How Five Print Guys Took Over a Trade Show

Marlys Arnold [00:00:00]: You're listening to the Trade show insights podcast, season 13, episode 2. I'm your host and exhibit marketing strategist Marlys Arnold, bringing you tools to improve your exhibit results. On today's episode, we brought to you by the Exhibit Marketers Cafe. We're going to hear the behind the scenes story of how one company made a big splash at a trade show with five little print guys.

Marlys Arnold [00:01:02]: Recently I sat in on a webinar. It intrigued me because it was all about taking augmented reality and tying it in with print marketing and I thought that sounded intriguing. And then when I was sitting in on the webinar and it was all about a trade show campaign, I was even more intrigued. So I am very excited to be able to share this story today with you so that you can learn all about this brilliant campaign and how they pulled it all together. But our guest today is Emilee Christiansen and Emilee is with Trekk and she works closely with their clients to develop and execute a wide range of marketing and technology projects. And she draws on her project management skills to keep projects on track and on budget for her clients. And so Emilee, we are very happy to welcome you today to Trade Show Insights.

Emilee Christianson [00:02:00]: Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

Marlys Arnold [00:02:02]: Great. Well, I want to start out and have you because Trekk is a creative services agency. So this was for one of your clients, like I said. So I want you to go ahead and explain a little bit about your client and where they were exhibiting and what their goals were or what their focus was.

Marlys Arnold [00:02:21]: Sure.

Emilee Christianson [00:02:22]: So this particular project was for International Paper at Adobe Max. And Adobe Max is an annual conference for designers that I think it changes locations every year. This time it was in Las Vegas. An International Paper had attended before but never exhibited. They've done the other big event for that particular market like how and some of the others, but this one was always really high up on their list just from the demographic. So these people are important segment for International paper, just as not the people making the purchase at the end of the day, but they are really big influencers in the process. So their goal in coming to this show was first of all try to prove some kind of roi, make sure that it's a worthwhile investment the first time going to the show and then secondly really create a conversation and do something outside the box that would create a memorable experience that would keep their product top of mind for this particular segment. So that's kind of in a nutshell what the whole campaign was trying to do.

Emilee Christianson [00:03:41]: Stand out, prove ROI and do something cool.

Marlys Arnold [00:03:45]: Well, and definitely, it definitely fits the definition of cool. And it was out of the box. So tell us what the campaign was and how you put it all together.

Emilee Christianson [00:03:58]: Sure. So we created International Paper, is obviously a paper company. And this particular group is. They work with commercial papers. So we needed to create something that included paper and was something a little bit different than maybe just a poster, which this audience absolutely loves. So there's nothing wrong with that, but we want to do something a little bit different. And they didn't have, you know, this was a new show, so there wasn't the huge budget, there wasn't a huge booth. It was just a small 10x10 booth.

Emilee Christianson [00:04:34]: So we wanted something that would be a conversation starter and came up with the idea what we call the little print guys. And they are a little craft. And so we handed out these flat sheets and you would punch out the little pieces and build this three dimensional character to add another layer of interactivity. The faces of these characters, when scanned with the ARBrowserApp IP has would play a message and it made the little print guys look like they were coming to life and talking to you and telling you to post their picture on social media and just creating a little bit of a dialogue. It was really fun.

Marlys Arnold [00:05:24]: Exactly. And I love how you said, I want to back up and kind of break down a little bit what you said here. First of all, I really want to emphasize the fact that this was a 10x10 booth. This was not some big mega booth. This was not the main attraction on the show floor. This was a little bitty booth. And by having those print guys in the booth and doing all the extra engagement with the social media and the augmented reality, which I guess we should back up a little bit on that too. Augmented reality, for those who aren't familiar with that concept is where.

Marlys Arnold [00:06:00]: And you can probably define it better than I can, but you're using, like you said, you're using a marker or some kind of a visual. When the phone or the other device is pointed at the marker, it, like you said, brings it to life and it becomes a video. So I just think it was so clever on so many levels because you had. You didn't just have one style of print guy either. Right, Right.

Emilee Christianson [00:06:27]: Yeah. So there were. This again, was a creative audience. So we created a family of these little print characters. So there was C, M, Y, K and then printer marks. So we had cyan, magenta, yellow and black, which first of all is just speaking the language of these creatives. You know, like they see Those colors, they know, oh, it's cmyk. And then printer marks, which just kind of speaks more to the paper printer element of it.

