With almost 2.6 million net square feet of exhibit space, over 3,800 exhibitors and 175,000+ attendees, CES is overwhelming the moment you step foot on the showroom floor. Add in music, official tours, and the occasional celebrity sighting, and it’s easy to walk out of the entrance and just read about the tech everyone’s talking about in your favorite publication. But then you realize you traveled all the way to Las Vegas, like you do every year the first week in January, and you’re committed to checking out the latest voice activated product, smart home technology, television, or robot.
Enter the exhibitor. CES becomes a premier exhibition to show off and launch new consumer technology in a set piece of the show floor amid multiple distractions. How does your product stand out? Sometimes it’s as easy as thinking about your booth more than thinking about your product.
Placement matters.
Want to guarantee you get booth traffic? Be by the entrance or exit, food stall or lounge. Some of the most talked about tech this year was in front of your face as soon as you completed bag check at security. I’m convinced that L’Oreal’s smart hairbrush didn’t just get attention (good or bad) because the press release said the brush can listen to your hair through its microphone, but because it was located close to the door in Sands Expo and was hard to miss.
Video signage is the new black.
When it comes to clever signage, sports fitness brands like Under Armour and Fitbit got it right. Yes, they are big brands that have had a great presence at CES in the past, but the truth is, this year, they were also easy to find because of video. These brands took booth signage and turned up the dial, replacing static billboards with full scale, bright video boards and light up logos. The signage was almost as exciting as the products, at least for a #eventprof like me.
Clean design beats complicated.
Starting in elementary school through my days as an art major in college, I learned about color theory. Opposite colors stand out, like colors blend in. At CES the best art professors in the country could have taught a master class about making products pop with color choice. And it doesn’t have to be the brightest booth in the room. In Eureka Park, a sea of hundreds of startups, booths like Toymail[1] attracted visitors with a simple black wall as the background for their colorful talking toy products. Now, you wouldn’t think that a black background could do so much to stand out from the crowd, but when the main color choice down in Eureka Park was white, black wins. There is no need for complicated graphics when you let your products shine on their own.
Think outside the 30’ x 30’ box.
No one said a tradeshow booth has to be four walls and a carpeted floor. It’s just as important to think about what is above and below your booth as it is to think about what’s inside. That’s where companies like Sleep Number got it right. They created a ceiling that not only supported the branding of their product and looked like a cloud, but had an organic structure that drew the eye towards their space because it was so visually interesting.
Let the product speak for itself.
Did you ever think that you would wish for your desk to have a motor to raise and lower on its own? No? Me neither. But, that didn’t stop me from standing and watching this beautiful, poetic display of desks moving up and down together in harmony. Autonomous threw out the classic idea of the tradeshow booth and displayed their smart desk on the showfloor without any walls at all. They placed their smart desks side by side and their whole booth was just their product, moving like the Bellagio fountains set to music. I was mesmerized, until I realized that I was looking at a motorized desk that I didn’t need.
Overall, just keep it simple. If your product is cool enough or weird enough or innovative enough to get attention, attendees will find their way to check it out. And once they do, don’t add to their sensory overload. All we really want is a padded floor to stand on for a few minutes to rest our feet or a smart bed to sleep on and take a nap.
[1] Toymail image credit: Newsday
