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Common Marketing Mistakes Can Doom Successful Companies

March 25th, 2010 COMMENTS
Common Marketing Mistakes

Common Marketing Mistakes

Occasionally, we all need a not-so-gentle kick in the pants about Marketing. Kevin Renner, in an article appearing in the Portland Business Journal, reminds us that marketing is more than brochures, trade shows, and data sheets. Marketing with a capital “M” must be infused in the totality of the organization. Even something as simple as where customers park in company parking lot can make or break a deal. He goes on to explain:

“The biggest sin:  CEO’s don’t understand what marketing is, or what they should demand from their chief marketing officers . . . . Countless executives view marketing as the part of the organization that does the brochures or the trade shows.”

I’d enjoy hearing your comments on this column. See the link below for the article.

http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2010/02/22/newscolumn1.html

–Mel White

http://www.linkedin.com/in/melmwhite
mel@classicexhibits.com
Classic Exhibits Network (LinkedIn)

Preview the NEW Peek-a-Booth Video Cameras

March 24th, 2010 2 COMMENTS
Live Web Cam from Classic Exhibits

Live Web Cam from Classic Exhibits

As a dedicated reader of the Trade Show Tales Blog, you deserve something extra. No, not money, at least not this month, but we are announcing a new feature on the Classic Exhibits website called Peek-a-Booth. An e-broadcast announcement will be sent in a few days, but as a “Preferred Reader” you deserve a sneak peek (pun intended).

As you know, we pride ourselves on “transparency” with our employees, our suppliers, and our distributors. We’re not by nature either secretive or paranoid. We believe that the more you know about our business the more likely we’ll work together to find solutions and opportunities. There’s always a danger in being open and honest, but we feel it’s worth the risk. Past Five Days is a good example. Everyday you see a sample of the exhibit and event projects passing through our facility.

We decided to take the P5D concept to the next logical step — a live video feed. We mounted two pan and zoom cameras in our Production Set-up Area. These cameras stream live video 24 hours a day. Once you enter the username and password, you can see your project (or any project) in real-time and can control each camera’s movement. Very cool!

The username will always be the same:  classicexhibits. The password changes everyday. You can obtain the current password by emailing projects@classicexhibits.com or by contacting a Project Manager.

To preview Peek-a-Booth today (Friday, March 26, 2010), the password is: hyS2iWxZ

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Please share your thoughts about this new feature. Is it valuable for you (as a distributor), and do you see it as beneficial to your customers as well?

–Mel White

http://www.linkedin.com/in/melmwhite
mel@classicexhibits.com
Classic Exhibits Network (LinkedIn)

Word on the Street — March 15th thru March 19th

March 20th, 2010 2 COMMENTS

Word on the Street by Kevin Carty

Word on the Street by Kevin Carty

POST-EXHIBITOR 2010 — Thoughts and Comments

What a week!

We are back and in follow-up mode — especially after such a great show.

My trip to Vegas actually started the week before EXHIBITOR as I arrived on Thursday to attend GlobalShop. Also a very good show this year. Then I moved over to Mandalay Bay on Friday to setup our exhibit for EXHIBITOR. I don’t know about you, but I love getting to the floor before I&D starts. It’s completely empty except for the staging of the semi’s and forklifts.

Booth Set-up

Getting Ready for EXHIBITOR

Getting Ready for EXHIBITOR

As I walked the empty floor for a few minutes just looking at the taped out booth spaces, I knew the new floor layout was going to be a huge hit! And if you’ve already seen the floor plan for 2011, they made it even better.

Back at our space, #929, our team from Momentum Management was already hard at work getting our floor ready. If I told you they did a great job, I am not sure that would be giving them enough praise. They have been a dedicated partner for Classic at EXHIBITOR and TS2 for the past 4 years. Thanks again to Rich and Gary!

The booth setup went smoothly. We used one of our standard 20 x 30 island rentals with a few custom tweaks, which included additions to highlight our new TSP ClassicMODUL profiles that accept silicone edge graphics (SEG) from Optima Graphics. We used Flex Floor from Brumark which turned out to be a major attraction throughout the show.

In the end, the booth was attractive and laid out very well from a “booth-staffing” perspective. The graphic message was very direct. It highlighted Exhibit Design Search and the hundreds of exhibit designs in EDS from tabletops to islands to meet any display budget. For a video walk through of the Classic Exhibits booth, see the two video postings that precede this blog.

Day One

The show opened Monday at 11:30 a.m. I love seeing the sea of people flooding into a show hall. And a sea of people is what we had. Booth traffic on Day One was great. Not a lot of end users on our side of the floor, but I wandered around and visited our vendor partners on other parts of the floor and there were indeed lots of Red Badges. The end users did what we all do — turn right or go straight ahead.

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“Classic” Chippendales Video Compliments of Larry Crumlish

March 20th, 2010 COMMENTS

You may want to step back from the table in case you are eating. In fact, we strongly recommend that you wait at least an hour after eating or drinking before viewing this video. The images are VERY VERY disturbing.

Our thanks to Larry Crumlish from InSource for sending us this Chippendales video and for his explanation:

“This year, I was a bit concerned about what happened after your EXHIBITOR hospitality suite. My understanding that ‘what happens in Vegas . . . Stays in Vegas!’ So I do not know how the film clip below got published.”

As always, it was a pleasure seeing you at EXHIBITOR. We’re sending an index finger in your direction my friend. For an explanation of the “index finger” remark or just to give Larry Crumlish a thumbs up for the video, you can contact him at larry@insourcelc.com.

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Click the Image to View the Video

Video Emails from Classic Exhibits at EXHIBITOR 2010

March 19th, 2010 COMMENTS

We thought you might enjoy these videos taken by Jeff Abramson from MaxYourImage. The first video shows a quick walk through of the Classic Exhibits booth and an update by Kevin Carty, VP of Sales about EXHIBITOR 2010. Kevin discusses attendance at the show and the Classic products featured in the booth, including rental display kits and silicone edge graphics.

The second video with Jeff Abramson walks you through the key features of the Classic Exhibits booth with an emphasis on the backlit SEG graphics.  We hope you enjoy both videos!

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