As any exhibit manager who's ventured into the virtual realm can attest, standing out at a digital trade show is a tricky circle to square. Many official show platforms offer exhibitors just enough pixels to create a cyber 10-by-10 and enough server space for a short video and a few downloadable PDFs. Confronted with these limitations, some marketers choose to route attendees to stand-alone microsites or 3-D booths that mimic the show-floor experience. But the question remains: How can one leave an impression on stay-at-home attendees whose fingers are weary from scrolling and eyes are bloodshot from screen time?

That challenge was top of mind for Debbi Kemp, senior exhibits marketing manager at Canon Medical Systems USA Inc., when it came time to plan for the massive, all-digital 2020 Radiological Society of North America Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting (RSNA). While this seasoned face-to-face marketer leaned into virtual exhibiting early in the pandemic and, with the help of her partners at Pinnacle Exhibits Inc., staged a number of hyper-realistic digital stands, she knew that a show as important as RSNA warranted thinking on a grander scale. Thankfully, that mindset comes easily to Kemp. "I don't like to do things the way everyone else does them," she says. "Based on our experiences at past virtual trade shows, we knew that nearly everyone would gravitate toward traditional virtual booths or hospital-themed environments at RSNA, and I didn't want to do that. I wanted to break away from the norm."

And Kemp didn't have to look too far for inspiration. Canon's recent marketing campaign featured its medical-imaging equipment placed in a gallery-like setting, on the walls of which hung framed prints illustrating the captivating, highly detailed – and some might say "beautiful" – ways the company's devices can peer inside the human body. The campaign was a hit with Canon's customers and internal stakeholders, so Kemp met with the Pinnacle team and told them she didn't want a booth. Nor did she want a simple gallery. She wanted an entire virtual museum.

Thinking Outside the Box
As someone who's worked closely with Kemp for years, Jeff Spitler, senior experiential designer at Pinnacle, was quick to understand her vision and the reasoning behind it. "Debbi wanted an experience that provided visitors with the right balance of content in a context that encouraged exploration and retained their interest," Spitler says. "The art-museum concept was a perfect fit, as it would allow us to integrate the many touchpoints needed to deliver in-depth product information in a natural and easy-to-navigate setting."

Freed from the constrictions of traditional exhibiting, Kemp and Spitler figured that Canon could immerse RSNA attendees in a museum campus in which individual galleries showcased the company's six imaging modalities – computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR), ultrasound (UL), X-ray, vascular, and molecular imaging (MI) – as well as its health-care information technology, service, and education offerings and strategic partnerships. Each modality gallery would be a 360-degree environment offering artful displays, 3-D product renderings, and a plethora of visual and textual content, all navigable and accessible via hot spots. In addition to stoking attendees' curiosity and fostering a sense of discovery by highlighting Canon's offerings in discrete spaces, the art-gallery format would give a spatial limit to how much content could be displayed. "Ultimately, we would have 10 galleries, so I knew we were in danger of overwhelming our audience," Kemp says. "I didn't want attendees to sit at their computers for hours and hours, so I gave each of my modality groups a template that capped them at a certain number of products, videos, etc. This ensured that visitors had a similar experience when they went into each space."

Meanwhile, the Pinnacle team got to work designing an environment that would enable Canon to go toe-to-toe with competing brands such as Philips, GE Healthcare, and Seimens. "Our initial inspiration came from the Museum of Modern Art in Astana, Kazakhstan, which features bold, minimalist forms," Spitler says. "The creative team started with a rough plan of the museum grounds and, using images from architectural examples, explored various ways to bring it to life via 3-D modeling." After reviewing a number of possible layouts, Kemp and Spitler settled on a blueprint comprising a large main building, six modality galleries, and a four-story satellite structure for Canon's additional services.

With the floor plan set, it was time for Pinnacle to do the heavy lifting – i.e., designing and rendering the 67,525-square-foot campus using the exhibit house's proprietary DigitalEXP virtual-event platform. And Kemp didn't want bare-bones white boxes, but richly detailed spaces that came as close to real life as possible. For Pinnacle, that meant considering everything from the style of the benches in the lobby and the angle of the sunlight streaming in from multiple skylights to the reflections of objects in the polished floor. And, apropos of an art museum, each gallery needed to feature an artistic installation that referenced an attribute of the Canon technology on display. Devoting time, energy, and dollars to such minutiae may seem foreign to some marketers, but Kemp feels that these elements are reflective of Canon's culture. "Part of our mission statement is 'Made for You,' as in radiologists," she says. "Our attendees live and work in sterile hospitals every day. I wanted to capture the luxury of a museum and for this space to feel inspiring and relaxing. People learn more and retain more in a relaxed environment. That's why we took these extra steps."

