Dr.Cebrayil Valiyev/Baku was in 2014 in Germany for the EuroShop-exhibition and for store-checks in the Duesseldorf/Cologne-area prepared by the European Retail Academy.

He now visited Prof.Dr.B.Hallier to explore the situation for EuroShop 2017 and for a cooperation within Azerbaijan which with its 10 million people is a bridge between Europe and Asia. Potentially for spring 2017 both sides aim to launch a Retail Congress in cooperation with the University of Baku.
 

The first EuroShop Exhibition was organized in 1966 jointly by ISB/today EHI Retail Institute and the Duesseldorf Fair. In 1966 the title of the show was very ambitious: Europe was still in the very early beginning! Today this trianual event has become the World Leader in retail technologies. Its net area exhibition place in 2017 will be about 120.000 squaremeters.

The 2017 Show from March 5th-9th is innovating itself by segmenting the exhibition no longer in four but seven focal points: Shop Fitting and Store Design, Retail Technology, Expo & Event Marketing, Food Tech & Energy Marketing, POP Marketing, Lighting, Visual Merchandising. The European Retail Academy offers additionally store-checks in the Duesseldorf/Cologne Area on demand.
 

Germany did have its Federal Elections in September 2013 . The posters of the political parties asked the population to vote "ja/yes" for their candidates. The food-retailer REWE used this advertising environment to promote its private label "ja" ! In 1982 this low-price segment was introduced with 28 items , meanwhile there is a broad sustainable range of basic "ja" products throughout several store-formats of REWE as well as of its partners.

Another play of words concerned the word "Haushalt" which has on the one side the meaning "household" for the family and on the other "budget" within the public administration ! "Wir retten den deutschen Haushalt : we save the German houshold/the German budget".
 

At the second International Two-dimensional Code Industry Development Summit in Foshan/China Prof.Dr.B.Hallier was elected to become a member of the Preparatory Committee for the Summit 2020 with the agenda to establish a permanent global Coordination Organization (see also www.european-retail-academy.org/TUN)

According to Prof.Hallier in future the creation of new products will have to be based on the knowledge/wisdom that only globally standardized codes for product-innovations will enable marketing to enter the new world of the Internet of Things (IoT) and mass-consumption. Asia with its IT-driven young society is setting the frame for this development.
 

An obligatory part of PhD program at the Virtual college CIRCLE International (housed at the University of Vitez, BH) is the completion of oral comprehensive examination and defence of the thesis proposal in front of the committee. This year the CIRCLE PhD-Seminar took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which offered participants a great travelling opportunity to Balkans.

Alina Pukhovskaya (CV) visited the PhD-Seminar in Vitez and shared some impressions from the trip: "Bosnia and Herzegovina due to its geographical location had been repeatedly involved in major historical events such as the World War I (assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo) and the World War II (multi-ethnic resistance groups lead by Josip Broz Tito). Also it had been under the influence of different empires – Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian – and never lost itself but adjusted, taking the best out of the new cultures. However, the Bosnian War (1992–1995) caused so much pain and destruction that up to today every detail brings back the memories of the terror. Both photos are taken in the same city Mostar, which combines beautiful (renovated) old city and bombed business center."