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In Partnership With

CEA
EM
NAB
Event Marketing Institure
Sparks

The tech giant connected with attendees off the show floor at the growing CES Central Plaza, a stretch of branded, tented immersions located out in front of the main hall. The overall vibe was warm, inviting and forward-thinking, designed as a street fair-themed environment to encourage attendees to walk around, grab a snack and check out the brand’s latest offerings, most notably the beta version of Yahoo! Go 3.0, which introduced new mobile widgets from Yahoo! as well as other web brands. The company made the exhibit user-friendly by dividing the floor into pods. Brand ambassadors at each of the pod areas, themed by specific services such as Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Mobile beta, led attendees through each offering on large screens, showing them how the services worked with their mobile devices. At a Yahoo! Go Download station, attendees downloaded widgets or learned how to do it from the web. Recognizing that it couldn’t model its experience after a street fair without food and beverage, Yahoo! integrated a snack bar/concession stand into the environment, to much success. Attendees swung over to the concessions area to get in one of four lines to pick up free treats, including pecans, almonds, raisins and peanuts.

Yahoo!

Sometimes less is much, much more. Under the parent company name TCL Multimedia, U.S. electronics brand RCA showed off its new collection of 17 high definition flat panel TV’s by mounting them on columns in long neat rows. The Spartan design strategy left a lot of open space in the exhibit for attendees to walk up and touch each TV or just pass by for a complete 360-degree view. RCA touts its line as “a breeze to operate” and the affordable brand for people overwhelmed by all the bells and whistles that come with most electronics. (Wal-Mart is a key retailer.) The underwhelming—but in a good way—look of the booth clearly delivered the no-frills brand message. At a show like CES with seizure-inducing lights, constant noise and an all-out visual assault on the eyes, TCL’s clean, open plan was an oasis for the senses.

TCL Multimedia

In a sea of big booths, out-there presentations and gee-whiz gadgets, Sonoro stood out with a modern design that made the booth seem just a bit larger than it really was. The key: fresh, minamalist furniture and displays. Instead of filling up its small space with rack after rack of product displays, the brand decided to create an open environment that made the product the star. The 600-square-foot space featured dozens of the brand’s audio players on display shelves mounted on a tall central back wall, and a small semicircular seating area in the center allowed visitors to sit and learn more. The effect: minimalist, but not spare. Another unique design choice: curved, stylized wood-finish columns—reminiscent of the products’ designs—bookended the footprint, and served as meeting tables and product display areas. Brand ambassadors enticed passersby into the space with a chance to win a sweet Sonoro Cubo CD player/iPod dock.

Sonoro Audio

A psychedelic late ’60s booth design reflected the exhibit’s theme, The Summer of Sling, couldn’t be missed from the show floor. Bright red signage with flowery white copy towered high over the footprint on curved surfaces. Within the space, product displays repeated the curved look with separate pods that were cleverly integrated into the ’60s theme with more flower power designed into each kiosk. Attendees could learn about and play around with the product in relative privacy. The highlight? The product presentation, performed with the ultimate in kitsch by a spokesman done up in late ’60s garb including bell-bottoms, long hair and a big peace-sign necklace. The audience didn’t seem to mind when the shtick creeped into corny territory, and the message was clear: Hey man, don’t be tied down. Freedom is yours when you watch TV with the Sling. Each day, Mr. Hippie gave away two Slings per hour, which also helped keep the crowd consistently heavy.

Sling Media

Mixed targeted product demonstrations with well-segmented experience zones. The four iconic message towers in Seagate’s booth (Live It Up!, Back It Up!, Lock It Up! And Fill It Up!) were a great example of leveraging contrasting materials and colors. The 15-foot-tall, 10-foot-long, two-foot-wide towers were finished in a high-gloss white, with brand messaging printed vertically up the sides. The twisted‚ 20-foot-long rectangular metal box frames slotted through holes in the towers were wrapped with an orange sheer stretch fabric and adorned with graphic designs and pics of people using Seagate products. A raised central “living room” boasted rugs, furniture, the whole nine yards. Large mirrors flanked the rear reception area, giving off a fun house-type vibe for anyone who strolled through. Nice mix of design and branded messaging from start to finish, with some attendees copping a squat to relax and others taking a full tour of the four zones.

