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Rev-a-Shelf's Revealing Product Display
New Exhibit for Louie Preview Party
Trade Show Coach: Four Steps to Exceptional Exhibiting
Avoid Delays at the Airport
Pat Pierce: D&M Logistics Coordinator Runs the Show
Runaway Driver - Do You Know Where Your Exhibit Is?
Reduce Your Spam Diet
There are four essential steps required to creating an exceptional presence at a trade show.
1. Planning lays the ground-work for exhibiting, focusing on the purpose and positioning of your marketing efforts.
2. Promotion opportunities attract business and communicate a consistent message in line with your image in the marketplace.
3. People on the team represent you at the event, and must possess certain skills that are critical to their effectiveness and overall success.
4. Productivity includes after-show follow-up that ensures productive results, and benchmarks to evaluate your show efforts.
From time to time, Pat Pierce, Senior Account Coordinator and 33-year D&M veteran, gets out from behind her desk and out onto the show floor. Trips, like a recent one to Las Vegas to supervise setup and dismantle for a national show, keep her finger on the pulse of the industry. They also provide opportunities for face-to-face interaction to foster relationships with contractors she frequently emails and speaks with on the phone. Whenever possible, Pat makes sure these trips are for Las Vegas shows so she can also hone her "expert skills" at the slots.
Travel days can be hectic, and arriving at the airport the prescribed one to two hours in advance is not always feasible. However, nothing throws off a schedule like a missed flight, so save the gambling for Vegas.
Improve your odds at estimating airport arrival time by checking these sites:
US Department of Transportation - gives monthly reports ranking on-time flight percentages by airline.
FAA - up to the minute status in delays by airport
Transportation Security Administration - posts average and maximum security wait times based on airport, day and time traveling.
Avoid delays in security and remember to put any tools for setting up your exhibit in a checked bag. Check the TSA website for the most current security standards.
-Muhammad Ali American Boxer, Heavyweight Champion of the World (1942- )
The custom island exhibit created for D&M client Rev-a-Shelf shows off attractive and innovative products normally hidden behind closed doors. The exhibit features realistic kitchen vignettes displaying Rev-a-Shelf's lines of custom storage organizing products within see-through cabinetry. All cabinets and drawers are made with clear acrylic doors and panels so visitors can see exactly how the products are installed and function.
Each of the vignettes is designed to compliment the styling of a particular product line: maple cabinets to display Wood Classics, a luxuriously traditional vignette compliments the Vineyard series of decorative metal side rails and a vibrant, contemporary kitchen highlights the sleek look of the Spectrum series, Rev-A-Shelf's high end glass and chrome products. Styling including bowls of fruit, wine bottles and fresh flowers add to the authenticity and upscale feel of the kitchens.
The exterior of the exhibit is designed to convey the inviting look of a home to welcome visitors. Stucco walls define the exterior of the booth with windows to allow visitors to see into the exhibit. A pitched "roof" is defined with tension fabric pyramid shapes and triangular sections of roof truss assembled with Octanorm extrusion. Potted plants, window boxes and wall-sconce lighting complete the look.
The exhibit recently won a Louie award for its creative and innovative exhibit concept and product display design.
Names have been changed to protect the innocent- and the guilty.
Once upon a time, Widgets Inc. contracted with Fly-By-Night Shipping to deliver their exhibit for a show in Las Vegas. The driver arrived at the exhibit house, picked up the crates, and set off on his five-day drive. Every day, the driver from Fly-By-Night called to check in, reporting his progress and current location. On the scheduled day of delivery to the show, the driver called again to confirm he had arrived, complaining he was hassled for parking near the hotel and re-directed to the Marshaling Yards.
On the fist day of setup, Widget Inc's installers arrived to an empty booth! After numerous frantic phone calls, the crates were discovered still in the truck... at a truck stop not far from the exhibit house. The driver, who had been paid in advance, simply took the money and ran, making daily phone calls to cover his tracks.
Ultimately this story had a happy, but costly ending: two new drivers drove day and night to get the exhibit to the show just in time, and the first driver was arrested. The moral is always make sure you use reliable vendors and research companies carefully to ensure they have the capabilities to meet your needs. Or, eliminate the hassle and headache and let D&M handle all the logistics details.
Louisville's Advertising Federation challenged D&M to adapt the display panel assembly we provide for the Louie Awards Preview Party to a different entry format. In years past, all entries had been mounted on black boards. For the party, entries were then hung with pushpins onto solid black panels. With increased use of computers, the old format left many entrants scrounging dusty closets for Exacto knives and spray mount at 1 a.m..
New entry rules at the national level required this year's entries to be submitted in clear plastic or manila envelopes. To accommodate the change, the solid panels were replaced with perforated steel, and entries hung with hundreds of magnets. Since entry information no longer appeared on the front of the entry in the new format, over 600 labels had to be printed and hung with their corresponding entry.
According to AdFed Executive Director Robin Miller, the results were all positive. The new rules were well received, and although using the magnets to fasten the entries was no less time-consuming, they used far fewer band-aids on "hanging day."
If you feel like you're swimming in an ocean of spam– and these days who isn't–you may need to (gasp!) sign up for another e-mail account.
Well, for one thing, you will be able to use one account as what we'll call a "working account" and the other for what we'll call a "peripheral account." Depending on the volume of e-mail you receive, you may want to go with a service that offers free megastorage, such as Yahoo! or Google's G-Mail. You will want to clean your current inbox out, so that you can start fresh.
Give your working account address to business contacts and friends you want to keep in touch with, and you would use your peripheral account to create website logins, signup for e-coupons, etc. That way, if you get bombarded by offers, they will not clog your working account and make it difficult to navigate.