Copyright 2016. All rights reserved. Competitive Edge.

13 Ways to Improve Your Exhibit Effectiveness

By Jefferson Davis, Competitive Edge

Your exhibit plays a critical role in your exhibiting success. Visually it must first grab attention and

quickly and effectively communicate what you do, who you are and why attendees should stop and enter.

The exhibit should also communicate and reinforce your corporate branding.

Since the booth is a defined space where your staff and attendees interact, it must be effectively designed

to facilitate traffic flow, ensure attendees quickly find what they are looking for, support interaction with

your staff, and help meet the information needs of attendees. To determine overall exhibit effectiveness,

the following 13 evaluation questions are in the updated Exhibiting Effectiveness Evaluation:

VISIBILITY: Do they see it?

1. How well does the overall exhibit grab attention? An exhibit hall is a sensory overload experience for attendees. It helps to think of your exhibit like a

billboard on a freeway. The attendees are driving down the aisle at 65 miles per hour. The first thing

your exhibit must do is make them look. It’s a mistake to assume attendees notice every exhibit,

because in reality they don’t. Step outside and look at your exhibit. Put yourself in the shoes of your

target audience. Observe how you are using exhibit architectural properties, materials, shapes, size

and scale, color, lighting, graphic images, text and copy, motion, audio-visual media tools, and

product displays. If you were the attendee, would it grab your attention?

2. Is a message quickly visible?

With so many choices of possible exhibits to visit, attendees have to quickly decide where to focus

their time and attention. It’s your job to visually and quickly communicate clear messages or value

propositions to help the attendee decide if they should stop and engage. An attendee will not spend

much time trying to figure this out on their own.

Prominently showcase product displays in the booth so they are visible from the most important

angles approaching the exhibit. Support product displays with signage listing your benefits and

capabilities. This can be effectively communicated with both static graphics and digital signage.

Effective placement of graphic and A/V messaging is critical. Top-tier signage should communicate

who you are, and what you do. Mid-level signage should communicate what you do and why they

should care. Eye-level signage should provide additional, more detailed messaging. Positioning of

graphics is really important - for in-line spaces, make sure copy is not blocked by high tables or chairs

and is positioned above sight line.

In larger exhibits, it is important that some graphics are located on the periphery to attract attention

and help attendees determine if they are interested in learning more. The rule of thumb is that

information on the outside of the booth is succinct; more detailed descriptions are used inside the

booth.

Copyright 2016. All rights reserved. Competitive Edge.

3. Do the messages inform/educate and give attendees a reason to stop?

An effective exhibit tells a quick visual story. Use short headlines and a short product descriptive to

answer the “what” question in the attendees mind. Use bulleted application, feature/ benefit messages.

Provide additional information to educate about the product. Also, remember, since one of the primary

reason attendees visit the exhibit hall is to see what’s new, you will attract more attendees by

showcasing new products and services and placing NEW messaging in highly visible areas around the

booth.

4. Is company and/or product branding clear and visible?

Once an exhibit captures attention and communicates what you offer, the attendee must determine

who the company is. Stand outside your booth and notice from what angles and at what sight levels

your company identity is visible. Make sure your company name and logo is well placed at various

levels so attendees can see it from all perspectives of the hall including from a distance, approaching

the booth, and at eye level - close to and in the exhibit.

Make sure your corporate colors and images are effectively weaved into exhibit architecture, signage,

kiosks, furnishings, and even down to the color of the carpet. Integrating corporate colors provides

continuity throughout. Unifying your exhibit using consistent corporate colors repetitively throughout

the space also helps you achieve enhanced brand awareness and improve attendee recall of your

brand.

ACCESS & NAVIGATION: Can they get into it?

5. Any barriers to entry or exit?

You want attendees to cross the carpet line and enter your space. Avoid obstacles that block or limit

entrances to your exhibit. Having large walls that block off entrance to your booth and block off

surrounding exhibits is not desirable to attendees. Obstacles to entering include exhibit properties,

tables, information counters and/or display cases, and sometimes even exhibit staff. Sometimes

positioning a table or display case a few feet off the carpet line can make a difference whether or not

attendees decide to enter.

6. Is there enough open space for attendees?

You must have sufficient space in the booth so it is easy for attendees to navigate around the booth

and not feel crowded. We see too many exhibitors trying to put too much into small 10x10 and 10x20

booths and even island exhibits. An overcrowded booth that is hard to enter, with little or no open

space, is unappealing to attendees. It detracts from the overall attendee experience and reduces the

number of people who enter and the time they spend in your exhibit.

7. Is it quick and easy to discern where things are located?

In linear booths, it is important not to bring too many different products as this often makes the booth

appear cluttered and reduces the odds of establishing a clear focal point. If you have to bring a lot of

products, as in the case of instruments or small implants, try to group products by application, and

place a vertical header sign so attendees can quick quickly find what they’re looking for. Be sure to

emphasize new, best sellers, and show special items with additional call out signage.

