March 2011

ammunition

At the 2010 International Hotel, Motel + Restaurant Show, The Steritech Group Inc. hit the streets with a tongue-in-cheek protest to draw attention to its bed-bug elimination services. Visitors to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York were met by nine faux picketers from the Bed Bug Lovers Opposing Oppression and Death (BLOOD) organization. Supposedly picketing on behalf of the millions of bed bugs killed by Steritech's services, the picketers held signs with clever slogans, such as "It's Just a Love Bite!" They also chanted "Save the right to bite at night" and handed out 4-by-6-inch yellow fliers. While bold letters at the top of the fliers read "Our bed bug blood brothers have just 24 hours to live!" text below urged attendees to visit Steritech's booth. The clever promotional tactic not only extended Steritech's presence off the show floor; it also drew hundreds of curious attendees to the company's teeny 10-by-10-foot booth to find out more. Have you ever wondered whether your company's advertising dollars are well spent? If so, you may just find your answers in your own exhibit. For a recent Radiological Society of North America show, Hitachi Medical Corp. employed a traditional passport system throughout the booth (where attendees needed to have a "passport" card stamped at various stations to qualify for a prize drawing). One side of the card also contained a survey that needed to be completed before attendees could enter the drawing. The survey, then, gathered data about which medical journals attendees read and which radiology websites they visited most frequently. After the show, Hitachi redirected its media schedule and retargeted its advertising based on the survey results. When Dupont wanted to display its line of semi-transparent Corian at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, it felt the best way to showcase the material's moderate opacity was to shine light through various samples. But backlighting product samples on a harshly lit trade show floor is a risk, as the display's effectiveness could easily be outshined by the exhibit hall's ubiquitous overhead fixtures. So to keep ambient light from ruining the display's effect, the company created a tube-shaped, phone-booth-like structure and positioned it on one corner of its booth space. Complete with a roof, and featuring only two small doorway-like entry points, the structure successfully blocked out the overhead fixtures. Passing through, or stopping for an extended exploration of the transparent backlit material, curious attendees were guaranteed to see Dupont's Corian samples in the best light possible. To make its network of dealers feel special, fire-suite provider Globe Manufacturing Co. LLC offered them VIP access to the exhibit hall at a recent Fire Department Instructors Conference. As part of a sponsorship through show management, Globe negotiated the opportunity for its dealers to access its booth two hours prior to the show. Dealers received an exhibit-hall access ticket in the mail shortly before the show informing them of their "special" status. This free opportunity not only meant that Globe's dealers felt like show-wide VIPs, but it also meant that dealers spent valuable time in Globe's booth - long before competitors' booths were even open. When's the last time your giveaways netted you two hours of quality time with VIP prospects - and no competitors?		How does a steel and metal trading group create a sophisticated exhibit and still show off its products? At the Tube show, Kama Foreign Trading Ltd. turned its 30-by-32-foot space into an elegant steel sculpture. The Turkish company arranged more than 25 sections of its steel in a circle, creating an artistic structure that featured ample meeting space while keeping the spotlight on Kama's offerings. Installation and dismantle are often time- and money-intensive challenges, especially if your at-show I&D crew is unfamiliar with your property. Jim Anderson, founder of Steelhead Productions, a Silverdale, WA-based exhibit house, has a simple solution. "Ask your exhibit house to build your booth in its warehouse - preferably before the booth's first show - and to take photos of the various stages of assembly," Anderson says. Then label the photos step one, step two, etc., add any details necessary to speed up the I&D process, and make two sets of copies - one set for your I&D crew, and one set for your own on-site reference. With a photographic guide to I&D, your crew will have both words and images to aid their on-site progress. Pella Corp. let attendees have a ball while having their say at the International Builders' Show in Las Vegas. The well-known window manufacturer debuted a handful of windows it's considering for production, including one with embedded LED lights that glow at night, another with decorative elements hung between two glass panes, and a third that allows homeowners to mount photos between its panes. To gauge attendee interest in the prototypes, Pella invited booth visitors to scan their badges and grab a Pella-yellow ping-pong ball from a trough in the booth. Then, by placing the ball inside the cylindrical glass tube near the prototype they preferred, attendees could vote for the window they'd most like to see produced for sale. The simple promotion spotlighted some creative products on the horizon, while making booth visitors feel like they had a say in Pella's future product development.
		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.