getting numbers on leads and they look similar to what we saw
two years ago, which is actually pretty good considering the
European market has slowed down a lot in the last two years,
so we’re happy with the attendance,” he said.
Ellen Van de Woestijne, global market manager, Feed
Additives and Specialty Additives, Taminco found that for
her first European Coatings Show experience, the show
went very well.
“We had a lot of distributors from Asia and the Middle
East coming to visit the show. We also wanted to meet all our
distributors and follow up on last year and see what they want
for this year, and meet new customers who are interested,” Van
de Woestijne explained.
Dr. Ulrich Kusthardt, president, Evonik Industries, found
that the second day was the busiest for Evonik, and they enjoyed the discussions and talks going on for them at the ECS.
“The show was very busy, especially the second day, but I
would say there were less Asian visitors this year. There have
been very good talks, very intense discussions, and less people
that just ask for catalogs and go. I think maybe there are less
visitors than the last show, but that is not surprising because of
the slowdown of the economy,” Dr. Kusthardt explained
Dr. Kusthardt also explained that Evonik’s goal for the 2013
ECS was to get into talks with people about interesting new
projects and their innovation capabilities.
“We are organized by various business units working for
the coatings industry, but we are able to bring them all together,” he said.
Roberto Aroldi, industry manager coatings, Eastman
Chemical, said that in addition to being busy as usual, the attendance was very good.
“I attended the first show in 1991, and every year the attendance grows,” he said.
Dirk DiSantis, regional business director, Additives and
Functional Products, Eastman Chemical, added that the ECS is
a global show for the industry
“This is a great show because it’s really supported globally
by the industry and it’s well organized. So as an exhibitor, it’s a
great place to be. You get a lot of what you want, your custom-
ers are here so you can get a lot done in a short amount of time,”
DiSantis said.
“We hope people see Eastman is very active in a number of
different segments in the industry,” DiSantis added. “We really
try and supply across the industry. We’re on a path of introduc-
ing new technologies and products, and a lot of that innova-
tion is driven out of sustainability themes. A big part of our
work going forward is taking sustainability issues and making
them actionable in the industry. There’s a number of elements
to sustainability and our portfolio around innovation is heavily
weighted to target those things.”
Eastman was excited for the show this year, not only to intro-
duce new technologies and products, but also to share that they
were named the 2013 Energy Star Partner of the Year by the
Environmental Protection Agency in the United States for the
second consecutive year. Eastman was given the award based on
“This is a great show because
it’s really supported globally
by the industry and it’s well
organized. So as an exhibitor,
it’s a great place to be. You get
a lot of what you want, your
customers are here so you
can get a lot done in a short
amount of time.”
- Dirk DiSantis, Eastman Chemical
their strategic managing and improvement of energy efficiency
in 2012. Eastman Chemical is the first chemical company to get
this recognition more than once.
Zhi Li, president, Trust Chem explained that the number of visitors has seemed to increase for this year’s show.
Trust Chem’s goal for the ECS was to advertise new products
they’d developed.
“We have some new products on the market, so we want to
advertise them so people know we are launching products to the
industry to help to reduce costs,” Li explained.
An Asian distributor, Helmut Unkel, director, H.J. Unkel
Group, felt that compared to previous shows, the 2013 ECS was
the same if not better.
“It’s at least as good, probably even a little bit better in terms
of organization, but we found that all the booths were very well
constructed and nicely presented,“ Unkel said.
Alan Kalmikoff, president, Keim Additec Surface USA,
explained that he had not seen a show as strong since before
2008.
“If we compare the last seven exhibitions, over the period
of 14 years, we probably have not seen as strong of a show
since before 2008. A typical show in the early 2000s was more
like this, a lot of large anchors, a lot of large floor space, and
then we went into that period where it was a little less participation, people spent less money and had smaller booth. The
participation is always strong at this show, so this becomes the
premiere show other than Asia, so there are a lot of new faces
and a tremendous entourage of Chinese influence, and that’s
the influence of where the chemistry is coming from these
days,” Kalmikoff said.
“This is an upbeat show, bright, and our organization has
committed more money, resources and space to this show,”
Kalmikoff added. “I would say it’s paying off.”
Kalmikoff explained that the 2013 ECS was especially good
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