Boeing's Digital Canvas Creates Real-time Customer Experience
by Gayden Day, Rocket Red

We all know how competitive it is on the show floor. Companies are constantly looking for ways to break through the clutter to connect their target audience with the message of what they do and why they do it better. To showcase their technical prowess and their net-centric warfare capabilities, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems decided to approach their exhibit experience from the customer's perspective - transforming their exhibit into a net-ready interactive digital canvas.

Boeing's "digital canvas" provides a real-time backdrop for storytelling and for leveraging the latest technology to attract, engage and educate the customer. Boeing has defined a digital canvas as an environment where data of all types can be pushed and pulled at will - immersing the customer in an interactive, dynamic experience driven by their area of interests. Their internal exhibits and creative teams and select team of external resources (Freeman, Rocket Red, Inhance Digital Corporation) partnered to develop a physical structure featuring large fabric canvases, sweeping projection surfaces and a host of media types interconnected - ready to respond at the customer's touch. The structure's visual strength lies in the art of projecting large-scale motion graphics that move across structural surfaces, under ambient light conditions. Tech zones, featuring RFID (radio frequency identification) technology highlight key program initiatives while tracking customer behavior and building a customized customer website featuring content of their interest - all in real-time, ready for review at the hotel or office. Interactivity is a primary driver for the experience. Touch screens and interactive presentation tools enable the customer to drive content at-will - including mission scenarios, video on-demand, flash presentations, technical data and customer briefings. The canvas also features the ability for environmental takeover - enabling the content on all digital platforms to reflect a particular focus of any of Boeing's Armed Services customers - all with the push of a button. And, while the technology alone will never supplant the need for face-to-face interaction, Boeing's digital canvas bridges the best of both worlds putting the customer in the driver's seat.

Gayden Day is president of Rocket Red
Rocket Red is a holistic (we do it all) advertising and marketing services agency headquartered in Dallas, TX. At Rocket Red, we get it. We understand what it takes. We are willing to be truthful (even if it hurts). We are willing to deliver the unexpected. In doing so, we create brand and client experiences to drive awareness, sales and lasting relationships. www.gorocketred.com

Stop. And Stand Out.
Primers and Cognitive Marketing
By: Jeffrey Cameron, vice president creative design, Freeman

I remember the first time I experienced Las Vegas. I had just taken a job with an exhibit house trying to capitalize on the fast growing trade show industry in one of the convention market's hottest growing cities. I drove along the desert highway in vast darkness focused on a distant beacon of light. The closer I got the brighter the desert sky reflected the vast colors of the city below.

It was exciting and beautiful from a distance, but as I entered the heart of the strip I was quickly overwhelmed by the billions of lighted signs, videos, advertisements, billboards and lasers. This was more then eleven years ago and since then Las Vegas has become even more complex with commercial opportunities such as the addition of taxi toppers, hubcap signage, LED video walls, projection video, blimps and building graphic wraps. With this wall of visual "sound", how can any single voice be heard at all?

The funny thing is that as the brightness of Vegas has proliferated, my own state of confusion and disorientation at being able to decipher the individual messages that I wish or need to assimilate in the city has dissipated. As I have become trained to process simultaneous broadcasts, my mind has built natural filters to prioritize the information that needs processing and banked the rest in my unconscious mind. For instance, among all the colorful lights and video content, I am still able to distinguish a red traffic light from the myriad of other lights projected down the city streets. It doesn't have anything to do with the brightness of the light. On the strip, there's always something brighter than a traffic light no matter what the hour. What allows me to see the red light over the lights from Caesar's Palace, Wynn Las Vegas and Treasure Island is a form of cognitive thinking: a primer association that marketers pay millions of dollars attempting to replicate.

Primers are suggestive words, descriptions, images and senses that help shape perceptions deep in the subliminal minds of the audience. A red light shaped like a traffic light equals stop no matter where I drive. Even my daughter, who is still many years from getting her license, knows this because the color, shape and icon of a red light are all such strong primers. Good marketers can use the same logic to build and maintain primers in their brands. A swoosh was just a swoosh until Nike consistently tied it to a feeling of empowerment. A coffee shop was just a place to stop for "a cup of Joe" and a sweet roll until comfortable chairs, eclectic music and warm lighting turned it into what Starbucks refers to as the "third place" - somewhere between your home and your office. It is the consistent use of these primers - the sounds, the smells and the visual associations of a brand - that define the difference between being memorable and becoming just another light on the strip.