Emilee Christianson [00:06:57]: And we wanted to have five so that they'd have a new one each session, that the booth was open, the exhibit hall was open, so that's why we went with the five. But we gave them each a different personality. So Magenta was a little bit sassy. Cyan was kind of cool. And he was blue, obviously, so he was a little bit more relaxed. Yellow was kind of a gamer. Black was some retro inspiration and kind of voice. And then printer marks, which is my voice, was just, I don't know, I guess, normal.

Emilee Christianson [00:07:33]: But, yeah. So they each had all these different personalities to make them unique. And really our goal in making so many different ones and having one for each session was to make sure that people felt like they had to have them all. Like, if you're a creative and you just have cmy, then you're a little bit bummed. I want cmyk. I want the whole collection. And we did see that really did happen. People were.

Emilee Christianson [00:08:02]: We had to make sure that we were saving some so that we could take some home, because we had brought everything we had to the show, and so we didn't want to give out everything. And we almost ran out of cyan. I think there was only like maybe 50 left, and we printed over 4,000 of each. Wow. Yeah. It ended up being. They went really, really fast.

Marlys Arnold [00:08:25]: Wow. Well, and I love that aspect, too, that you had the whole collection and so people were trying to come back and collect them all. So it did. It kept bringing people back to the booth. It wasn't just because the problem, what I always tell exhibitors is you don't want something that inspires a scoop and run mentality where they just grab the giveaway and off they go. But they kept coming back and reengaging with the exhibit. And you also had signage there explaining too.

Emilee Christianson [00:08:54]: Right, Right. Yeah. So we didn't want to give everything away, obviously. We wanted to have a little bit of teasing of what was to come. So we had just a sign explaining, hey, there's more than meets the eye. Basically, here. There's augmented reality. So people, they wanted to grab one because they wanted to build it, but.

Marlys Arnold [00:09:15]: They'Re like, well, what they are.

Emilee Christianson [00:09:16]: What am I missing here? There's more to just this print character. So they would demo that in the booth, and then once they kind of learned how it would work, they'd come back and, oh, what's the message this time? And the messaging was always fun and on point with the personality of each of the pieces. But they spoke more about engagement. So they were giving a request, if you will. So they were asking people to post their picture on social media or to shoot a video of them. And that was actually how we used the contest to select. So we had five characters, we had little versions, and then we had some big versions as well that were about twice the size. And there were only a few of those.

Emilee Christianson [00:10:03]: So if they listened to the message that their little print character was saying to them, that would encourage them to post on social media so that they could enter to win one of the big characters.

Marlys Arnold [00:10:16]: And so then that's what the prize was for posting on social media, right?

Emilee Christianson [00:10:22]: Yep. We selected a few winners each day or each session.

Marlys Arnold [00:10:27]: And so then how did you handle. So like you started the day with science, so then when Scion session was done, you just packed away the extras of those and then it was no longer available. Or how did that work?

Emilee Christianson [00:10:39]: Yeah, so with Cyan we did. Because those went so fast, we packed him away totally. The next day we did. Or the next session we did magenta. And then by the third session, we just put magenta yellow and we just started putting them all out because we just couldn't keep up with it. And there were some individuals who were really. They had only bought like a one day thing and they really were like they wouldn't be able to get them all. So we kept some back printer marks, and I think printer marks we held back till the very last day.

Emilee Christianson [00:11:17]: But the others we laid out a little bit more quickly just so that people could make sure they did get them all and still till the very last session. You know, with shows, people tend to leave early. They don't stay always the whole time. And if they do stay the whole time, they don't always come back to the exhibit halls. But we had steady traffic throughout the whole thing, so we knew we'd accomplished our goal. We wanted to make sure people had fun with it and didn't feel like they were gypped, you know? Yeah, yeah.

Marlys Arnold [00:11:50]: Like you said, for the people that were one day only passed, that is kind of tough how to handle that situation. So I think you were smart to.

Emilee Christianson [00:11:58]: Stay flexible on some of those things, right? Yep.

Marlys Arnold [00:12:03]: So I also should mention that I know we're kind of losing a little bit in the translation here by just having an audio podcast, but don't worry, I've got pictures and I also have a video that you can watch that shows A little bit more about the print guys. And if you go to tradeshowinsights.com printguys you can see all of those photos and get a better feel for what they actually look like and how cute they were and what personality. And they all had, like, little subtle nods within their design, too, that I thought was really clever.

