Marshall Yard:

Everyone knows that the colors involved in a marketing campaign are of immense importance. Imagine a Coca-Cola or Marlboro ad that lacked the color red! Sometimes, however, it’s not only the COLOR that matters, it’s the exact shade or hue that a company depends on for a consistent campaign.

If your company uses a special “blue” that separates itself from the menagerie of garden variety “blues” in the marketplace, then this can present an immense challenge when working through a sophisticated marketing campaign. While this isn’t news for companies that are seasoned in working with their branding properties, it can become a major obstacle for newly unveiled marketing initiatives. There’s a simple solution which might not get mentioned by your ad company - but it matters for your exhibit company! (more…)

Branding initiatives and product releases have lifespans. Most of us understand this aspect of a rapidly changing marketing environment. Regardless, tradeshow exhibit companies and their clients ruminate quite frequently about which graphics may or may not be reused at subsequent shows, and in later exhibit designs.

Saving graphic costs can substantially reduce the cost of an ongoing exhibit program, and allow an exhibitor to stretch the trade show dollar and achieve greater success with fewer resources. Greater success, however, demands that the exhibit draw hoards of enthusiastic attendees - something that a booth design repeated at countless venues would be hard pressed to accomplish. That’s where a thread from our “Frugal Exhibitor” blog post gets interesting…

Repeating graphics at every show will get boring. Unless architecture is innovated at every step, or unless there is some nuance in the message conveyed on the show floor, attendees will yawn and keep walking. Custom rental exhibit programs offer the flexibility needed in order to modify architecture while reusing graphics. Some hybrid booths (purchasing AND renting) may provide a similar level of pliancy. Purchased exhibit displays [typically] must be remodeled to suite the new design architecture- an often cost-prohibitive plan to revitalize trade show attendance. More often, purchased exhibits rely upon the printing of new graphics to revitalize an exhibits look (also expensive), even though this is certainly akin to putting a new sticker on an existing product.

While architecture can communicate volumes about a company and their message, nuance can come in many other forms. In the Frugal Exhibitor post, I mention the idea of supplanting product-specific graphics with A/V technology - LCDs or Plasma screens. Do you have some ideas on how companies can alter their message without going to the expense of printing new graphics?