From MG Design’s perspective, BD was not taking full advantage of its huge array of exhibit properties, components, and graphics. “We have an extranet site for BD that lists all of their components,” Kasper says. “But just walking through the extranet wasn’t enough for all to understand the pieces. When a client looks at 2-D detail of a component, it’s so much different than seeing it in 3-D, kicking the tires, and saying, ‘now I get it!’”

To give all BD staff a chance to kick the tires on every exhibit available to them, MG Design pulled together a showstopper: a trade show floor with 19, 100-percent-complete exhibits, sporting lighting, graphics, and even live presentations. That’s a full trade show — for 14 people.

As attendees approached the exhibit hall — the transformed MG Design warehouse — they were greeted with the signs, posters, and aisle carpet typical of a full trade show for thousands. A ceremonial ribbon cutting, handled by MG Design’s president Michael Grivas and BD’s Grimm, officially opened the show floor for business.

The BD planners entered the hall to find the fully installed exhibits, ranging from 10-foot portable backwall displays and tabletop exhibits to the 20-by-30-foot double-deck BD corporate booth. Alongside the BD and other smaller exhibits, MG Design installed its own corporate stand, so BD staff who had not seen the exhibit at trade shows or industry events could better understand the full breadth of MG Design’s services.

At one of the stands, attendees were able to watch and participate in a live game-show presentation hosted by MG Design. A BD division had developed the presentation with MG Design for one of its events; now, attendees saw in action how that game show could be adapted for each business unit and exhibit property.

Anchoring the hall was BD’s double-deck corporate exhibit. Prior to the MG Design warehouse show, only two BD divisions had used the double-deck property at divisional events. Now, the other planners had the opportunity to walk through the 20-by-30-foot space and see how the double-deck option could increase their available workspace without requiring larger floor plans at their own shows.

Each booth was fully lit, with graphics and staff at the ready to answer questions about the exhibit and its components. “To have all of our various properties and components available, including pieces that aren’t widely used, was a wonderful opportunity,” Grimm says. “It was a primary benefit of the event. To be able to look at them with a peer, and hear a colleague say, ‘I use that all the time; here’s how I use it,’ that’s when light bulbs start to go on. Then the other person becomes more effective in her own use of the component. It’s really simple, and really effective.” While most of the exhibits were actual BD properties, MG Design did include stands developed for other clients so the BD team could see a complete inventory of available materials such as rental pieces, custom-fabricated components, and prefabricated system pieces.

According to Kasper, the internal event also offered a safe environment for MG Design to take some design risks — ideas that, again, can be difficult to verbalize or to fully understand when seen only in a 2-D rendering. “We did some things differently with their own booths that they hadn’t seen before,” Kasper explains. “It was a way for them to see something new and either say, ‘I like that,’ or ‘You’re out of your mind!’” For example, MG Design staff set up booth scenarios to demonstrate two design ideas which the team believed would have positive economic outcomes for their BD clients. In one, MG Design demonstrated how lightboxes could adapt to portable booths, which would save BD time and expense in graphics changes. Another space showed how a pop-up exhibit could be used to create a mural in a larger booth, which only a few BD divisions had tried at the time.

Even the MG Design corporate exhibit, which was fully installed at the event, showed off some edgier techniques for BD’s consideration. There, the design team built in a series of sensory experiences — including sight, sound, and smell — to help tell the MG Design story.

If there was one idea that everyone agreed on, it was a toolkit known as the BD Meeting in a Box: a working example of the rejuvenated idea-sharing and transferable thinking Grimm, Kasper, and Tamburrino had hoped for. Originally developed in response to a request from a BD staffer for a simple, ready-to-go exhibiting kit for small, regional sales events, MG Design included the Meeting in a Box in the exhibit hall. There, several BD staffers saw the kit for the first time, and immediately saw an application for their own needs — efficiently building on a solution created for one of their peers. “It’s great to see that spark, where someone’s solution to a problem is now sharable,” Grimm says. Before the joint event, it’s likely that the other eight divisions would not have easily learned about or understood the Meeting in a Box product, which had obvious and practical advantages for each division.