Emilee Christianson [00:12:40]: Yeah, they had their quirks. They were definitely not typical corporate kind of feel. So if you look closely, you'll see some little Easter eggs on each of the characters.

Marlys Arnold [00:12:56]: Well, and I love, like, which one was it that had the 867-5409?

Emilee Christianson [00:13:03]: Yeah, that was black. He's a little old retro Nokia phone. And he's got his pager arm that has a number.

Marlys Arnold [00:13:18]: So it's just little details like that, I think. And it showed that you were really in touch with the audience, because not only was it CMYK and printer marks, which were definitely kind of an inside joke with the audience, but also the other little things, the other little nods that were added within the designs, that made them. More quirky and not, like you said, nothing corporate about it, right?

Emilee Christianson [00:13:53]: Yeah. And it was. It was a while we showed IP the designs and we talked through them, and then about halfway through the project, they're like, wait a second. We're still finding new things on these guys that we didn't catch before. Can you explain this? What is this? Magenta's arm is a different. One of her arms is a different color. And that's actually the remote for her face, which is a tv. And then there's some books that are underneath her, kind of like a TV stand.

Emilee Christianson [00:14:25]: And then there's. Under cyan, there is just some little cartridges that are cassette. And those are all phrases that are specific to, you know, like I said, you know, quirky phrases. Kern me tight is. You know, kern is a creative term. Just made it sound like a, you know, a song.

Marlys Arnold [00:14:49]: So they.

Emilee Christianson [00:14:50]: Yeah, they all got their own little.

Marlys Arnold [00:14:54]: Definitely, definitely. Well, and then talking about the whole idea of having these augmented reality messages, videos, those are something that you can continue afterwards too.

Emilee Christianson [00:15:08]: Right.

Marlys Arnold [00:15:08]: That wasn't something that ended with the show. Right.

Emilee Christianson [00:15:11]: Yeah. There were really two huge benefits that we saw with ar. The first was one, the ability to track something. So we weren't just. We could track the amount of interaction even as they left the show, which is always interesting because you think, is anyone actually reading or using what I'm giving out at these shows? And so we were able to track, okay, how many people are actually using the ar looking at these after the show has ended. And we were really amazed by that amount of interaction. And share some of those statistics with us.

Marlys Arnold [00:15:45]: Sure.

Emilee Christianson [00:15:46]: So there were, let's see, about 400 and. 450 or so new app downloads, like between the show and then up until after the show. And then over 12,000 scans. Actually closer to 13,000 scans. And when I say scan, I mean they pointed the. The phone at the Prince guy. And then watch the video, the little animation that brought the character to life. So over 12,000 and the show last three days.

Emilee Christianson [00:16:24]: And then most of these scans actually happened the last day of the show and then after, which is pretty astounding because, you know, that's a lot of people engaging that is watching.

Marlys Arnold [00:16:35]: It's a phenomenal amount of response. And actually, when you think about it, the after is not that surprising because that's when everybody was taking them home and they were showing them to their family and people in their office or whatever. It's like, oh, watch what this little guy can do. You know?

Emilee Christianson [00:16:48]: Exactly. And if you think about it, we only had. Not only, but we had an amazing amount of traffic in the booth. It was about 1500 people, which is great. But then you look at the number of scans. Like, you know, this is a number of scans per person happening here.

Marlys Arnold [00:17:05]: So.

Emilee Christianson [00:17:06]: Yeah. And then what was the second part of your question? Sorry, the ar.

Marlys Arnold [00:17:13]: Oh, and making it good for the long haul. So different ways.

Emilee Christianson [00:17:18]: Yeah. So the cool thing here is that we can update that message as often as we want. So now, if we wanted to send out a special Valentine's Day message to all the people who have these little print guys, we could maybe nudge them, send them an email, say, hey, scan Magenta, See what she has to say about Valentine's Day, and then seamlessly present a new video with new content, saying maybe like, hey, post my picture, take me on a date and show me, tag IP and show me around town, or something like that, we can update that as often as we want and keep that content fresh, which is another cool perspective. Keeping these. The life, if you will, of these little guys really extends their life well.

Marlys Arnold [00:18:11]: And again, it's something that's cute and clever, and I'm willing to bet that there's quite a few little print guys sitting around in designer's offices.

