Does your trade show exhibit reflect your brand and marketing initiatives? As a marketing professional you already know that consistency is key. It almost goes without saying that when your new marketing initiatives are rolled out, your trade show exhibit program should be updated to effectively represent those initiatives. Think of your exhibit as a perpetual work in progress, an ever-evolving platform to support your company’s ever-evolving message.
Aligning Your Trade Show Exhibit with Regular Marketing Campaigns
To modify your exhibit to align with regular marketing campaigns, graphic updates are an absolute necessity. Luckily they’re relatively easy and inexpensive to execute. A few aesthetic principles to take into consideration when working with your graphic support team include:
Messaging – Messaging on signs and banners is easy to change, and should be modified to reflect the key messages you’re trying to get across with your latest marketing campaign. When updating messages, try to align text size, fonts and colors to reflect the message. For example, you can use larger bold text to emphasize certain words, or a font that suggests a specific mood –choose one that’s playful, strong and sturdy, or feminine, for instance, depending on your objectives.
Colors – You can also change the colors on signs, banners and back-drops in accordance with your new marketing campaign. For instance, if you’re a food manufacturer and you’re rolling out a new line of gluten-free Christmas cookies, then you might choose holiday colors like red and green, or blue and silver for your signs and backgrounds.
Images – As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. That’s why it’s important to update photos, posters, and other images to reflect your new marketing campaign. For those new gluten-free Christmas cookies, for instance, you will want to get rid of the photo that shows a plate of cookies at a summer picnic with one, for example, of a child handing a plate of cookies to Santa.
In addition to changing out graphics, ensure that your exhibit’s lighting is sufficient so your new graphic messaging will attract the attention it deserves.
Also, be sure the literature that you’re passing out, and any video content that plays in your booth, has been updated as well.
What about Special Campaigns?
While the above updates may be sufficient for typical marketing campaigns, you will inevitably have special campaigns on occasion that will require more extensive changes to your exhibit. In that case, be sure to touch base with your exhibit house early to discuss your objectives and expectations. A good exhibit partner will work closely with you to bring your marketing initiatives to life on the show floor, transforming your new message into a bonafide real world experience. Keep in mind that while additions to your exhibit, or retrofitting existing components, will make a tremendous impact on your target audience, such an undertaking can take 8-12 weeks to properly execute.
What If My Brand Changes?
Re-branding and new logos will often require more extensive exhibit changes, especially if your current exhibit was designed with previous aesthetic branding in mind. That’s because, if it was truly custom-designed, every aspect of your current exhibit was made to reflect your old brand – from the color of the finishes to the shapes and materials of the exhibit structure itself. In other words, your old brand was built into your custom exhibit from conception.
However, if your branding is changing but the functional requirements of the booth space is not, you might be able to achieve good results with a booth refurbishment, updating the exhibit with new material finishes to reflect a new color palette, for instance.
Again, be sure to check in with your exhibit provider early to review your options. They’ll work with you to ensure your brand messaging and your exhibit experience are working in perfect harmony with one another.
Have Questions? Contact Nationwide 360
If you would like more information on how to align your trade show exhibit with your marketing initiatives and brand, Nationwide 360 is happy to answer your questions. We are a one-stop shop for comprehensive trade show solutions; these range from designing and crafting unique custom exhibits to providing trade show services. To learn more, give us a call today at 631-467-2034.
