Branching Out

It can be easy for a booth to get lost in the shuffle at a major expo—even for the most creative marketers. With all the competition fighting for attention, what’s a brand to do?

Increasingly, instead of letting a booth at the expo stand on its own, trade show marketers are deploying event efforts outside of the convention hall, hitting hotels or public spaces to extend the effort. Here’s how three brands made it work.

Where They Eat and Sleep. At the Radiological Society of North America show last year, GE Healthcare was launching a new campaign, Healthcare Reimagined. “We were looking for something different that would create word of mouth and buzz,” says Sean Burke, cmo of GE Healthcare’s Diagnostic Imaging and Services.

So for 2005, knowing that the show’s 60,000-plus attendees virtually take over Chicago during the expo, GE deployed all-white-clad “molecule people” before and after show hours, outside hotels on the RSNA bus routes, as well as at restaurants and clubs that attendees visited. Wearing branding for GE Healthcare, the actors batted around giant inflatable molecule structures; bubble machines helped complete the fanciful look. There was no missing the GE link.

GE’s post-show survey asked attendees whether they recalled seeing the molecule people around town. “We had a much higher awareness rate than we anticipated,” Burke says. “It was exactly the approach we were looking for.”

The True Believers. At last year’s Specialty Equipment Market Association show in Las Vegas, Yahoo! wanted to make a splash about a custom auto web site among automotive enthusiasts. Inside its booth, teams customized two Mitsubishis.

Outside, Yahoo! went all out to generate buzz on the highest-profile patch of asphalt in the state. One night after the show, the company shut down the Las Vegas Strip at 3 a.m., and crowds roared as both Mitsubishis raced down the strip. “We didn’t want to just do a booth and pass things out,” says Bennett Porter, Yahoo!’s senior director-buzz marketing. “We wanted to do it our way.”

Early Attack. Before January’s Washington (DC) Auto Show, Chevrolet had already started making its presence known around the nation’s capital. A month out, brand ambassadors set up mini tailgating parties out of the backs of Chevy Silverado Hybrids at The Home Depot stores, construction sites, George Washington University, and commuter rail stations. Consumers could grab a cup of coffee and play Xbox 360 games. Chevy also built in activation to drive booth traffic. Reps handed out cards that visitors could redeem at the show for a chance to win a Silverado Hybrid.

Because of the scan cards handed out at the tailgate parties and at dealers, more than 20,000 consumers visited the booth or scanned their cards with Chevy reps in the convention center lobby (so they didn’t have to pay to enter the show). The scan cards also produced 1,900 dealer leads.