How the Grinch Stole GlobalShop
Have you ever had a sneaking suspicion that something’s just not right? I had just such a premonition shortly before GlobalShop 2006, a retail-design extravaganza in Orlando, FL. Lucky for me, I followed my instincts and brought a backup plan because, as I’d predicted, disaster struck my program.

As the marketing director for Dallas-based Design Solutions USA, the plan for our 10-by-10-foot booth at GlobalShop was to rent a new high-tech projection unit that allowed us to showcase our portfolio via a custom slide show of large-format images. Since our company creates over-scale holiday settings for clients’ venues (think giant Christmas ornaments and displays in corporate atriums, Rockefeller Center, and shopping malls) we’d have been hard-pressed to fit more than three of our gigantic Christmas ornaments in our booth.

We had used a similar strategy in the past, displaying our portfolio in large-format images to help attendees instantly understand what we do. But this new slide-show-like system was a huge technological upgrade from our previous display, lending what we hoped would be an added sense of professionalism and charm. Thus, we put all of our eggs in one basket and chose a single vendor to pull off this slide-show-style presentation.

Leading up to the show, however, the vendor we’d selected — then paid in advance — seemed to have one setback after another. It started a few weeks into the project when the vendor’s sales rep suddenly left the company, leaving us in the hands of the sales manager. Then, a couple of weeks before the show, things began to unravel completely.

When I called for an update on the project, the Florida-based vendor wouldn’t answer my calls or return my messages. I then resorted to sending e-mails asking for updates or at least to have my phone calls returned, but those went unanswered as well. I only received automatic responses that indicated that the vendor’s phones were out due to hurricane Katrina — an unlikely excuse as the hurricane hit seven months earlier.

About a week before the show, I finally received a proof of our slide show from the manager, which seemed encouraging. However, aside from this one-time, one-way communication, he remained impossible to track down, and my trust in him continued to diminish by the moment.

Not one to give up, I located the manufacturer of the display unit — my AWOL vendor was a distributor, seemingly the lone rental distributor at the time — who gave me a number to the vendor’s shipping department. A call to the shipping department revealed that there was no order in place for my company. I had no choice but to badger the sales manager, as he was my only other contact.

Of course, he didn’t answer my first few calls, but after I left several messages, miracle of all miracles, he finally answered. He assured me that despite the shipping department’s claims, my order was in place, and he even gave me his cell-phone number so I could contact him from the show floor if anything went wrong.

Given his response rate, which was turtle slow at best, I figured his cell-phone number would be of little use if I found myself standing in an empty 10-by-10. So with less than a week to go before the show, I tried to find a new projection system to rent. However, all of the suppliers I found wanted me to buy, rather than rent, the system, and without our custom slide show in hand, there was no point in laying out that kind of cash.

Finally, I went to our company president and lead designer, Stephen Stefanou, and told him I thought the vendor might let us down. We agreed that if we wanted to ensure a successful show, we needed a Plan B.

Realizing that the high-tech slide show was just not going to happen, I knew I needed to find something big that would attract attendees’ attention while giving a clear indication of what we do. And I needed to develop this new plan fast, because the show was just days away.

To communicate our expertise with large-scale corporate holiday displays, Stephen and I decided to start from scratch, creating an over-scaled, custom-sculpted Santa throne as the centerpiece for our booth. Hand-carved out of wood, upholstered in flocked, red velveteen, and studded with giant faux jewels, the throne was finished in less than a week, when normally it would have taken that long to green light the design.

Since I wanted nothing to go to waste, the throne was large enough that it could become the centerpiece of our booth, yet small enough that if by some miracle the projection system showed up, I could squeeze both the slide-show unit and the throne into the booth. With just days to go before the show, I had the throne shipped to Orlando along with print copies of our company’s portfolio.

The first day of setup, I arrived at the booth space to find exactly what I expected: my last-minute Santa throne and nothing from the projection-system vendor. Even though I had little faith in a last-minute delivery, I called the manager’s cell phone, but he never picked up. Big surprise. So I began working on the backup plan.

We set up the throne dead center in the booth along with a few smaller holiday ornaments around the exhibit space. I had also pre-printed some flyers promoting the throne and our services, and when the show floor opened, we began passing them out to attendees around the exhibit hall.

Because I’d listened to my instincts and we’d created our Plan B ahead of time, our backup plan worked so well you’d have thought it was our original plan. The throne was a huge hit with attendees, who, like little kids at Christmas, all wanted to sit in the big chair. Many pulled out their cell phones or digital cameras to get photos of themselves on the giant throne, which could be seen from several yards down the aisle.

Best of all, once we had attendees sitting down in the throne, we could show them the print version of our portfolio, which provided plenty of one-on-one time with prospects. I was happy with our Santa-throne solution even if I was not happy with our Grinch of a vendor. I never heard from the company again, and only got a refund when I disputed the charge through my credit-card company.

Needless to say, these days I always listen to that tiny voice that tells me something isn’t right. The sooner I see trouble coming, the sooner I start making new plans. That’s the best way to keep from finding a lump of coal on the show floor.

— Barbara Petricini Buxton, marketing director, Design Solutions Inc., Dallas