, online and personal communication. Xeikon produces digital printing presses and used these to print selfie labels submitted through the social channels, which again helped drive attendance to the event where visitors could see the live printing.  We are not only an innovator in developing and marketing digital printing solutions, but we are also innovative in our communication, with the great support of our PR-partner duomedia.”

Anja D’Hondt, managing partner at duomedia, says, “We are really pleased to win this award as it underlines a strong partnership between duomedia and Xeikon. It’s really great when you can inspire and reinforce each other to become stronger together. Since we specialize with our strategic and media services in technology and industrial B2B markets we understand our client’s business and market dynamics. This way we can come up with stronger concepts and themes that resonate with their stakeholders, and actively engage them in the communication process.”

Wim Maes, CEO at Xeikon, concludes, “The Xeikon Café has been a great success, also thanks to the impressive media and communication efforts surrounding it boasting our brand awareness – we have had more printers and converters coming than we could have imagined. The Xeikon Café has shown that our customers are hungry for information. All printers want to know where the growth opportunities are and how to exploit them. We can say for certain that Xeikon today addresses these issues.”

The next edition of the Xeikon Café is planned for March 10-12, 2015.

More information on the IBIS B2B Communication 2014 Award can be found on: http://youtu.be/y-eNKG5HeRU