When I work with clients on developing their trade show marketing programs I am reminiscent of my first experience in Las Vegas. I imagine their customers converging on the city, overwhelmed by the promotions and advertisements of consumer and corporate marketing from the travel corridor to the trade show hall. It raises questions about the effectiveness of the campaign. Will my message stand out amongst the other brands competing for the same customer? Will they find cognitive primers in my customer's message just as I had learned to find primers in my Las Vegas experience?

What I help my customers do is identify those primers they are already using in their brand messages. Sometimes my customers don't even realize their brand uses primers, which is a good indication they are falling into that wall of sound and visuals that makes up our everyday experience. Together, we identify those primers and then translate them into a meaningful experiential execution which is both positive and consistent with what my client wishes to say.

Standing out is not always a matter of being the largest or the brightest or the loudest. Can you name the tallest casino in Vegas? I can't either but I can tell you that the Wynn Properties are uniformly elegant and sophisticated, the Hooter's Casino is a relaxed, less elegant experience and that the Hard Rock is the place for good music. I could tell you these things just standing outside each establishment just based on the visual, audio and contextual primers that each builds into their brand experiences. That is what I am trying to replicate for my clients on the trade show floor. Primers are the subconscious building blocks of brand image and it is your brand image, much like a red light, which will make your consumers stop and listen to you.

Jeff Cameron has been working with clients in the exhibit and event design world for more than fifteen years. He can be reached at jeffrey.cameron@freemanco.com.

From Leads to Sales: How to Develop a "Closed Loop" Lead Management System
By Jefferson Davis, Competitive Edge

For most exhibitors, the real product of a trade show is leads. Even when writing orders in the booth is a goal, the orders written can usually be compared to picking the low hanging fruit. While some companies can and do pay their show expenses by closing time, most companies' exhibiting return on investment is locked up in their leads.
Knowing this you would think all exhibitors follow up on their leads. Not so. Exhibition industry research finds that 87% of leads captured at a

trade show are never effectively followed up on. This is a huge problem costing exhibitors hundreds of millions of dollars in unrealized business opportunities. It also presents a great opportunity for exhibitors who do follow up.

Here are seven steps that can help you create a "closed loop" lead management system so your company can follow up and convert more leads to sales.

1. Define what is and isn't a lead: A few words scribbled on a business card or just swiping an attendee's badge is not a qualified lead. There are four criteria to a qualified lead: 1. personal interaction, 2. key questions asked, 3. answers documented, 4. a next step has been identified and agreed upon by the visitor

2. Set specific lead goals: To set a lead goal, multiply the number of show hours by the number of staff working your booth. (20 hours x 4 staff = 80 staff hours) Next, multiply staff hours by a conservative number of target interactions per staffer/per hour and person. (80 x staff hours x 4 interactions per hour = 320 total interactions) Finally, multiply total interactions by .25 to determine your lead goal. (320 x .25 = 80 qualified leads) Once you've established your lead goal be sure to communicate it to your staff and make them accountable for achieving the goal. You might even consider creating daily contests to increase staff focus even more.

3. Identify the best information you could capture: Besides general contact information like name, company, address, phone, fax and email, "What information, if captured, would help you better understand and qualify the opportunity?" Your answers might include familiarity with your company, product or service, problems they are having, current supplier or method of dealing with the problem, decision team members, decision process, budget, time frame, next action step and so on. Ask your sales and marketing staff for input to identify the most relevant information.
   

4. Design a custom lead capture device: Most shows offer an electronic lead capture device. Be sure to use it - even if it costs a little extra. As an adjunct to the device, consider creating your own custom hand held lead form. It can act as a prompt for your staff on what questions to ask and serve as a quick and easy place to capture important visitor information.

5. Assign a lead captain: Someone should be assigned the responsibility of monitoring lead count and quality at the end of a shift and/or end of the day.

6. Quickly route leads: You need to get the leads to the people who will follow up on them quickly. Time is of the essence. The value of a lead diminishes by 15% per week. Use your CRM system, phone calls, email and/or fax to get leads to the right people fast.

7. Create a lead reporting process: The most critical element in a closed loop lead management process is a lead reporting system that your reps and/or distributors can use to inform you of what becomes of the leads they receive. If your company uses a CRM system you can probably enter leads and monitor progress through your system. If not, you need to create another method. Entering leads into an Excel spreadsheet and e-mailing it to your reps can be very effective. Just make sure you ask for lead progress and sales conversion at specific timeframes like 60, 90 and 180 days after the show.

