June 2011

ammunition

How do you demonstrate the flushing power of a toilet without getting your hands wet? If you're Maria Gustafsson, owner of Pacific Toilets LLC of Los Angeles, you use golf balls and a strainer. The company's high-efficiency toilet tank uses less water per flush than traditional 3-gallon-per-flush models. But Gustafsson wanted to make sure attendees at the 2010 Kitchen & Bath Industry Show knew the tank was just as powerful as its water-guzzling competitors. So throughout the show, she invited attendees to gather around a toilet sitting on top of a wooden platform. As soon as a small crowd was assembled, she dropped 12 golf balls into the bowl, pulled the lever, and watched the balls shoot down the toilet drain, out the bottom, and into a strainer under the platform, like Mickelson's shot off the tee. The balls-out demonstration proved that less water didn't mean less power, and also added a bit of whimsy to an otherwise dry topic. It's not unusual for companies to hire a model to staff their exhibits at trade shows. It is, however, unusual for that model to be decked out in full-on pirate regalia. But the eccentric costume made sense for the model staffing the IOActive Inc. booth at the 2011 RSA Conference. The company, with U.S. headquarters in Seattle, provides computer security services that protect its users from hackers and uses a skull-and-crossbones graphic in its marketing collateral and in-booth signage. Thanks to the unusual outfit, this model was more than just a pretty face - she reinforced the company's pirate theme and served as a conversation starter to boot. Sometimes it doesn't take a lot of structure to make a big impression. At the 2010 International Parking Institute Conference and Expo, exhibiting company Magnetic Autocontrol turned its 20-by-20-foot island into a legitimate trade show landmark. Comprising little more than a raised floor, some rental furniture, and four columns supporting attached beams, the booth looked like the exhibit equivalent of the Great Pyramid. Reaching roughly 16 feet in height, the triangular pinnacle directed attendees' attention even higher toward a branded overhead sign. It might not be among the Seven Wonders of the World, but it was definitely one of the most iconic booths at the show. In today's tech-obsessed world, losing your laptop is like losing an appendage. Thankfully, Absolute Software Corp. offers a product that helps computer-carrying consumers locate lost or stolen laptops and prevent criminals from capturing critical data. Its Computrace LoJack for Laptops software tracks the physical location of a lost or stolen computer and allows consumers to delete data remotely. To illustrate the product's benefits (and the anxiety associated with losing a laptop), Absolute's exhibit at the International Consumer Electronics Show featured a pair of aisle-side product displays. One contained a row of airplane seats, while the other resembled the back seat of a taxi. In each display, a laptop left to fend for itself on the seats took center stage. A slide show on the laptops' screens featured messages such as, "Every 50 seconds one of us goes missing. Two-thirds of us are never returned," and "12,000 of us are lost in U.S. airports each week. Don't let me be another statistic." The unusual displays caught the attention of passersby, and the laptops' silent pleas drew them in for a closer look, giving staffers an opportunity to sweep in and extol the values of the company's security software. Now that's a message that wasn't "lost" on attendees.		At a show like Radiological Society of North America, it's easy for attendees to lose their way inside behemoth exhibits filled to the hilt with massive medical machinery. So to help visitors navigate its booth without missing any of the product-display and demonstration areas, Carestream Health Deutschland GmbH created a path through its space using a stretch of bright orange carpet (which matched the company's corporate hue). The sweeping orange path bisected the white carpet in the exhibit, not only providing homage to the brand, but also leading attendees directly to each of the booth's different product areas along the way. Sometimes, simple isn't only better; it's also incredibly memorable. At the 2010 Healthcare Convention & Exhibitors Association Annual Meeting, Convention Plant Creations wanted to send a message about its reliability. So it created an aisle-side poster featuring an image of a baby orangutan hanging from a rope along with the text "Does your florist leave you hanging???" The company also distributed stuffed, battery-operated monkeys, which comically flailed their arms and legs, to qualified leads and scattered a multitude of monkeys around the poster. Sure, in reality, the tactic was little more than marketing monkeyshines, but the clever "... leave you hanging???" text and accompanying takeaway no doubt kept the company's message hanging around in attendees' heads long after the show.
		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.