by Ed LaForge
Vice President Marketing
MACtac North America
Stow, OH
In the midst of trade show season, companies all over the world in every facet of every industry are in need of a trade show exhibit or booth. From design and creation to the building and construction process and execution, trade show exhibits, and therefore exhibit houses, are in high demand.
So, as an exhibitor, how do you create an exceptional trade show booth that drives in attendees? With hard work, grand ideas and great partnerships. Just like the working relationship between Communication Exhibits, Inc. (CEI), a full-service exhibit house based in Canal Fulton, OH, and MACtac®, a pressure-sensitive adhesive manufacturer based in Stow, OH.
“Great partnerships are the foundation of any successful exhibit creation – once you have that, you can really start getting your hands dirty to discover that unique selling point, element of creativity or marketing revelation that will make your exhibit unique in the marketplace and attract the attention you are striving for,” said Brian Walters, vice president of creative services, CEI. “We have had a great business relationship with MACtac for more than 17 years, and each year we build on past successes to bring our partner the latest and greatest in trade show exhibit design.”
When Your Client Is Also Your Supplier
Setting aside all boundaries, CEI took on the task of transforming MACtac’s largest company exhibit, a 60′ x 55′ island, into a tech-savvy ‘Seriously Cool’ exhibit for MACtac Roll Label’s largest trade show, Label Expo Americas, which features products and solutions for the labels and labeling industry. Uniquely, from the floor, to display panels, walls and kiosks, this booth was a true representation of what pressure-sensitive adhesives have to offer. The final creation was one giant piece of marketing collateral not only for individual products, but for the company as a whole.
“The one goal of each and every trade show is to market your company and its products better than any other company in that exhibit hall,” said Jennifer Bowman, marketing communications manager, MACtac Corporate Marketing. “When you partner with an exhibit company that truly believes in working with you – day and night – to accomplish that goal, it makes all the difference in the world. It’s the act of selling, and to successfully sell, you need a brand, a product and an image. We’ve developed a brand and products, but bringing that image to life is where CEI excels.”
While the Label Expo show itself serves MACtac Roll Label, one of the company’s five commercial areas, the materials used in booth construction were products of the MACtac Graphic Products’ division. The booth theme was ‘Seriously Cool Technology’ so from the initial meeting, CEI knew it had a great opportunity to bring a brand new look and image to the customers and attendees at the show through a tech-savvy exhibit design. This included a live presentation area, interactive demonstration area, interactive floor graphic area, six 42″ LCD monitors, with product messaging and a central 7′ x 5′ rear projection screen with motion graphics, produced by CEI’s in-house multimedia department to quickly highlight brands and products.
“From day one, we knew this exhibit was going to be remarkable – featuring large, brightly colored graphics with a high-tech approach, using the booth itself as a tool to completely market MACtac and the many new technologies to be announced at the show,” Walters said. “Specifically, InFusion™, MACtac’s new hybrid adhesive system. Unveiling InFusion was going to be huge with a press conference, live in-booth demonstrations and an entire campaign built around the launch – the InFusion station of the booth needed to make a splash, in a big way.”
Walters noted that as soon as the Seriously Cool Technology theme was presented, he immediately started thinking of ways to incorporate new presentation technologies to bring attention to the main booth attraction, InFusion. The featured tactic to do so was the live presentation area, which utilized a more straight-forward approach by featuring an actual product demonstration running in real time, something MACtac quickly embraced.
Most of the graphics produced for the exhibit were printed, laminated and mounted with MACtac Graphic Products’ films and media, including IMAGin® JT5829 permanent digital media and ColorGard™ CG7300 Lustre overlaminate, designed to protect applications such as point-of-purchase graphics, signage and exhibits where adhesive performance is critical. All graphics were printed on the Mimaki JV3 with OEM inks. In addition to the film graphics, several fabric banners also hung throughout the exhibit. The dye-sublimation printed banners displayed vibrant new product and brand messaging and were featured in various sizes, with the largest banner at 16′ x 10′ featured above the InFusion demonstration area.
The booth also featured vinyl decals throughout – some of which were whiteboards to write on – made of IMAGin wallNOODLE™, a 6.0-mil face with white matte finish and laminated with dry-erase Permacolor® PG7000, 1.2-mil polypropylene laminate. The adhesive on wallNOODLE is easy to apply, reposition and remove so another feature of the booth was a hands-on remove and re-apply wallNOODLE station. As an innovative new product, driven by industry trends and customer influence, wallNOODLE was also used as a wall graphic in the conference area as well as in the creation of the walls surrounding a portion of the booth designed to highlight the MACtac Application Development team – a group of experts who partner with customers to develop industry-transforming solutions like wallNOODLE.
Other areas of the booth – walls, shelves, display panels, etc. – were held together with U-Glu™, MACtac’s new liquid adhesive in a solid form. U-Glu directly affected exhibit construction manufacturing processes for the booth design and was particularly useful in the fabrication of various display panels and multi-layered header structures.
“When approaching a booth, customers are first attracted by curiosity associated with moving visuals, and upon interaction, they become fully engaged,” said Walters.
Utilizing visuals to highlight branding messages presents a well-rounded customer experience and creates recognition. Keeping this in mind, one of the booth’s most popular areas was a large 20′ x 20′ floor graphic, which was created out of IMAGin JT5829 removable digital media and laminated with Permacolor PF6300 textured laminate. It was displayed at the forefront of the booth as part of an eye-catching, interactive game with special highlights of the new products debuting at the show. CEI worked with Colortone Staging and Rentals (CSR) to determine how to achieve this feature, and the solution was in the form of a new technology called EyeStep, where show attendees could step on the floor graphic as part of a digital motion messaging game displayed from a projector above.
“From both creativity and strategic angles, incorporating technology like EyeStep into exhibit construction is a no-brainer, given you have the budget and the resources,” Walters said. “As one of the more recent trends in attention-grabbing additions, the EyeStep station at the booth’s entrance turned the head of nearly anyone walking by. It played off the booth theme nicely and was extremely intriguing for on-lookers as many conversations were started based solely off interest in the technology.”
The design and planning process for any truly successful trade show program should always include an in-depth understanding of the client’s markets and customers. Another important factor in creating a successful design is competitive research. These two factors alone help a company stand out from its competition, increase booth traffic and increase the opportunity to introduce customers to new products and services.
“I believe that the MACtac exhibit has always stood out from other exhibits because of its unique graphic appeal and inviting floor plan,” Walters added. “MACtac’s unique product offering is easy to incorporate into its exhibit design as well as into the construction of other client’s exhibits. Collaboration with our customers is the key to creating an outstanding trade show experience and successful show. MACtac and CEI have a great relationship in understanding how to utilize each company’s capabilities and products.” eb