In medium and large booths, the same strategy of grouping products by application and having

vertical header directional signage applies. But in most cases, you will augment this display strategy

by using individual freestanding product kiosks. Be sure that each kiosk has a descriptive sign at or

Copyright 2016. All rights reserved. Competitive Edge.

slightly above eye level. Using different colors for each product area and lighting the header signs is

an effective directional strategy. And give careful consideration as to where you place the various

kiosks to create a natural navigational flow through the exhibit, like a museum uses time and other

natural groupings.

Also, when you have multiple solutions, think about the sequence in which those solutions are utilized

in the clinic or surgical procedure. Consider using a zone floor plan, where there are “meet and greet”

areas near the perimeter of the booth and a few high-visibility, interactive product/service demos to

help attract more attendees. Then, use the center of the booth to place your most important, more

involved displays.

ATTENDEE EXPERIENCE & LEARNING OPPORTUNITY: Is there something meaningful to

do?

8. Are there enough visible booth staff?

The rule of thumb is one staffer per 50 open square feet of space. Understaffing or overstaffing a

booth is counter-productive and generally ineffective. Consider the size of your exhibit and exhibit

hall traffic flow and patterns. Make sure you have enough staff available to engage attendees. But not

too many! Having too many staff can block booth graphics and messaging. This is critical in the

smaller booths, so it is best to stand a step inside the booth’s edge so your messaging can be visible

and graphic messages can cause people to pause in the aisles or draw them in. If you wonder if you

have too many staff, stand outside your booth without attendees before the show begins. If it already

looks crowded without attendees, you probably have too many staffers.

The AAOS Annual Meeting is a professional meeting. Attendees will be in professional business

attire. In larger exhibits, where attendees often have difficulty identifying booth staffers, your staff can

wear the dark green AAOS lanyards or your company branded lanyard in addition to their AAOS

badge to help distinguish them from attendees. You might also consider some form of additional staff

identification like company branded apparel or color coordinated shirts, jackets, ties and/or scarves.

Not only will this make it easier for attendees to quickly find a staffer in the booth, but you will also

look well organized, professional and present a coordinated, branded team appearance.

9. Does booth staff appear proactive?

Attendee’s time on the exhibit floor is limited and they will not wait much more than one minute to be

engaged by a staffer. You should have sufficient staff available at any given time whether it is the first

day or the last day to manage traffic flow. Engaging attendees passing by or considering entering your

booth requires proactive behavior on your staff’s part. You may want to assign specific meet and greet

staffers and position them near the perimeter and entrances to your exhibit. This can be an excellent

support strategy to help demonstration and sales staffers who may be engaged with attendees.

10. Are staff behaviors appropriate?

Behaviors such as sitting, leaning, staring into space or acting disinterested, eating, drinking,

clustering in groups, talking to other staffers, working on computers, using cell phones and/or texting

in the booth present an undesirable image of your company in the mind of attendees. Having too many

staffers hanging around the booth and clogging up the aisles frustrates show attendees and is against

AAOS rules and regulations. All of these behaviors decrease booth traffic by discouraging potential

attendees from stopping.

Copyright 2016. All rights reserved. Competitive Edge.

11. Are products/services physically accessible to attendees?

Attendees come to the exhibit hall to do more than they can on your website. A display is static. A

presentation is interactive. Tradeshow attendees want hands-on, immersive experiences with your

products. They are influenced, and remember better through multisensory physical interaction.

Simply placing products or pictures of the products in the booth is ineffective. Ask yourself, what is

the experience we want attendees to have with our product and how can we create the physical

interaction in the booth.

12. Is there a visible and engaging educational presentation/demo/experience?

Attendees want to physically engage with products and services. Purchase consideration and message

retention is improved when multiple senses are engaged: visual, auditory and kinesthetic.

The extra thought and effort you put into your product/service presentation is instantly evident to

attendees and demonstrates your commitment to a quality attendee experience. The objective in

your product/service presentation is to demonstrate creativity while economizing on the amount of

time attendees need to acquire the information they seek. Think about your product or service and try

to find a fun, unique and engaging way to recreate a field based or real world application for

maximum impact. Proving your claims with interactive demonstrations is extremely effective.

Showing cutout and expanded views along with instructions on how to use the products or

imaginative ways of showing how to take advantage of services is also very effective.

13. Is the experience visually supported with key takeaway messages?

Don’t just tell them… show them! Only presenting product information verbally limits sensory input

and thereby limits impact, understanding and recall. Supporting product messages with visible,

bulleted, key-point signage increases sensory input. This can be achieved with exhibit or wall signage,

table top signs, flat panel monitors with continuous loop PowerPoint or video presentations. If you

are presenting a PowerPoint, video or DVD on monitor(s) in the exhibit, be sure to identify what’s

being shown on the monitor. This can be achieved through topper(s) attached to the monitor or on an

easel sign on a counter. The signs can be very helpful for the audience as too often the volume is

turned down and attendees are watching a “silent movie.” The signage identifies the presentation topic

and helps put content into context for viewers so they know what they are watching.