Häfele Digital & Interactive Showroom

The company Häfele was actually supposed to be represented with an exhibition stand at the wood crafts exhibition in Nuremberg in 2020. However, like many others, the exhibition planned for May 2020 had to be cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The handling agency Bruce B. was therefore presented with the challenge of transposing the concept into digital space. It was an advantage that they had already started from March 2020 with the programming of their own exhibition and event platform. Even so, they were facing a very ambitious schedule: the programming, testing and development of twelve staged themes had to be completed within six weeks.

The central aim was not to reproduce the exhibition stand to scale but to present the exhibition themes photo-realistically, specifically for virtual space. The “event location” was a specially designed digital exhibition hall with areas realised as 360-degree spaces, which helped to create the impression of a real exhibition stand. These spaces were accessible to sales staff and customers at the same time, so natural consulting could take place. Images and sound were transmitted directly in the web browser without downloading a separate programme. A novel technology called “WebRTC” was used for this, which exchanges data directly between two parties. It was therefore possible for salespeople to share the display and present concrete products to customers on the platform. A planned exhibition stand thus became a permanent showroom that is accessible up until today.