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 When you're selling potatoes, it's tough to come up with a suitable
trade show giveaway. You can't really distribute handfuls of fries, and whole potatoes
aren't exactly coveted swag. So at the 2009 United Fresh Produce Association show, Oakdale, CA-based Discovery
Garden's distributed 16-page recipe books featuring five potato recipes (from Mayan potato salad to roasted potato crostini with pesto cheese). The books also contained information on its Sierra Gold potatoes, a new variety being featured in the booth, including tips on how to prepare, store, microwave, roast, and mash them. The little recipe books were branded with the Sierra Gold logo and the Discovery Garden's URL. Then, to add an aromatic allure to the exhibit, Discovery Garden's staffers cooked up samples of the dishes featured in the book, giving visitors a savory taste test of the company's products and recipes - and filling the booth with an oh-so-sumptuous scent.
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Plenty of companies claim their exhibits are all about face-to-face communication, but few put their marketing where their mouths are. Super Color Digital of Irvine, CA, is one of the few. At GlobalShop 2009, the  digital-printing firm filled its 20-by-40-foot space with nothing but a round black ottoman and a white carpet bearing the "Super Color" logo and words such as "strength," "pride," and "trust" peppered across it in black text. Accompanied by two staffers and a portfolio of the company's work, every inch of the booth focused solely on personal interaction with attendees. As curious attendees stopped to ask, "Is this a booth or a lounge?", the staffers pounced, explaining the company's offerings and pointing out past projects in the portfolio. Costing 95 percent less than Super Color's 2008 GlobalShop booth, the minimalist masterpiece also brought in 30 percent more leads. With results like that, this un-booth booth is face-to-face at its finest.
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Want to draw attendees into your exhibit? Then show
them the way with a clear path into and through its heart.
At the 2010 World of Concrete show, Stihl Inc. wanted
to lure attendees out of the aisles and into the core of
its 20-by-20-foot booth, featuring numerous product
displays and  construction-vest-clad staffers eager to
assist them. So Stihl dissected its beige
booth carpet with a black rubber
mat, which was adorned with vinyl
yellow and white tape to create
the appearance of a black
asphalt road. Gently curv-
ing from one side of
the booth to another,
the faux road even
featured highway
signs reading "Low-
Maintenance Area Ahead"
and "Stihl Power Next 50 ft."
Just like a city thoroughfare at 5
p.m., Stihl's inter-booth road was
bumper to bumper with traffic.
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Hoping to save a few trees, Mohawk Carpet
LLC created a one-of-a-kind press kit for the
Hospitality Design Exposition & Conference.
Rather than distributing bulky paper press kits
or even loading its product information onto USBs, CDs, or DVDs, the carpet manufacturer simply printed up 6-by-7.5-inch postcards that directed attendees to its online Media Resource Center (www.themohawkgroup.com/media). The card, which was made from recycled cardboard, featured colors and patterns that mimicked the company's Durkan line of patterned carpet, along with a logo, contact information, and the words "virtual media kit." The clever press-kit substitution looked more like an invitation to a special event than mundane marketing collateral, presented a call to action for curious journalists, and reduced the company's paper consumption to boot.
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 Firefighters in general, and particularly those at the Fire-Rescue International show, prefer a realistic demonstration to a canned product presentation any day. So to promote its First-In Fire-Station Alerting System, featuring the sirens, strobe lights, and voice announcements used to alert firefighters of the location and severity of their next call, Huntington Beach, CA-based Westnet Inc. bypassed traditional exhibitry in favor of a realistic fire-station environment housed within a 48-foot tractor-trailer. Emblazoned with couldn't-miss images of flames and the First-In brand name, Westnet's mobile faux fire station featured a kitchenette and a control room on the lower level. A narrow staircase near the back led to a second-story space, where attendees discovered bunk beds as well as access to an open-air conference center atop the trailer. The self-contained product demo not only made attendees feel right at home; it also helped them imagine their home with a First-In alerting system in it.
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 Amag Pharmaceuticals Inc. set out to make a splash when it launched its new IV iron therapy. The biopharmaceutical company developed an ad campaign that featured several fish swimming inside a tiny fishbowl. In the ad, one of the fish leaps out of the cramped bowl and into a much roomier one. The ads were designed to symbolize that while there are many existing options for the treatment of iron-deficiency anemia, its new therapy has emerged from that crowded pack and is in a class - err, fishbowl - of its own. To reinforce that message in its booth at the 2009 American Society of Nephrology show, Amag Pharmaceuticals worked with exhibit-design firm Access TCA Inc. to create a "water world" inspired by the ad campaign. In the booth, a large back-wall tower structure was designed to loosely echo a fishbowl shape with hanging overhead structures that emulated water splashing out of the bowl. Water fountains completed the ad-inspired aesthetic and left attendees, well, bowled over during their booth visits.
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Owens Corning wanted
attendees to think pink at the 2009 International Builders'
Show. After all, the company's insulation products are an unmistakable pink hue. So it brought in its mascot - the Pink Panther - to walk the aisles and attract a little attention from attendees. Plus, his likeness dotted nearly every nook and cranny inside the company's booth, from signage to an overhead structure that defined the space. The plethora of pink helped brand Owens Corning as a corporation with, well, a lot of character.
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