St John draws a crowd at A-OSH

The St John South Africa exhibit at the health and safety exhibition, A-OSH Expo, promoted the numerous services offered by the organisation, which brought many delegates to the stand.

St John offers various services of which training is its core business. This was also the focus of the organisation’s stand. Chris Martin, business development manager at St John, noted: “In terms of positioning the St John brand, it is very important for people to be aware of the core business, which consists of training in first aid, home-based care, occupational health and safety (OHS) and the relevant courses around OHS.

“Although the St John brand has been around in South Africa for 135 years, people often fail to see where the organisation fits in.” The A-OSH Expo also gave St John the opportunity to meet up with both current and potential customers.

“There are many of our clients in attendance. We want to use the opportunity to leverage the brand and showcase our new products,” Bheko Hlengwa, marketing officer for training at St John, explained. One of these new products is a one-year national certificate in occupational health, safety and environment.

St John has attended A-OSH for three years. Its motivation to return each year is the number of visitors to its stand. Hlengwa stated: “We’ve attended a few other events, but at A-OSH the atmosphere is always good. It is worthwhile for St John to be here.”

Martin echoed his co-worker saying: “I’ve been pretty overwhelmed by the kind of response we’ve had. Many delegates recognised the brand from training they received while still at school. It is great to see that the brand has stayed with them and that it brought them to our stand.

“We didn’t have the biggest exhibit, but we had a lot of traffic. We even ran out of cards a couple of times, and that is exactly the kind of response we were looking for.”

He concluded that St John will definitely return to A-OSH.