Knowledge is great. Competence is great. But the combination of both encourages people to trust you and increases your powers of enchantment. ~ Guy Kawasaki You trade show booth is your space that you use for sharing knowledge and inspiring conversation. It is a channel for enchantment. It is the space where your brand image is broadcasted. It prompts people to form perceptions about your company and your products. It is reflected in the angles of your product; it is embedded in the curves of your booth architecture, it is pronounced in the stylistic images, the texture of floor that you walk on and the uniqueness of the furniture that you use. The exhibit design is a powerful display of your brand psychology. Given the power it yields, it is only but natural to design an exhibit keeping in mind some of the few tenets.
Above all, be transparent, conversational and generous. Be delightfully present in the "now". After all, this is your space to re-write your past and carve out your future. Articles you might like
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Technology is the language and the fashion of this generation. Extremely savvy and constantly wired this generation could be the most educated in American history (according to a study conducted by Pew Research Center). Being "digital natives", they are on a path of constant learning, upgrading and sharing. In her book, Chasing Youth Culture And Getting It Right, Tina Wells discusses how crucial technology is in their lives. "If you want to engage with Millennials, you must understand the role technology plays in their lives. When we get scared of it as marketers, we tend to disconnect with our consumers. Technology doesn’t kill magazines or newspapers or music. What hurts these media is when we decide to stop innovating. Content is king, and always will be. Create an engaging experience with content, no matter what the platform, and consumers will engage" Trade shows are ideal environments for face-to face marketing and an opportunity to experience your brand in a very unique way. As Tina Wells points out, communal consumption and existential experience is huge for this generation. As trade show mavericks what does this mean? Create a designer space that is equipped with wi-fi, internet, ipad and the likes. You do want them to be tweeting and uploading content from your exhibit space, about your exhibiting brand. As a marketer you want your stories to go viral. Arm your millennial visitors with easy user interface to do so. To them it is all about speed and ease to use. When it comes to existential experience, it is very pivotal for the millennials to have “once in a lifetime experiences.” This could be from a simple “coffee experience” to life changing service experiences in places like Africa. Measure for yourself how does this add up to your exhibit design. Your exhibit design is the home for your brand experience. Design a space to skillfully reflect the nuances of your brand's reputation, memory and product. Provide for a space that intelligently interacts with the 5 senses. Think about smell, sound, touch, lighting, the presentation of products, and everything else that goes into delivering a memorable brand experience. Your exhibit design is the one touch point that your audience actually gets to experience. Give them an experience of a lifetime, one that they can’t wait to share with their friends. Simplicity is the shining armor of Zen.
Derived from the Sanskrit word Dhyana, Zen found its way to Japan via China in the form of motionless meditation. The word Zen paints a picture of peace, serenity, waterfall and rounded stones. It has become a part of our every day lexicon, yet we hardly practice what it exhorts. Be here and now. Turn off the filters. Dissolve all preconceptions. Perceive directly. "Dissolve into the eternal now, and realize that the Universe itself peers out through your eyes, hears through your ears, and breaths each breath." Experiencing each moment as it is. According to Chinese Ch’an and Zen, understanding comes only by ignoring the intellect and heeding the instincts, the intuition. True perception comes from vast emptiness. Whatever the philosophical construct of Zen may be, we all seem to have a visual concept of what Zen is. We talk about Zen like design, we muse on the elegance in the absence of abundance and of course the Zen Master of Subtraction: Steve Jobs is still very alive in our mass psyche. One of Jobs’ great strengths was knowing how to focus. “Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do,” he said. “That’s true for companies, and it’s true for products.” In his book, The Laws of Subtraction (that will be available on October), Matthew May states 6 simple rules for winning in the age of excess, very much in keeping with the 5 principles of Zen Design Simplicity:
The relevance of this message in our busy business of trade show clutter is huge. Noteworthy, are the first 3 points. Usually, as trade show exhibitors we tend to blast away all the features that our products are capable of. But as Matthews puts it; What isn’t there can often trump what is. He cites the example of Scion. Designers essentially used this strategy in creating the fast-selling and highly profitable xB model, a small and boxy vehicle made intentionally spare by leaving out hundreds of standard features in order to appeal to the Gen Y buyers who wanted to make a personal statement by customizing their cars with trendy options. It wasn’t about the car. It was about what was left out of it. The discipline to discard that does not fit is the bedrock of Zen design. All aspects of your brand can only stand tall in an intelligently designed space that is anchored in elegant suggestive simplicity. It is the suggestive simplicity that engages human imagination, thus injecting it with the merit momentous memorability. Seth Godin, the famous icon who popularized opt ins and permission marketing and very successfully conceived the idea of hybrid publishing just came out with this blog: (I extracted only a portion of it.)
