 |
|
|
 |
| Table of Contents |
Print This Article |
Archives |
Buy This Issue |
Subscribe! |
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
 |
 n March of 2003, EXHIBITOR magazine rolled out an edgy, refreshing design and ratcheted up the editorial content with the addition of Corporate Event, the magazine within a
magazine.
 On July 11, Sizzle Awards judges followed suit. Holed up in a downtown Chicago hotel, four hard-nosed, marketing professionals held court — and held the program’s results in the palms of their hands.
After eight hours of viewing and analyzing, arguing and cajoling, judges handed over nine red-hot winners — the best of the best in exhibit and corporate-event promotions.
The 2003 Sizzle Awards competition, which honors excellence in trade-show and event-marketing promotions, drew 73 eligible entries, 30 percent more than in 2002.
Judges pored over these entries, grouped into 11 categories, and carefully examined print materials, images, and video. They looked at ads, invitations, mailers, booth photos, graphics, giveaways, and game pieces. They scrutinized each entry’s written synopsis, including its description of target audience, company description, goals, special challenges, project description, results, and budget.
By early afternoon, judges had 20 keepers. Around 4 p.m., they
got tough, eliminating all but nine smokin’ success stories.
Somewhere in between, they also arrived at this guideline: Promotional themes must be true and meaningful to exhibitors’ products and messages.
“Too many people come up with a theme and then try to shoehorn their messages and products into it,” one judge said. “That’s not unique, and it’s not hard. In fact, it’s just throwing money at it. Marketers need to reverse the process. The product and company come first, and the theme follows.” |
|
|
 |
|
|
Consequently, judges honored winners for tying promotions to their product messages in a manner that was innovative, meaningful to customers, and appropriate for the marketers’ companies.
“Most of the ideas we picked are unique to their individual companies,” one judge said. “For example, nobody else could pull off the cultural-based promotion from the government of Canada (page 20) and have it mean anything. Nobody else could do the prescription-bottle mailer from Phillips Plastics Corp. (page 24), or TransCore’s sardine-based parking theme (page 28), or Biovail’s blood-pressure game (page 22). They’re all unique to their companies.”
Along these same lines, judges offered some advice: “Exhibitors need to ask themselves: ‘Can anybody do this promotion if they’ve got the money?’ If the answer is ‘yes,’ then it’s the wrong promotion. But if only your company can do it and tie it into your products, then it’s yours. Go for it. Because that’s when people will remember it.”
Of course, measurable results were also key to the judges’ decisions. “You’ve got to show a direct return on the goals you set,” one judge said. Even two Canadian government agencies “found a way to measure goals and their results against them,“ the judge said. “Many nonprofit groups think handing out pamphlets and educating the public are goals and results in themselves. They’re not.”
Hats off, then, to this year’s Sizzle Award winners who survived expert scrutiny. And high fives all around for the judges, who extracted entries of excellence — and slid EXHIBITOR’s bar up another notch or two.  |
|
Linda Armstrong
senior editor |
|
|
|
 |
Dennis Boyle, 
