Your exhibition stand must reflect your company, brand and product, drawing visitors onto the stand in a hall busy with visitors and other exhibitors activities. You may have all the show preparation underway with pre-show marketing, at show promotions and a winning sales team to attract prospects, but have you paid attention to your stand design and is it the best it can be?
Typically, you have somewhere up to three seconds to make an impression on visitors walking past your exhibition stand. Graphics for trade show displays must therefore be large, eye catching and clearly communicate – in as few words as possible – the benefits of your company, service or products.
There are five key elements that make an impact on the exhibition floor – colour, lighting, motion, sound and smell.
Colour: The colour and tones you choose for your display can help you stand out, as well as convey your message. Cool colours like blue, green and white appear slick and professional, but they don’t immediately grab the interest of passers by. Warm colours such as red, orange, and yellow will typically attract more attention, but they need to be used selectively because misused they could be overpowering or garish. Colours to support a brand are the most powerful, enhancing and reinforcing the brands visual credentials on a large scale as opposed to a piece of product packaging.
Lighting: Creative use of lighting can help draw focus to your booth. Whether you use a spotlight to highlight a new product, mood lighting which changes colour during the day, or something more dramatic using illumination techniques to set yourself apart from the competition, effective, creative lighting can make the difference between an event with good results versus one with outstanding results.
Motion: More and more exhibition stand designers are using motion techniques to draw visitors to their customers stands. Large LCD screens, executing live product demonstrations or having motorised parts of your stand rotating in some form can be highly effective.
Sound: Sound is quite specific to each industry – for example, streaming the sound of a babbling brook at ICE Totally Gaming would get completely lost, the show demands high energy – however, playing drum and base at a yoga exhibition would not be appropriate either! Featuring live entertainers or other sounds that appeal to auditory senses may help entice people to your booth. Be careful that sound levels are appropriately set so they can be heard in your area and don’t disturb other exhibitors around you.
Smell: Smell is often overlooked at trade shows, however it is often used in retail to allure consumers into a store or create a memory. Tantalizing aromas emanating from your booth will attract visitors. Many exhibitors use popcorn as an enticement, but be sure to select something that is appropriate for your company and brand. For something more generic, try the smell of baking croissants in the morning and then change it to something more fresh and citrussy later in the day when visitors need a pick-me-up.
Bringing all of these components together typically requires professional expertise to ensure they are impactful. Your exhibition stand design and build is crucial to success at trade shows. At ESM we have access to a wide range of technologies to make your next trade show, one to remember for all the right reasons.