The most important thing to remember is that your exhibiting ROI is usually hidden in your leads. By setting specific lead goals, taking better quality leads, quickly routing leads to the right people, and providing them with a simple and easy to use reporting process you will see a lot more of your show leads convert to sales. And that is the bottom line.

Jefferson Davis, president of Competitive Edge is known as "the trade show turnaround artist". Since 1991, he has helped companies improve trade show performance and results. His clients have written over $450M in sales from their trade show investment. You may reach him at 800-700-6174 or www.compedgetraining.com.

In this issue of Face2face Travels, we are speaking with Lynne Schulte, Freeman's director of exhibitor sales in Orlando Florida. Lynne has lived in Orlando since 1989 when an intended one-year tour of duty for her last employer turned into a 17 years and counting permanent home.

We asked Lynne some questions about Orlando that we hope will help new exhibitors and visitors with their travel plans.

Here is what Lynne had to say:

Survey Shines Spotlight on 'Experiential Marketing'
By Kate Maddox, B-to-B Magazine

While a vast majority of B-to-B marketers use experiential marketing programs and say they are important to the future of marketing, most do not measure the results of their experiential marketing efforts, according to a survey conducted by B-to-B and the Business Development Institute.
The study was based on an online survey of 299 B-to-B marketing professionals, conducted in July and August of 2006.

"Experiential marketing as a concept has been around for a long time in the consumer space," said Steve Etzler, founder of BDI, a B-to-B event producer and experiential marketing company. "More and more, B-to-B companies have been embracing experiential marketing and using it as an effective tactic to generate leads and achieve sales goals."

One of the goals of the survey was to gain an understanding of the term "experiential marketing."

Respondents were asked whether they agreed with this definition of experiential marketing: A company's ability to utilize various methods of marketing, thus enabling its target audience to experience its brand, services and products. Examples of experiential marketing methods include live events and gatherings; Web-based events, webcasts and podcasts; and product or service demonstrations and/or test-drives.

The survey found that 62.9% of marketers agreed with this definition, while 14.4% said it was too broad and 5% said it was too narrow. Three percent said the definition was incorrect, and 8.4% said it was missing details.

"This is one of the key challenges B-to-B marketers have," Etzler said. "As a profession, we don't have common understanding and agreement of what experiential marketing means to the B-to-B world.

The leading types of experiential marketing programs for B-to-B marketers are industry conferences (70.8%), large trade shows (59.4%), proprietary events (59.1%) and online events (54.7%), according to the survey.

"Companies are getting much more focused in terms of programs," Etzler said. "They are shying away from the big trade shows and doing a lot more proprietary events."

Other types of experiential marketing programs that B-to-B marketers engage in include partner events (37.6%), branding events (33.6%) and employee events (24.5%). Respondents could select more than one answer.

Also, 57.1% said experiential marketing is important or very important to the future of their company, and 64.1% said it is important or very important to the future of B-to-B marketing.

However, 64.5% of marketers do not have a system in place to measure the effectiveness of experiential marketing programs, the survey found.

"There is a big problem with measurement," Etzler said. "Most folks are not measuring at all."

In fact, difficulty in measuring ROI was cited as one of the top three challenges facing marketing executives today (77.5%), followed by lack of a necessary budget to properly execute (63.8%) and lack of a measurement system (43%). Respondents could select more than one answer.

"How do you expect to get a budget if you're not measuring?" Etzler asked.

For companies that measure the effectiveness of experiential marketing programs, 67.9% measure the number of qualified sales leads; 43.8% measure revenue attributed to experiential marketing programs; and 32.8% measure the impact on a company's brand.

In terms of marketing budgets for experiential marketing programs, 57% of respondents have annual budgets of less than $100,000; 18.5% have budgets between $101,000 and $1 million; 5.7% have budgets between $1 million and $10 million; and 3.9% have budgets greater than $10 million (14.8% said they did not know their budget for experiential marketing).

Significantly, 42.3% said they did not know how much net revenue the company generates each year as a result of experiential marketing.

Nearly one-quarter (24.8%) of companies generate less than $100,000 in net revenue each year as a result of experiential marketing; 18.5% generate between $101,000 and $1 million; 11.1% generate between $1 million and $10 million; and 3.3% generate more than $10 million.

This article was provided courtesy of B-to-B Magazine. For more information, visit www.btobonline.com