“One of the things that made this all so cool was how comprehensive it was,” Tamburrino says. “We started with seminars about how important it is to staff an exhibit and man an event properly, then they walked into our trade show floor in the warehouse and saw the principles in action. It was all integrated so beautifully.”

Integrated Details

It was this attention to every detail that drove home to BD just how much MG Design valued their longstanding business ties. “We sent attendees pre-show invitations, we sent them tchotchkes, we called to personally invite them to attend — all in the name of creating some buzz,” Kasper says. “We did room drops at their hotel, and had posters and carpet on site just like they were attending a real trade show. It’s simply the way any attendee wants to be treated, and it showed them the full range of what we can do for them.”

The detail continued through an evening meal to celebrate the end of the event’s first day. Instead of simply making reservations at a local restaurant, MG Design treated the BD staff to a private dinner and tour at the Milwaukee Art Museum, with its famed Santiago Calatrava-designed pavilion. It’s an awe-inspiring venue for a group of hundreds — so imagine the impact on a group of 14. “The Milwaukee museum dinner and tour were treated as we would handle any large-scale special event,” Kasper says, adding, “It was a great way for us to show off our other talents beyond exhibit design and logistics.”

The next morning, the group returned to MG Design’s warehouse and offices for a second day of learning and hands-on experience. Now, the BD team broke into three groups, which rotated through three functional areas at MG Design, gaining the opportunity to dig deeper into a particular process or to ask follow-up questions prompted by the earlier day’s events. While one group toured the full MG Design facility and met with department managers, the second explored the BD-specific project-management extranet with MG Design developer Cindy Yi. Meanwhile, the third group returned to the exhibit hall to ask more questions about the components and stands they had been introduced to the day prior.

Adaptive Reuse

The 14 attendees’ reports on content, value, and the overall experience of the event were uniformly positive. And more important, the event is paying off in streamlined planning efforts and more creative yet efficient use of BD’s complete suite of exhibit components. More BD divisions are using the lightbox graphics technique MG Design demonstrated at the event, and four more BD teams have already begun to use or have budgeted to adapt and use the scalable Meeting in a Box solution, originated by MG Design for one of the BD teams’ exhibit-planner colleagues.

Grimm is so pleased with the results that he asked MG Design to explore ways to repurpose the event into a touring effort of sorts, bringing Tamburrino’s seminars and select exhibit properties to new BD exhibit planners and other BD marketing managers nationwide who may not have direct involvement with trade shows or events. “There are marketing stakeholders out there who have some discretion over our budgets who could benefit from this,” he says. “Early in my career at BD, I was asked to assemble a master view of where our marketing spending goes. Trade shows were our largest category after paid media. But because it’s divided across nine divisions and nine budgets, until you look at it collectively you don’t realize how big the investment is. So by pulling the teams together and identifying common issuesand best practices, while building a social network for ongoing work, this was a huge opportunity to work together to be more efficient.”

MG Design, too, is seeing benefits from its substantial investment in the event. BD staff are better educated and more aware of the products and services available to them at MG Design, streamlining project discussions and decision making. Its Meeting in a Box solution is receiving additional orders, growing a new revenue stream. And most important, this valuable and longstanding relationship has been refreshed. “I’m proud to say that we’ve always had a good relationship with BD,” Kasper says. “This gave us the opportunity to create stronger camaraderie both within their team and with ours, and to really solidify the relationship.”

Grimm agrees. “It’s paying great dividends for us,” he says. “I have a macro thought about the approach. When two parties in a relationship know they have enough safety to cajole and convince the other to try something new, I’ll wager that good will come out of that kind of freedom. Here was an opportunity for MG Design to change the game a bit. We trusted them, and they did it. It has tremendous promise for the next wacky idea that comes along.” e