Emilee Christianson [00:18:20]: Yeah, I hope so. I think there is. We've seen some pictures definitely in our office. We have a collection in our office. I bet. I bet.

Marlys Arnold [00:18:31]: Well, and you probably have the large ones and the little ones all lined up together.

Emilee Christianson [00:18:34]: Exactly. Yep. We do their whole family.

Marlys Arnold [00:18:38]: And the pictures that people posted. Again, you'll be able to see some of this when you go to tradeshowinsights.com printguys but you can see some of them are pictures people took with their kids playing with the print guys. And some of them are doing fun things like walking around the convention center or tucked into the hotel bed or. So people obviously were having a lot of fun. And this was. Well, it kind of reminds me of. I don't know if you're familiar with the Flat Stanley and Flat Stella kids do where they take them around. My niece gave me her flat Stella one year and I traveled all over to all different kinds of trade shows and conferences with Stella, but taking pictures in all these interesting places and I think it just, it had a lot.

Emilee Christianson [00:19:29]: Of.

Marlys Arnold [00:19:31]: What do I want to say? Personal interaction. People felt a personal connection to these little guys.

Emilee Christianson [00:19:41]: Yeah, we gave them personalities so that they could have relationships. It would be like real. You felt an affection for each of them for various reasons. And that was something we were pleasantly surprised just about with this campaign as a whole was we knew the designers would love it. We knew the audience there would love it, but just hadn't even thought about the kids. Honestly, this market is not kids at all. And the designers are typically younger. Not to say that they don't have kids, but that just wasn't a thought on our mind.

Emilee Christianson [00:20:15]: And then we started seeing all of these social media pictures come in of people bringing them home to their kids and snuggling with them and taking family pictures with them and it was just a lot of fun.

Marlys Arnold [00:20:28]: It was really rewarding.

Emilee Christianson [00:20:29]: And the designer who did these, Mike, he has a few kids too. And so he was, you know, he just, it touched his heart seeing all the little kids holding his little design. So it was great fun.

Marlys Arnold [00:20:42]: Yeah, I think the photos are just adorable. And who knows, you may have inspired a whole new generation of designers because of the project. All these kids get excited and want.

Emilee Christianson [00:20:51]: To know how it was created. Yeah. What a thought that. I hope so.

Marlys Arnold [00:20:57]: Well, Emilee, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking time to share this story because I think it was so creative and so on the mark. I mean, you really just thinking about, I mean for anybody who's done a 10x10 foot booth and thinking about the fact that you had 1500 people come through that booth, that is just mind blowing in and of itself and then all the engagement on top of it. So kudos to Trekk and International Paper for putting together this great campaign. Any final thank you so much.

Emilee Christianson [00:21:36]: No, I mean it, really. It's always fun to push yourself to think outside the box and to think about different ways to communicate and challenge the way that you've done things historically. So we've handed out paper spec sheets forever. Why do we do that? Why can't we do something that's more fun? You know, may take more time, but it's really a rewarding experience to push yourself to think about why do we do things the way we do them? Can we do them better? So that's what I would say is the most rewarding part about all of this. Just trying something new and seeing that it worked.

Marlys Arnold [00:22:18]: And I love that advice. It's like, don't be afraid to try something new and you may just start a whole new trend. Anyway, thanks again, Emilee, and I really appreciate you being a guest today on Trade Show Insights. And one more reminder, if you want to go see pictures of these cute little print guys, go to tradeshowinsights.com/printguys.

Marlys Arnold [00:22:52]: Want more tips and tools for your exhibit marketing? Check out the free resources available from the Exhibit Marketers Cafe. Simply go to tradeshowinsights.com and click on Free Resources to discover toolkits, webinars, and more, including a link to sign up for the Trade Show Tips online monthly ezine. Tradeshow Insights is protected by the Creative Commons Copyright License. You may feel free to share this recording with colleagues or embed it on your own blog, as long as it's shared in its entirety and is not used for commercial purposes. To learn more, please see the link in the sidebar of the show notes at tradeshowinsights.com. Well, that's it for this episode of Trade Show Insights. Be sure to check out our show Notes and archives at tradeshowinsights.com. You can also connect with me using the social media links or the contact page on the site. I'm Marlys Arnold. Thanks for listening and be sure to join us next time for more tools to improve your exhibit results.