For trade show exhibitors, sparks often take the form of problems that flare up due to budget cuts, mergers, and top-down demands. But if fanned by a clever exhibit-marketing professional, tiny sparks can become an inferno of effectiveness. Such was the case for this year's All-Star Award winners, Take winner Chris LaRoy, senior manager of industry events and trade shows at Cox Automotive Inc. After his company consolidated more than 25 brands under a single corporate umbrella, he realized his trade show program could benefit from a similar unification. So LaRoy devised a cohesive exhibiting strategy for 10 different brands at a single show, all without increasing costs.

For Rachel Nimmons, marketing analyst for the Partner Services Team at The Gatorade Co. (a division of PepsiCo Inc.), the unexpected spark was a top-down mandate to develop a new in-booth activity to present the science behind Gatorade's products. Her RFID-enabled passport program not only lured 64 percent of the show's attendees to the booth but also kept them there for 25 minutes.

So please join us in congratulating our newly crowned All-Star Award winners. Faced with pop-up fires that threatened their programs' effectiveness, these exhibit-marketing masters stoked the flames into blazes of success.

PANEL OF judges
Noelle Luchino Feist, director of experiential and event marketing, Mindbody Inc., San Luis Obispo, CA;
Steven Marchese, Diamond Level CTSM, manager, corporate events, Fujifilm Medial Systems USA Inc., Stamford, CT;
Vanessa Schultz, CTSM, manager, events, Illumina Inc., San Diego;
Susan Shuttleworth, exhibit-marketing consultant, McKinney, TX;
Melanie Swanson, CTSM Diamond Level, CMP, trade show manager, Johnson Health Tech North America, Cottage Grove, WI;
Dana Tilghman, CTSM, CMP, senior trade show and events planner, Minitab Inc., State College, PA