A tacky mess: the masses vs. great design Designers prune. Left to its own devices, the mob will augment, accessorize, spam, degrade and noisify whatever they have access to, until it loses beauty and function and becomes something else. The tragedy of the design commons. An Apple product designed with user feedback would have thousands of extra features, multiple input methods and weigh 18 pounds. (The best exception to this rule are some--not all--places where people live, including parts of Manhattan and Kibera, Kenya. But even in the best instances, as soon as commercial interests are served, it starts to fail). It seems democratic and non-elitist to set it and forget it and let the users take over. But the tools we use (Wikipedia) and the brands we covet (Nike or Ducati) resolutely refuse to become democracies. ....................................... Note the profound meaning in the words: resolutely refuse to become democracies. Our high technology society has given us a brand landscape studded with similar clones where we peddle the same products touting enhanced benefits; giving rise to what Youngme Moon describes as category connoisseurism. Never in the course of written history has there been such abundance of choices in a single category. There are more upgrades, flavors, add-ons, new and improved features between brands in a category that all looks the same. They have managed achieved the sameness of the flat lands of North Dakota and the exhibiting industry is no exception to that. Consumers, are now category connoisseurs. Again, in the words of Moon, “connoisseurs can discern subtle differences based on nuanced asymmetries”, while an ignoramus will lack the necessary know-how to predict differentiating subtleties. When a a brand creates a competitive advantage in a category, it gains rapid momentum. A momentum orbits around expectation and anticipation that leads to the longevity of a brand. Competitive advantage comes with a value proposition that is highly valued and not in abundant supply. We are proud to say that Envoy III is one such design leap in the pre-fabricated world of booth designs with a value proposition that will help brands to break away from the limiting norms of exhibiting and helping our clients to be perceived with expanded frame of reference. A definite delineation from the mediocrity of the masses. Create a compelling environment. Unleash the memory capsule. Any designer who does not appreciate or know about good food is not a very good designer. The planning of a meal and it presentation - the texture, the color, the tastes, the hot and cold temperatures - are the same concerns that affect an environment. Robert Kime, Architectural Digest Pattern, texture, color, light are integral parts of design that aids to the memorability of a brand. Patterns come in various forms and colors. Thy may be abstract, anthemion, argyle or art deco, batik or basket-weave just to name a few. Patterns when combined with texture makes the architectural design rich and beautiful. The space either achieves harmony or excellence. Textures and or patterns are salient features that plays an important role in defining the rhythm of the exhibit design. Textures are recognized by touch and sight. As William Morris so elegantly puts it: "If there is a reason for keeping the wall very quiet, choose a pattern that works all over without pronounced lines...Put very succinctly, architectural effect depends upon a nice balance of horizontal, vertical and oblique. No rules can say how much of each; so nothing can really take the place of feeling and good judgement." “Light is the magical ingredient that makes or breaks a space." Add lighting to the mix and you construct the element of feeling. The space starts to communicate to you at a cellular level. Light when diffused off textured surfaces form interesting patterns. Directional lighting amplifies a texture, producing variations in shadows; soft, diffused lighting, on the contrary, minimize contrast and shadows, making textures difficult to read. A perfect example of the play of light, texture and color comes from Evonik Industries. PLEXIGLAS® Textured Sheet RADIANT creates colors that change according to the viewing angle, which is known as the Radiant effect. There is a colorful play of hues that is set off to particular advantage by the surface textures. Patterns and textures have been part of our life since the per-historic era. Evident everywhere from cave paintings to skin art they play an important role in everyday life and have cultural, religious, and philosophical significance. Our ancestors derived their inspiration from the organic world and everyday objects. Their art has not been forgotten. It dwells deep in our psyche."Old patterns seem excitingly fresh when rejuvenated by a contemporary palette." One perennial design feature always to remember: Contrast is the magic key. The light and the dark "the old and the new, the rough and the soft. The clash of it all is very sexy." Articles you might like
