Exhibition stands – Traditional vs Experiential

projectmanager - June 2011

Standing out from your competitors at an exhibition show is absolutely key to getting customers flocking in your direction. So it got me pondering as to weighing up the strengths of traditional exhibition marketing techniques against experiential style.

A good exhibition needs to stand out, attract, engage, inform and be memorable.

Ok, so how does traditional exhibition marketing go about achieving this?

Graphically, they tend to be fairly good, they rely on cutting edge technology to interact and woo their customers, and these days tend to jump onto the eco friendly bandwagon to appeal to peoples sensitive side. Steve Gibson, business development manager of 2Heads says ‘Many companies are looking for three key things when planning their exhibition presence, brand image, value, and being as ‘green’ as possible, sustainability is at the top of a lot of our clients lists, exhibitors should seriously think about using hardware and structures that are reusable.’

In short, traditional perspectives prefer to keep it simple, employ intelligent and engaging staff to inform and charm, use good lighting to bring a cinematic edge, and if they’re feeling generous they might just throw in some free cupcakes for good measure.

The experiential method on the other hand has far more depth. What experiential delves into, which traditional methods lack, is that it really taps into the customers emotional experience. Here at Scene 2 we pride ourselves on being able to really deliver on this front. Whereas traditional method will splash out the cash on technological solutions to wow its customers, we feel that simple, innovative ideas that tell a story can emotionally engage, while being far more cost effective.

Traditional marketing does the safe things well, whereas experiential marketing looks to innovate the far reaching areas of the customer hearts, to really engage and brighten up their perception of the brand.