How do you debut a new product called LiveRoof? You build a roof, of course. To introduce LiveRoof, a modular system that grows greenery on rooftops, wholesale nursery company Bachman’s Inc. built a 5-foot-tall wooden house at the back of its exhibit at the 2008 Minnesota Green Expo. The miniature building featured two windows, a green door, blooming planters, and a roof covered with lush greenery, while a looping video on a monitor attached to the front of the house shared information about the LiveRoof product.

Promoting your booth to show attendees is a no brainer. But what if you looked beyond your show and increased your target audience to other shows occurring in the same city? Exhibit house MG Design did just that at EXHIBITOR2008, an educational conference and exhibition for exhibit and event marketers held at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas last March. Instead of only targeting EXHIBITOR2008 attendees, MG Design purchased a list of exhibit marketers at ConExpo-Con/Agg, which was occurring simultaneously at the Las Vegas Convention Center, and sent e-mails to more than 1,000 of them. The e-mail offered complimentary EXHIBITOR2008 show access, and invited recipients to stop by the MG Design booth for a free $5 Starbucks gift card. Twenty ConExpo marketers made the trek to MG Design’s booth where they each spent roughly 20 minutes with staffers. Not a bad return for a $5 cup of coffee.






Exhibitors use trade show promotions to drive booth traffic, raise brand awareness, and build buzz. Online printing service Mimeo.com accomplished all three objectives with its guerilla-marketing plan at the 2008 Society for Human Resources Management Annual Conference and Show. Instead of investing in pre-show promotion, Mimeo staffers donned T-shirts during the show proclaiming “I want you to win an iPod,” and stationed themselves on shuttle buses, at the convention center, and in nearby hotels. Staffers then handed out cards proclaiming, “We’re giving away an iPod every 5 minutes” and directing attendees to the company’s booth. Each attendee redeeming the card at the Mimeo booth received a T-shirt that read “Pick Me” in vibrant yellow and white. During the show, undercover Mimeo employees hunted down attendees wearing the highly visible T-shirts and gave them a winning ticket, which they could exchange at the booth for a free iPod. The branded shirts not only generated show-wide buzz and visibility, they also helped increase Mimeo’s booth traffic by 50 percent over the previous year’s show. Plus, the guerrilla-marketing campaign cost the company a third of what it spent on pre-show promotion at the 2007 show.






No matter how old or how wise you might be, there’s still something alluring about buried objects. That’s why Qualcomm Inc., a wireless-communications enabler which supports products from its partners such as Dell Inc., created an archaeological dig in its booth at the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show. Qualcomm dumped a virtual truckload of sand that nearly filled its 60-by-60-foot booth and buried old technological treasures such as cell phones, computers, and cameras amid the sand. Throughout the show, three “archaeologists” — khaki-clad actors complete with shovels, brushes, and other tools — dug up the loot, offered a running commentary about the bygone electronics, and directed attendees to one of seven stations around the dig site to see the company’s up-to-date technology. The live-theater feel created buzz, drawing attendees like paparazzi to a premiere, and giving staffers loads of opportunities to gather contacts and share the Qualcomm message.