When UFI — The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry — set out to amplify the voice of an entire sector, they needed a partner who could match their global ambition. Today, we’re proud to announce that UFI has renewed their digital partnership with Snöball as their digital marketing partner across their portfolio of global events.
For more than nine decades, UFI has stood as the connective tissue of the exhibitions industry, representing organizers, venues, and service providers across every continent. Their work — from the flagship Global Congress to their regional European Conference 2026 in İzmir, depends on rallying a worldwide community to speak collectively in their own unique voice. That is exactly the kind of challenge Snöball was built to meet.
For Rachel Stephan, Snöball’s founder and snöballer-in-chief, the renewal is more than a business milestone:
“UFI isn’t just a partner — they’re the global voice of an industry we deeply believe in. Renewing this partnership is one of the proudest moments of our year. Chris and his team have trusted us with something that matters: the story of exhibitions, told to the world. That trust is not something we take lightly.”
A Mission Rooted in Community
UFI’s purpose is, at its heart, a human one. As Chris Skeith OBE, CEO and Managing Director of UFI, puts it:
“We stand for community. Our role is to connect communities all over the world, and we do that via events. Using the Snöball solution enables us to reach across 17 social channels, places we wouldn’t normally get to without.”
That reach matters. The exhibitions industry generates hundreds of billions in economic impact each year, but its real power lies in the connections it creates — between buyers and sellers, researchers and innovators, governments and the industries they serve. UFI’s mission is to make sure that story is heard, and Snöball is honored to help carry it forward.
Turning Speakers, Sponsors, and Delegates into Advocates
The cornerstone of the partnership is peer-to-peer activation: making it effortless for the people closest to UFI’s events — speakers, sponsors, partners, and delegates — to share their participation across 17 social networks. Chris describes the shift:
“Working with Snöball just makes it super easy to reach new audiences, reach new markets, and enable people to shout loud and proud that they’re happy to be a sponsor, happy to be a speaker, or happy to be attending the various different events.”
It’s a small change in workflow with an outsized effect on visibility. And as Chris notes, the simplicity is the point:
“It’s super easy with Snöball — it’s like a couple of clicks and it’s done. It makes it easy for our customers and partners to do it as well.”
Bringing the Story to Life with Sno-Motion
For the UFI European Conference 2026 in İzmir, UFI is taking peer-to-peer activation a step further with Snö-Motion, Snöball’s animated video share cards. Instead of a static graphic, every speaker, sponsor, and delegate gets a dynamic, motion-rich share card — making each personal announcement more eye-catching, more shareable, and more memorable in the feed.
You can see the campaign in action below:
Measuring What Matters
For an organization that reports back to stakeholders across the entire global event ecosystem, accountability is essential. The partnership has transformed how UFI demonstrates the impact of its advocacy work:
“From a UFI perspective, when we present back to our multiple stakeholders across the event space, we’re able to really monitor the reach — which historically just took ages, trying to map different accounts, see what click-throughs we had, what links we had. Being able to track it has been really, really helpful.”
What was once a manual, time-consuming exercise is now a clear, defensible picture of reach and resonance — one that informs strategy, validates investment, and earns continued support from members and partners alike.
Creating Headroom for the Bigger Mission
Perhaps the most meaningful outcome of the partnership is what efficiency has unlocked. With the operational burden of campaign coordination lifted, UFI’s team has been able to redirect their energy toward the work that only they can do: shaping the policy environment in which the global exhibition industry operates.
“Being able to do it more efficiently and demonstrate the reach easily has given us a bit more headroom as a business to focus on getting more advocacy depth. Going forward, we’re going to really be looking at talking to new audiences — supportive governments, ministers, embassies, and other entities that really need to know more about how exhibitions can play a massive part in driving the economies of the industries that the events serve.”
This is what a true partnership looks like: not just a vendor relationship, but a multiplier — freeing one of the industry’s most important institutions to do more of its most important work.
A Lesson for the Exhibition Industry
Asked what advice he’d offer to other organizers thinking about their own peer-to-peer marketing strategies, Chris distilled it to two principles: clarity of message, and ease of activation.
“Whatever your campaign, it has to resonate with your audience and also be really simple. Keeping the message super clear, whatever it is you’re doing, and then making it really easy for your customers to engage in their activations, their social posts or whatever — I think is a good recipe for success.”
That same philosophy is what UFI is bringing to its UFI European Conference 2026 in İzmir this June.
Looking Ahead
As Snöball begins the next chapter of this partnership, Rachel reflects on what makes the work with UFI distinctive:
“What I love about working with UFI is that they think globally and act with intention. Our team has poured itself into making sure every speaker, sponsor, and delegate has a simple way to add their voice to that mission.
Chris’s own words capture what a renewed partnership feels like from the other side of the table:
“Thanks to you and your team’s support — it’s really made my team’s life a lot easier, and we’re certainly seeing some measurable impacts on everything we’re doing.”
To UFI, to Chris, and to the global exhibitions community: thank you for trusting Snöball with your story. We’re honored to keep helping you tell it — louder, further, and to the audiences that matter most.
About UFI, The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry
UFI is the leading global association of the world’s tradeshow organisers and exhibition centre operators, as well as the major national and international exhibition associations and selected partners of the exhibition industry. UFI’s main goal is to represent, promote, and support the business interests of its members and the exhibition industry. Learn more at ufi.org.
About Snöball
Snöball helps event organizers and associations turn their audiences into their #1 growth channel through peer-to-peer referral marketing. By activating speakers, exhibitors, attendees, and members as advocates across 17+ social channels, Snöball delivers measurable ROI on event marketing spend. Learn more at snoball.events.
