Trade Show Relaxation Zones Foster Captive Audiences

Walking around a trade show floor for hours on end can be hard on even the most experienced expogoers. (If you had a nickel for every time you heard “My dogs are barkin’” on show floors in the last year….)

Exhibitors score extra points with attendees when they build some relaxation action into their booth footprints. A comfy club chair and a place to kick up their feet can be enough to give attendees a warm and fuzzy feeling about your brand. But smart marketers are learning that guests who stop to relax present a strong marketing opportunity—provided exhibitors find the right way to communicate with them.

Two ways to take advantage of the opportunity:

Act Naturally. Attendees will be turned off if they’re bombarded by sales reps during their break. Rick Ryba, exhibitions manager at Siemens Medical Solutions, suggests backing off a little bit. Siemens’ booth at the Society of Nuclear Medicine’s annual meeting features a simple M&M bar, which has helped draw visitors. “Treat [your booth] like a cocktail party and let [the interaction] happen naturally. People like to take advantage of networking while they are relaxing,” Ryba says.
At Milken Institute’s Global Conference in Los Angeles, AOL set up a lounge area with laptops and invited attendees to have a cup of coffee or smoothie and check their email. AOL employees in the booth discovered that the more meaningful conversations were struck when attendees approached the staff, rather than the other way around. “By checking their email, they also ended up exploring other areas of AOL, which is exactly what we wanted,” says David Shackley, the company’s vp-brand marketing, promotions, and events. “We’ve discovered that it works for us to try to not be in their faces.”

Offer Content. Sometimes a story beats a sales pitch. At a recent Licensing International show, where it was previewing future movie releases, DreamWorks gave away ice cream sundaes to help attract visitors. Knowing that the free treats would be an attraction, the company made sure that clips of the new films were playing where the lines of guests could check them out while they waited to get their scoops.

REST AND REWARD
Giving attendees a place to relax works well for both exhibitors and their customers: Attendees can relax for a little while, while exhibitors can earn brownie points from their grateful guests.