Seagate

Like The Three Stooges and the Sci-Fi channel, magic is just one of those things dudes love. So props to SanDisk for luring the mostly-male CES crowd into its lair with a high-energy magic show. Magician Scott Tokar, a SanDisk regular, seamlessly integrated product information with the tricks, which utilized several locked cases—an effective visual reference to data storage. Tokar’s shows were regularly packed. So much so that, “he made us work really hard,” said one exhausted-looking SanDisk demo guy. In the booth’s six demo areas, the brand showed off new products such as Fanfare—a system (still in beta) that allows you to take video from your computer and watch it on your TV. Attendees could collect cards at each demo area to get a free business card case. An appearance by hip-hop guru Supernatural helped tie in the booth’s mobile download station, which looked like a giant phone. (Mobile is SanDisk’s fastest growing business so it’s rolling out more mobile download stations as part of its Slot Education campaign.) Behind the main stage and through beaded curtains was an opium den-style Digital Lounge filled with giant orange pillows, flat screens, and on day-three, a guy sleeping sitting up, and—we swear—drooling.

Sandisk

Behind the glossy white exterior walls of the Samsung exhibit, the brand continued its clean, modern look and feel. The resulting bright white palette offset with crisp pops of color, an open layout and clear, illuminated Plexiglas display cases made for an uncluttered backdrop to highlight the products on display. Special presentations happened throughout the day, like a break dancing troupe from the movie “Planet B-Boy: Break Dancing Has Evolved.” They performed on a raised demo stage surrounded by three banks of still and video cameras, including the brand’s 150-degree swivel digital camcorder. Attendees could grab cameras and shoot the live action. In the middle of the footprint, a stand-alone white cube created intrigue, drawing attendees behind a screen and into a one-room design studio featuring its high-end TVs boasting colored frames. Brand ambassadors stationed at high-def TV demo areas walked attendees through the latest in Samsung technology.

Samsung

A common theme across CES this year was the use of soothing elements and natural materials to generate a sense of calm at a show that was anything but. Qualcomm mastered it with one of the best Zen experiences around. White, semicircular bamboo planters lined with smooth black stones and embedded lighting fixtures were situated behind product highlight zones and in-booth massage tables. Fabric awnings over the displays were printed with shadow graphics of tree limbs and mounted on brushed metal frames. An iconic fountain installation was surrounded by white stone-filled planter boxes and featured water peacefully running over the Qualcomm logo. The footprint was anchored by a double-decker in the back and featured a massage zone, gaming zone and health and fitness zone in front. The double-decker mixed frosted plexi with black wood while a cappuccino bar (via Ryan Bros. Coffee, a local outfit from Qual’s hometown of San Diego) provided a little caffeinated add-on for on-site conversations.

Qualcomm

Like a coin, the footprint had two sides: A front side boasting a glowing, color-changing floor-to-ceiling LED video wall serving as a branded halo for an interactive zone filled with cylindrical “demo stations” featuring Nokia phones and headphones. Attendees could sample music and text song requests to a live dj stationed a few feet away. The songs were then blasted throughout the entire booth. (Did we request “Yeah” by Usher? Of course. Did we gyrate like Kevin James did in “Hitch”? No comment.) The backside of the wall featured the majority of the space, with sleek, Euro-styled merchandise sections themed around green (folks could sign up to recycle their phones), music, photos and videos, gaming, Internet and instant messaging and maps/GPS. Best part: Attendees could set their phones to discover or text “CES” to 56418 and get instantly connected to product demos, downloads, photos and other content as they walked around the booth.

Nokia

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