Brand Loyalty is Vanishing or Is It? Today's web-savvy consumers are savvy deal finders. They are quick to seize on the brand or the store that offers the best deal. Hence, in an effort to increase the essence of brands; companies are on a massive crusade to bombard clients and prospects with constant messages and tooling techniques. The hope here is to reign in the distracted and disloyal customer. Unfortunately, the blitz of this downpour of marketing messages isn't empowering. It is overwhelming. "Rather than pulling customers into the fold, marketers are pushing them away with relentless and ill-conceived efforts to engage." So what are the attributes of a sticky brand? In other words what makes consumers stick to your brand? You guessed it right. Keep it simple stupid. Simplicity is the DNA of your Brand Longevity. (Apple had it right all this time.) In a research conducted by CEB Global, over 7000 consumers vouched that single biggest driver of stickiness, by far, was “decision simplicity”—the ease with which they can gather trustworthy information about a product and confidently and efficiently weigh their purchase options. Help your customers by helping them to streamline their decision making. What does it take to acquire sticky consumers? CEB study found that the best tool for measuring consumer-engagement efforts is the “decision simplicity index,” a gauge of how easy it is for consumers to gather and understand (or navigate) information about a brand, how much they can trust the information they find, and how readily they can weigh their options. The easier a brand makes the purchase-decision journey, the higher its decision-simplicity score. Marketers from all mediums (including trade shows) have to orient themselves in helping consumers to simplify their decisions. It requires new strategies. It requires crafting cooler communications. Levi’s® Curve ID comes to my mind as a revolutionary way to shop for jeans. They have narrowed down four distinct fits that addresses a range of body shapes. Read their customer reviews. Not all of them is going ga-ga over the quality of the jeans but they are euphoric about the fit. After all, jeans are about the perfect fit, isn't it. Does quality matter? Yes it does. Does price matter? Yes it does. All the stuff they teach you at "B" schools does matter. But what matters most to your customers is that you are helping them help themselves. You are simplifying their decision making process and contributing to the memorability aspect of their purchase journey. Articles you might like
Today, in our dizzy digital age, creativity is the most sought after key word, — that will be my creative and educated guess. We admire creative, thought provoking leaders. We look towards innovative creativity to solve our fossil fuel dependency. We applaud inventive creativity in the form of re-conceptualization of existing governments. The Green Revolution has launched a potent creative skill that I.A. Tayor (1959- The nature of the creative process) calls emergenative creativity. It is a new creation opening an entirely a new paradigm. Good or bad; think about hybrid seeds, cloned corns, plastic from plants and of course the phenomenal creativity of financial engineering that paved way for the financial crisis of 2008. Well, whatever that may be, to be creative and to stay creative is the name of the game. We are all looking for ways to activate our creativity at the snap of our fingers. The irony is we expect ingenuity to be at our beck and call, yet we starve ourselves of the right environment that feeds it. Ask an artist, a musician or an athlete about the out of the world place they call “the zone.” They all acknowledge a sense of immersion and effortless ease. It is called being in the Flow. To encounter creativity as a regular phenomenon, James Webb Young in his classic book, "A Technique for Producing Ideas" provdes some simple steps to harness creative ideas.
Needless to say, the creative process unleashes the Flow State as popularised by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He spent decades studying a wide variety of professionals, actors, artists, scholars and athletes who regularly cultivate that zone-like state of effortlessness he calls Flow. He concluded most of the people he studied experience their deepest flow-states while engaged in extremely challenging physical or mental work. Find expression in something that nourishes a "strong sense of effortless flow to inspire the deliberate practice/work" that will propel you to the pinnacle of your profession. “There is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.” — Martha Graham Articles you might like
We are living and breathing in an Age of Integration. Every action that we now undertake is or can be integrated with the larger system. The only limiting factors being our own imagination and if it is realizable computationally. Being an informed citizen of this age "requires the ability to apply computational ways of thinking to design, to writing, to experimentation, to artistic expression, and to problem solving – to the very core of human intellectual activity. In this age, our ideas are no longer constrained solely by what is physically realizable, but by what is computationally realizable. {Hence the popularity of de-constructivism in modern architecture} ........An artist is now able to create an artwork that only exists when someone interacts with it – specifying a framework within which each visitor can create a work of art. A chemist is now able to search more effectively for new compounds by modeling them before ever going into the lab. Nearly every discipline is changing, not just because of new tools but because of new computational ideas and paradigms." Source: Congressional testimony of Dr. Rita Colwell, Director National Science Foundation. In a trade show display design when we go twenty feet high with inset back-lit marquee picture cube performing as way finders, consolidated presentation areas as enthralling engaging elements, towering messaging collaborating with brand performance we can proudly attest to the fact that we have achieved efficiency