As Pinnacle toiled with bits and bytes, Kemp focused on another crucial priority: live product demos. After all, when you're dealing with equipment as large as a CT machine, trade shows are one of the few places radiologists can kick the proverbial tires. Although there'd be no real-world tire kicking at RSNA 2020, Kemp wrangled three trucks filled with audiovisual gear in order to offer the next best thing: live feeds from Canon's academies in Boca Raton, FL, and Irvine, CA, whereby product experts could take attendees on deep dives into the company's latest advancements. And 30 days out from the show, she also launched an ambitious marketing campaign that encompassed email blasts, ads in radiology trade magazines, teaser videos showing the exterior of the museum campus, and more. The goal? To generate enough pre-show buzz that no fewer than half of RSNA attendees who visited Canon's "official" booth in the association's exhibit hall clicked through to the Canon Museum of Medical Art. (Despite being a Platinum+ sponsor, the company was accorded little more than a virtual 10-by-10 in which it could showcase five products and a single brief video.)

Art Imitates Live
Whether attendees arrived at Canon's stand-alone experience via its RSNA booth or by simply typing in the URL, visitors were treated to sweeping aerial views of the vast campus, complete with placid pools, lush trees, and spotless sidewalks bathed in the rays of a rising sun. Upon entering their contact info, visitors were granted entry to the massive main building clad in white stone and glass. After watching a brief introductory video from Canon's president and CEO, attendees could explore the lobby, which featured an overhead art installation, views of a distant city skyline, and a 3-D model of the campus that also served as a wayfinding guide. Clicking on any of the six gallery buildings or one of the four floors of the satellite structure instantly transported guests to that locale. Attendees could also jump from location to location by clicking icons that remained on the right sides of their screens throughout their visits.

The X-ray gallery was dominated by a reflecting pool over which seemed to float 10 CXDI detectors, i.e., tablet-like devices used for X-ray imaging. Clicking the pulsating hot spot in front of the display elicited a pop-up window through which attendees could peruse a product overview, watch a video, download a trio of brochures, and view an array of clinical images taken with the devices. At the far end of the gallery – and beneath a smattering of suspended mirror-finish spheres – stood 3-D renderings of two more pieces of gleaming equipment, both executed with enough detail to make them seem as real as any show-floor model. Here, too, a pair of hot spots called up windows with additional info. And, in a nod to the germ of the art-gallery concept, the walls of the space featured frames containing X-ray images and photos of related products, the majority of which also boasted info-rich hot spots.

Each of the remaining galleries followed a similar format: an art-centric display, a small number of product renderings, framed content on the walls, and roughly a dozen hot spots. And although attendees' tours were self-led, they were far from alone. If any visitor spent approximately three minutes in a gallery, a live staffer would initiate a pop-up chat window to see if the attendee had any questions. Reps were even prepared to confab via video if a visitor desired. Of course, attendees were also able to click a "Chat" button on their screens any time they had a query.

Virtual guests could also visit the KOL Theater, an airy atrium where they could view Canon's key opinion leaders giving prerecorded talks on artificial intelligence, health-care IT, and more. Finally, attendees with appointments for live demos were linked to video conferences with a moderator/emcee and an equipment operator in Florida or California. During these demos, which included actual human models receiving ultrasounds and lying on the bed of a CT machine, attendees could ask in-depth questions and see how the equipment operates. "Our objective at any show is to meet, greet, and demonstrate," Kemp says. "That's a lot harder to do virtually, but these remote demos came close to matching the real-world experience. And our customers loved them because they got to feel the same buzz they would have on a trade show floor."

Once attendees departed, Canon's reps began collating their virtual footprints. Thanks to DigitalEXP's robust tracking and analytics capabilities, Canon had the ability to dig down to the granular details of each booth visitor's activities. For example, reps could establish which galleries an attendee visited, which hot spots he or she clicked, and which videos he or she viewed. Once all of these datapoints were analyzed, lead info was sent to regional reps for follow-up.

Exit Through the Gift Shop
Soon after RSNA closed its virtual doors, it became clear that Kemp had pulled off the exhibiting equivalent of painting the Mona Lisa while her competitors were fiddling with crayons. Canon not only lured 81 percent of association booth visitors to its stand-alone exhibit (crushing is pre-show goal of 50 percent), but also earned its highest Net Promoter Score in the company's recent history of exhibiting at RSNA. What's more, the live demos proved so popular that there was a waiting list of eager attendees who wanted the opportunity to engage with Canon's product experts. Even visitors without private appointments were hungry for the company's content, as attendees viewed more than 1,200 hours of video during the six-day event – more than could ever be achieved on a show floor, according to Kemp.

By all accounts, Canon's artful endeavor was a resounding success, but one that was hard-fought. "This was the most exhausting project I've ever taken on," Kemp says. "On a normal trade show floor, you're walking around, solving problems, fixing this or that. With virtual exhibiting, you're just constantly in front of a computer. It got overwhelming at times. But I so wanted to give attendees something they wouldn't normally see at a medical show, and I think we achieved that." So kudos to Kemp for showing her true colors by coloring outside the lines. E