April 2011

ammunition

Lancer Insurance Co. had a very specific message to communicate at the 2010 Limousine Charter and Tour Conference. The company wanted LCT attendees to know that it is a stable, time-tested insurer with 25 years of experience in the industry. So rather than plopping a plain pop-up structure in its booth space, Lancer turned its exhibit into a makeshift castle. The exhibit featured tension-fabric walls printed with a brick-exterior graphic and a central faux-stone arch through which attendees could pass into a semi-enclosed meeting space. There, printed on the fabric wall, was a scroll-like graphic bearing what Lancer titled "Our Enduring Pledge." The four-point pledge promised attendees that Lancer would "battle for you on all claims, arm you with training weapons, remain vigilant at our post, and continue our 25 year commitment." Legends of brave knights and round tables might be better suited for storybooks, but this memorable, brand-appropriate booth was a welcome blast from the past. Most exhibitors at DesignEx in Sydney, Australia, showcase their interior-design products via sophisticated awe-inspiring product displays. But Forbo International SA went a step further; it covered every surface of its booth with them. The whimsical 39-by-20-foot island exhibit featured freestanding elements - such as a rainbow-shaped back wall and a 15-foot-tall faux tree - that were covered in Forbo's environmentally and socially responsible flooring products. Not surprisingly, Forbo products also covered the floor and comprised the flower-shaped elements embedded in it. The eye-catching exhibit put the company's products front and center - not to mention left, right, up, and down. It can be difficult to tell your company's story in a 10-by-10-foot exhibit space, especially if your story is about providing state-of-the-art technology that has been employed by a handful of parking garages in cities around the world. So to highlight its international scope and communicate the various benefits of its parking-related technology, Austria-based Indect Electronics and Distribution GmbH placed a touch-sensitive kiosk similar to Microsoft Surface inside its 100-square-foot exhibit space. Visitors to the company's booth at the 2010 International Parking Conference and Expo in Las Vegas could touch various points on a world map, which would then open inset windows with photographs and additional information on Indect parking technology in use in those foreign cities. Now that's an effective way to take a complex company narrative and condense it down for a relatively compact booth space. Denim brand Big Star took prod- uct displays to a whole new level at Project 2010, a division of the twice-yearly Magic Marketplace show in Las Vegas. Dressing the bottom half of 20 mannequins in Big Star blue jeans, the exhibitor created a human pyramid of sorts by stacking them into a three-tiered display that reached roughly 10 feet tall. The unexpected assemblage of denim-clad legs didn't just stop attendees in their tracks; it also prompted them to whip out their cameras and snap a few photos, making Big Star's booth one of the most photo- graphed on the Project show floor.		International shows can be a multilingual nightmare. So to scale the language barrier at the 2010 Radiological Society of North America show, Carestream Health Deutschland GmbH's staffers wore badge stickers to denote which languages they spoke. For example, if a staffer spoke German, his or her badge featured a sticker of the German flag. Foreign attendees simply looked for their country's flag, and lively conversation ensued. Looking to generate additional product or brand awareness at trade shows? Then make sure your exhibit staffers milk every ounce of effectiveness out of the keynote session, says Sarah Woodman, strategic marketing manager at Altairnano Inc. If a show's keynote offers a Q&A session, tell staffers to step up to the mic and ask a pertinent question, starting, of course, with an introduction including the staffer's name, your company, and its offerings. Something as simple as "Hi, I'm Bob Smith from ABC Widgets, which offers blue, green, and red widgets. My question is ." announces your company's name and its offerings to practically every attendee at the show. Want attendees to beat a path to your door - or rather, your exhibit? Then take a page from Cengage Learning Inc., a provider of teaching, learning, and research products. The company created a "TweepStakes" campaign featuring hourly tweets to attendees at the American Library Association Annual Conference following Cengage and/or the ALA show hashtag on Twitter. But these weren't your "stop by anytime" kinds of posts. They lured a specific group of attendees to the booth with the promise of a $5 Starbucks gift card; however, only the first five people to arrive would get one. For example, one tweet read "Welcome Maryland Consortium Members! The first five librarians from MD to booth #3911 win a $5 Starbucks gift card." By singling out unique audience segments and creating a time-sensitive offer, Cengage prompted attendees to speed to the booth like fashionistas to a sample sale.
		What's The Big Idea? Do you have a clever exhibit-related tip? Did your last exhibit have an über-cool traffic builder? Contact Travis Stanton at tstanton@exhibitormagazine.com.