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Some of the most successful product displays offer a little unexpected whimsy that not only puts the product in a suitable context, but also urges aisle-side attendees to whip out their cell-phone cameras and snap away. Straight Line Designs Inc. capitalizes on this fact, creating product displays that push the boundaries of trade show booths and border on honest-to-goodness art installations. Inside its 10-by-10-foot exhibit at the 2009 International Contemporary Furniture Fair, Straight Line Designs shined that whimsical spotlight on two equally whimsical pieces of furniture: a dresser fashioned to look like a little black dress, and a chest of drawers designed to look like its middle had been chewed down by an angry beaver. The little-black-dress dresser, for example, was displayed to look like it was hanging in a quaint little closet, backlit with a pretty-in-pink glow. The chest of drawers, aptly named the "Beaver Cabinet," was displayed with piles of wood shavings around its base, furthering the illusion that the forest creature had his or her way with the furniture. The adorable displays gave passersby an intimate peek at the company's design aesthetic as well as the brand's tongue-in-cheek personality.
 To salute the 100th anniversary of the Paris Air Show - and provide VIPs with
a memorable promotional item to take home and display after the show ended - Allegheny Technologies Inc. took a rather artsy approach. The Pittsburgh-based company commissioned a series of "modern retro" posters inspired by the history of the air show to display in
its booth during the 2009 event. Following the show, Allegheny framed the elegant works of art, repurposed them as executive gifts, and presented them to the company's prospects and top clients. Now that's a work of art that really works.
 For Australia-based Architecture Media Pty. Ltd., a simple wall was a functional element and a 3-D representation of its brand. The back wall of its roughly 20-by-20-foot booth at the 2009 Interior DesignEx show comprised approximately 60 sheets of plywood, arranged vertically with their half-inch edges facing the aisle. However, designers profile-cut the plywood to various lengths, creating what appeared to be two angular forms that protruded out of the back wall, like two angled rocks sticking out of a cliff face. The angled forms also mimicked the angles of the A and M in the company's logo. The simple, inexpensive solution not only branded the space and added eye-catching appeal; it did so without a single graphic image.
 When Chrysler LLC decided to offer attendees test drives at the 2009 Chicago Auto Show - a consumer show open to kids as well as adults - the auto giant hoped that everyone from parents and tweens to singles and seniors would take part in the moving demonstration. But soon, they also realized that children tagging along on a test drive might actually detract from the planned experience. So Chrysler needed to make sure that kids not only had a safe place to wait for parents taking part in a drive, but that this place also provided kid-friendly entertainment - otherwise, Mom and Dad weren't likely to stay long at the fair. While adults lined up to take a ride in Dodge trucks and Jeeps through an automotive obstacle course in Chrysler's exhibit, the surrounding area offered video games for older kids and safe, supervised rides on battery-powered Jeeps for the little tykes, making sure every member of the family experienced an age-appropriate activity. The result was a crowd
of happy kids who waited patiently while parents took their turn in a Chrysler vehicle.
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 To draw attention to its new technology - a device that detects the presence of traffic lights equipped with red-light cameras and warns approaching drivers - Cobra Electronic Corp. made fun of the oh-so-unfunny experience of getting a traffic ticket. Cobra stopped attendees in their tracks at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas by placing a traffic light with the red light illuminated at one corner of its 55-by-65-foot booth, along with scantily clad female staffers dressed as traffic cops. The officers "arrested" willing passersby and wrote them citations, which were actually tickets to an in-booth presentation in a theater that looked like a drivers' education classroom. There, booth visitors learned about the new product before they were released for good behavior.
When Deere and Co.,
owner of the iconic John Deere brand, wanted to design a new skid-steer loader and a compact track loader, it set up a focus group of more than 2,000 customers to gather suggestions. At the 2010 World of Concrete show, Deere wanted to make sure attendees knew that the new design implemented some of their very own ideas - and tackled some of their most pressing concerns. So it positioned one of the newly designed skid-steer loaders inside a Plexiglas "Suggestion Box" complete with a roughly 4-foot-long slit in the box top. Then it printed actual customer suggestions on roughly 2.5-by-4-foot white cards. The top of each card read, "My suggestion is...," and after each customer suggestion, Deere stamped the word "Completed" in bold red letters. Suspended above the loader, the cards formed a couldn't-miss overhead mobile.
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.
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