in economics, engineering in scale and artistry in form. It is in the intelligent integration of form, function and fiscal competence that this booth design as shown above comes alive in a 20'x 20' island space. Okay, now what? Now that you have an integrated brand architecture dominating your space, how do you leverage your stance and integrate your prospects into clients and your clients into loyal brand ambassadors. Here are 2 directives that usually always works. One, know your audience. This is the key. We are at cross-roads of integrated cross generational and cross-cultural phenomena. Learn cross-generational marketing. Two, know marketing trends impacting events along with the integrating factor of attendee quality trends and exhibit performance trends. Download the white paper Evolving Exhibition Trends and their Impact on the Value of Exhibiting. Armed with the integrated dynamics of trends and targets you are now set for success at your next captivating trade show event. Good Luck! Articles you might like
As, I write this piece, the marketing world is changing; and with it the imminent change in conducting business. This change is being demanded by savvy, empowered consumers who is not swayed by the big media instigated "brand essence". Today, the elusive consumers want relevant and on-time messages. The best way to covey it to them is through experiences that are personally relevant, memorable, sensory, emotional and meaningful. "Return on Experience" is the marketing buzz word of the 21st century. “Experiential marketing is leading the way into the new marketing paradigm.” Know your target demographics. Deliver a memorable experience at every touch point. You are bound to succeed. Prof. Bernd H. Schmitt, director of the Center on Global Brand Leadership of Columbia Business School writes, “Today, customers take product quality and a positive brand image as a given,”........"What they want is products, communications, and marketing campaigns that dazzle their senses, touch their hearts, and stimulate their minds – that deliver an experience.” In his book Experiential Marketing, Prof Schmitt discusses 5 strategic experiential modules of Sense, Feel, Think, Act and Relate that form the basis of experiential marketing. (At the risk of being shamefully aggressive), with pride we may say Skyline Mirage is the perfect back wall for busy trade show exhibitors who are penetrating in small vertical markets. The experience is delivered in the ease of set up. Developing this product some 30 odd years ago, Skyline related to the multifaceted challenges of an exhibitor and since then, Mirage has undergone various evolutionary phases to evolve in its final form as self locking Mirage Plus. Companies that deliver the right experience to customers will succeed in this tough competitive market place. Trade shows are great venues where your prospects and your clients get to feel and experience your brand. To deliver a memorable experience, use innovative approaches to engage your visitors in creative and interactive ways. For example, ask your customers to write down in a white board (which very well can be part of your back wall) the defining verbs that come to their mind when using your product. Cause-marketing activities is another proven way to deliver a memorable, soul soothing experience. Allos Therapeutics Inc., a biopharmaceutical company specializing in anti-cancer therapeutics, crafted its philanthropic, in-booth activity around a quilt donation to cancer patients. Eager to support cancer patients, attendees happily completed the activity — adding messages such as “Life is a gift!” and “May hope, faith, and courage be your guiding light today and always.” Allos would sew the completed squares into as many quilts as possible, each one of which would be donated to a cancer center for distribution to patients.......A compelling marketing campaign that touched hearts and inspired minds. Articles you might like
It is beyond any shadow of doubt the massive impression Pinterest has created in the digital media of sharing and knowing that we affectionately call social marketing. With more than 10 million active users according to AppData, it's difficult to ignore Pinterest's explosion in immense popularity.
The folks over at Socially Sorted and Mookoo Design pulled together the above infographic, "The 10 Commandments of Using Pinterest for Business," which guides you through best practices and tips for putting Pinterest to work in your social media marketing strategy. It is your very own Pinterest marketing cheat sheet! Pinterest is a visual social network, so you will need to create a pinboard that highlights some of your best visual content. A lot of big brands are taking notice of the power of online visual content for marketing and the emotions images elicit in readers. Instagram is one platform that has contributed to this movement and enabled real businesses to leverage photos as a an inbound marketing mechanism. Life magazine has done an impressive job in refreshing its' brand legacy. Love the digital image board, especially as it markets itself as “the most comprehensive and iconic collection of professional photography on the web.” LIFE brings those images to a new generation on Pinterest for users to comment on and share. The inspiring boards include “Vintage Retrospect,” “LIFE Legends” and “Today in History.” Here is another great infographic that sings the laurels of Pinterest. Enjoy! |
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Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly. Franz Kafka |