From the exhibits, graphics, electrical, Audio/Visual, to logistics and more, The Rogers Company helped ABB bring Automation & Power World to life.

There is a lot trade show advice that can be either really obvious or not very helpful.  Every once in a while you come across an idea that is both obvious and really helpful.  And that is what this trade show marketing tip from Tom Adams is.

We all know about the pens and the buttons, the key chains and the posters.  The theory is: let’s give away something with our logo on it and it will be good for brand equity.  And then there are the contests: enter to win a free iPod.  Yes, giveaways have certain brand value, but Tom’s advice is that if you want to snag contact information, give away something that you’d normally sell.  That ensures that only your targeted audience will show interest.  A month of free service or parts or even a full-fledged product as a give away means that it will be worthless to a casual passerby but hugely valuable to your target audience.  It’s a good theory, but anyone put it to practice?

You can read Tom’s blog here: http://tomadams.com/

Anyone have a good give away story?  Bad?  Ugly?  Leave a comment and let us know!

Does anyone remember the infrared beaming on Palm Pilots?  Does anyone remember Palm Pilots?  It was actually pretty cool.  You could beam your info to a fellow Palm user avoiding  the exchange of business cards which you would then have to enter into your Palm Pilot.  It was fast an efficient and then totally disappeared when mobile devices became integrated to the internet.

The problem is that it’s still really hard to keep track of the people that you meet at trade shows.  Whether you’re an attendee or an exhibitor.  Yes, you can technically look up everyone you meet on LinkedIn and then connect with them, but that’s time consuming at big events and not practical approach to buying or selling.    The irony is that we’re all more linked together than ever with social media applications like LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube.  BusyEvent may have an answer: they’ve brought together a simple, easy to use device called the BeLinker (it’s smaller than it looks in the photos) with a social network that lets people track events, sessions, products, and people.  So your attendees can not only note that they met you but they can associate the products and services that they liked with you as well.  From BusyEvent:

The BeLinker is a small, wearable device that ties social networking, audience response, session and document management and expo lead management together. By integrating face-to-face encounters with virtual and web-based capabilities, the BeLinker Platform provides an ongoing, updated repository of event-related information and content for each participant and real-time monetizable data for event producers.

You can read the full article at Planner Wire here.

Everything you could want to know about Event Bookmarking is available at www.BusyEvent.com and www.EventBookmarking.com There are videos, demos and downloadable information.

The Rogers Company has announced a new service that begins to answer many of the Trade Show ROI questions that companies have.  Are we seeing value from this show?  The answer, it seems, may be in what you’re doing with the leads you are getting from the show.  From the press release:

The Rogers Company, a designer and builder of trade show exhibits and other branded environments, announces Return On Exhibiting, a new approach to lead management to substantially increase sales resulting from trade shows. This new offering comes from a partnership between Rogers and Richard Erschik, founder and CEO of Leads to Sales, Inc. (www.leadstosales.com) and RICHARDERSCHIK.com (www.richarderschik.com). Erschik and the Rogers team are working closely together to unite booth exhibit design and fabrication with lead management and post-show follow-up. The result is a one-stop shop for better trade show ROI.

You can read the rest of the press release here: Link

Look for more From the Show Floor interviews from Sukki coming soon.

Part of the fun of any live event is creating situations that interact casually with people passing by. This can be something as simple as a friendly smile or complex as video technology that viewers can interact with. This video is a demonstration of how art and technology can work together to create an attention getting effect. The robotics behind this are fairly complex but the creative application is what makes the project really shine.

A giant whimsical one eyed creature is perch above the entrance of a building following the movements of visitors and even doing double takes. This is a great demonstration of how technology and art can come together.

From Flong.com:

“Double-Taker (Snout)” (interactive installation, 2008) deals in a whimsical manner with the themes of trans-species eye contact, gestural choreography, subjecthood, and autonomous surveillance. The project consists of an eight-foot (2.5m) long industrial robot arm, costumed to resemble an enormous inchworm or elephant’s trunk, which responds in unexpected ways to the presence and movements of people in its vicinity. Sited on a low roof above a museum entrance, and governed by a real-time machine vision algorithm, Double-Taker (Snout) orients itself towards passers-by, tracking their bodies and suggesting an intelligent awareness of their activities. The goal of this kinetic system is to perform convincing “double-takes” at its visitors, in which the sculpture appears to be continually surprised by the presence of its own viewers — communicating, without words, that there is something uniquely surprising about each of us.

Click here for a one-minute video that shows Double-Taker (Snout) responding to a group of children on their way to morning art classes at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts.

So while we’re not sure entirely how this works, it’s darned cool. It’s the closest thing to fully interactive holograms bridging the gap between the online world and the cyber realm.
The applications seem endless. There’s definitely a “Wow!” factor here but after the dust settle, it seems like there could be some very practical applications at trade shows as well as in sales.

The Rogers e-book, Tech Trends and Tradeshows: Knowing the Right Technology Mean Knowing the Right Trends, points out that LEDs also have an environmental angle:

“Lighting is also undergoing a revolution with LEDs or Light Emitting Diodes. These small and efficient light sources are increasingly being used for consumer and industrial purposes. They save energy, are very durable and will last for years of use. While electrical consumption isn’t typically a large concern for most booths, LED lighting does reduce heat and while having an overall smaller carbon footprint – an important consideration for a growing number of companies. “

You can download the entire e-book here: (Link)

Watch the video by clicking on the picture above in the post.