August 2011

ammunition

To give its exhibit a little local flavor at the 2010 TS² show, Champion Exposition Services Inc. turned to the event's host city of Boston for a little under-the-sea inspiration. It built a themed booth around the city's legendary lobsters. While the 20-by-20-foot space took on the aesthetic of a seaside restaurant, graphics included messages such as, "In a pinch? Don't get steamed." Other in-booth signage listed "today's specials," including delectable offerings such as "air and ground freight services, served with a generous portion of online capabilities," and "nationwide storage options, served over affordable, competitive rates." During show-floor hours, a booth staffer periodically appeared donning a lobster costume, and posed for photos in front of a display of lobster traps and a sign that read, "Please don't feed the lobsters." An open-air meeting space behind a wall that bisected the island exhibit featured fishing nets, plastic lobsters, a clock fashioned to resemble a lifesaver raft, and a table and chairs arranged to compliment the eatery-like exhibit. Talk about a delicious little design. At the 2010 Food Marketing Institute show, Alto-Shaam Inc., which manufactures appliances such as convection ovens and Frytech fryers, created a Periodic Table of Money-Saving Elements, and turned its booth into a learning lab. The Periodic Table featured 72 elements, divided into nine color-coded categories, each representing a different Alto-Shaam product and its unique cost-saving benefit. For example, element 17, labeled "Lg," represented the fact that Alto-Shaam's Combitherm CombiOvens boast "less gas consumption." While the periodic table was displayed via wall-mounted graphics, several product displays featured tabletop graphics bearing the symbols and meanings of the elements from that product's color-coded category. This booth proved it was more than the sum of its elements. If you don't believe a pair of shoes can change your life, goes an old joke, just ask Cinderella - or, if she's busy playing footsie with Prince Charming, ask ChipSoft B.V. The maker of software for medical specialists and hospital departments wanted to kick up some attention for itself at the 2010 Healthcare Infor- mation and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) show in Atlanta. So the company, which is based in Amsterdam, turned to the footwear as synonymous with the Dutch as leprechauns are the Irish: clogs. ChipSoft's booth staffers gave away branded, bright-yellow clogs made of soft plastic instead of hard wood to booth visitors who agreed to put them on tout de suite and traipse the trade show floor for an hour in them. With small, medium, and large sizes available, ChipSoft created a quirky yellow stampede on the show floor, handing out 500 pairs of clogs to attendees who visited its 20-by-20-foot booth, about 10 percent more than it expected. By offering a practical giveaway that would be used immediately - and in front of other attendees - ChipSoft turned visitors into foot soldiers championing its brand. To show attendees that it offers America's best brand of digital camcorders, Canon USA Inc. brought a finalist from MTV's "America's Best Dance Crew" to its booth at the International Consumer Electronics Show. Dubbed "Fanny Pak," the dance crew busted a move on stage in Canon's exhibit, while staffers captured the action on Canon high-definition camcorders and displayed the live feed on two screens on the stage's back wall. Dressed in colorful clothing, the photogenic dancers reinforced the fact that Canon can help consumers capture all their important moments in professional-quality footage, while the crisp, real-time videos proved the company's high-def claims.		In keeping with its Japanese heritage, Tokyo exhibit house Welkam Ltd. has a history of using paper cranes in its exhibit at EuroShop. At the 2008 show, the company suspended dozens of white paper cranes above its booth, and in 2011, it suspended three velociraptor-size cranes above its space. At the 2011 show, however, it provided attendees with some crane-making instructions and paper to take back home with them as well. Featuring Welkam's logo and URL, one side of the 8-inch-square piece of paper also included images of crane features (a beak, wings, etc.). The other side of the paper included info about Welkam's capabilities (offered in both Japanese and English) along with diagramed instructions on how to fold a paper crane. The giveaway not only tied closely to Welkam's heritage; it also gave attendees a memorable activity to remind them of the company after the show. Let's face it: Traditional exhibit flooring options are as tired as the attendees walking on top of them. To step it up a notch at the twice-yearly Magic Marketplace show in Las Vegas, while making a brand-appropriate impression underfoot, Goody Goody Shoes blanketed the concrete floor in its 10-by-20-foot space with interlocking puzzle-piece-like foam tiles wrapped in various fabrics, which matched the materials the company uses in its line of whimsical footwear. But to keep the charming floor tiles looking fresh throughout the entire show, Goody Goody Shoes covered each individual fabric tile in a protective transparent plastic film. Fun, functional, and fashionable, this flooring definitely left an impression on attendees that conventional booth carpet never could. When is a wall more than a wall? When it is an enormous projection screen, that's when. Behind its reception desk at the International Builders' Show, Kohler Co. built a soaring, branded wall. While the wall helped to delineate space inside the exhibit, it also served as the perfect projection area. Throughout the show, promotional video clips - as well as live segments being filmed in different areas of the booth - were projected onto the surface, lending Kohler's reception area a little energy, and projecting the company's key messages to attendees.
		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.