The Show Your Colours Award IPM 2016 will be presented at the 2016 Internationale Pflanzen Messe (IPM) trade fair in Essen, Germany. All the IPM participants were invited to submit a plant and its background story. Thirteen plants and/or concepts will be competing for the award...

Emotion and perception

Buying plants often goes hand in hand with emotion and perception. At the sales outlet, they tend to be impulse buys which are guided by emotion. For this reason, it is important to attract the attention of the customer at the moment of purchase.

The Show Your Colours Award IPM 2016 responds to the emotion generated by the plant by means of the familiar emoticons: the yellow faces on our smartphones, tablets etc. which highlight how we are feeling and lend extra emphasis to our story. These emoticons have therefore been added to the communication about the plants, to capture the attention of the customers to an even greater extent. Together with a brief description of the plant, this provides an extra impetus at the sales outlet.

Show Your Colours Award IPM 2016

In alphabetical order, the thirteen plants/concepts which are competing for the Show Your Colours Award IPM 2016 are as follows:

Buxus sempervirens BUXUS JEANS OF GARDEN, Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Blue Moon', Fascicularia bicolor GARDEN BROMELIA, Gaultheria procumbens GAULTIER PEARL (‘SPECGP11’), Hebe GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY ('Lowag'), Hibiscus syriacus in varieties, Hydrangea macrophylla hybride, Hydrangea macrophylla MAGICAL in varieties, Loropetalum chinense EVER RED (‘Chang Nian Hong’), Paeonia RICH AND SPARKLING (Itoh Group) in varieties, Ribes/Rubus/Vaccinium in 100% organic cardboard pot, Skimmia japonica DWARF Series, Viburnum plicatum KILIMANDJARO SUNRISE (‘JWW5’).

Judging

Before the fair, people can vote for the twelve nominees online. From week 2 (11 January 2016), the websites www.IPM-essen.de and www.bizzcommunications.nl will have links which lead directly to the poll. At the fair, visitors can also vote using tokens until the end of Thursday morning at the BIZZ Holland stand and at the East entrance to the fair. On Thursday afternoon, the plants and their stories will be judged by an expert jury consisting of Michel Verbeek from Flora Holland, Sytse Berends Blunt Communicatieadvies|Peak Retail, Werner Oschek, trade journalist from various German trade journals and Oliver P. Kuhrt from Messe Essen, together with a mystery member. The verdict of the jury, together with the votes received via the poll and the tokens, will ultimately produce one winner. The award ceremony will take place at around 3.30 pm on the afternoon of Thursday 28 January, on the BIZZ Holland stand (stand number 12A13).

The Show Your Colours Award IPM 2016 is a collaboration between the organisers of IPM and BIZZ Communications.