hen the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. needed an exhibit unifying its 13 Camel tobacco products at the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) annual convention last October in Las Vegas, it turned to Chestnut Ridge, NY-based MC² to help create a booth that would light up the show floor.

The Winston-Salem, NC-based company unveiled a 70-by-100-foot, double-deck exhibit that stood out with the intensity of a flaring cigarette in a dark alley. Attendees were drawn to the exhibit's 200-by-10-foot fabric header, mounted with 792 17.5-inch-square LED tiles, that wrapped the upper deck. As dazzled customers gazed at the Times Square-bright images of Camel products appearing on the header, R.J. Reynolds staff qualified and escorted them into the booth.

Once inside, the staff led attendees through a series of four product stations. The products - from cigarettes to chewing tobaccos - were arranged like rare museum artifacts in clear Plexiglas containers on top of 3-foot-high laminate pedestals. While visitors listened to the company's new marketing initiatives, several gobos attached to a truss 20 feet over the floor were dedicated to bathing each station in a cone of colored light - e.g., butterscotch browns and sunset reds - matching the product's hue. Then, to communicate that all the products fell under the Camel umbrella, other gobos on the truss blanketed the entire booth in one product color at a time, tinting its atmosphere as blue as a mountain sky, for example, or as green as a mint julep. Afterward, attendees could conduct business upstairs in any of six meeting rooms made of pearl- and bisque-colored laminate.

In the end, R.J. Reynolds drew nearly 69 percent more visitors than it did at the 2008 show. By creating a booth with strobe-like visual intensity, presenting the products as works of art, and using lighting and messaging to unify its products under the Camel name, the company turned its famed brand into a habit that would be hard to kick.e