TRADE SHOW MATERIALS We've all seen the bad ones: The "College Bulletin Board" booth, with dozens of little product graphs and text pages pinned up; the "Big Idea" booth that features a puzzling theme with no relevance to what the company offers; the "Flea Market" booth stuffed with every product the company sells. What's a marketer to do?

Simplify. A trade show is the perfect opportunity for a company to define itself in a simple, exciting, compelling manner. Remember, a booth graphic is not the Yellow Pages. It is a backdrop that acts like a billboard, quickly informing the viewer about what the company in the booth has to offer. And that's it.

A trade show display should be an exciting, dramatic tool with which to position the company in the marketplace. It should help create an active, interesting forum in which employees can interact with attendees. Start with one or more large graphics that show your products or services in action. Bring in elements of your advertising campaign to create continuity. Utilize open space to enable attendees to move freely through your display area, allowing your employees to engage them in conversation. One of the biggest trade show mistakes companies make is positioning an eight-foot table at the edge of their display area, stacking neat piles of brochures on it and allowing employees to sit placidly behind it. That creates one of the greatest dialogue barriers known to man.

Contact us for more on how to maximize your trade show presence. Whether it's a ten-foot portable display or a forty-foot island exhibit, we're ready to help you make it the most effective marketing tool possible.