NEW ORLEANS — Getting people to stop at your booth to talk business is what the DMA’s fall show is all about. To do that more effectively, two companies this year have designed booths that in the first day have created a much better flow of traffic than they expected. Their secret: Offer free champagne and peanuts, and cappuccino and Italian ices.
Fair Isaac and Co., San Rafael, CA, created a booth reminiscent of the bar from “Casablanca.” A company representative performing product demonstrations wears a white blazer and black pants, dressed as the Humphrey Bogart character, Rick — except in Fair Isaac's version of “Casablanca,” his name is Nick.
“We wanted it to be like the movie, where people come into a bar and tell the bartender their problem and he offers them solutions,” said a representative of Fair Isaac, a provider of consumer credit scoring models used for credit approvals. “People come in to the booth and sit down and discuss their points of pain with him, and he runs a presentation on how our products can provide them with a solution.”
Those stopping by the Fair Isaac booth also receive a free glass of champagne and peanuts. Fair Isaac needed permission to serve alcohol.
“This particular theme was chosen because of the location of the conference,” the representative said. “We also chose it to help promote the restructuring of our company and get as much traffic coming through here as possible.”
This was the first time Fair Isaac used this type of booth for a conference.
Commercial Envelope Manufacturing, Deer Park, NY, has been offering cappuccino and Italian ices to conference attendees for almost five years, but this year the company took it a step further and turned its booth into a coffee shop.
“This has generated a ton of traffic,” said John Knoesel, account executive at CEM. “Food is one thing, but when you can offer people a pick-me-up like cappuccino after they have been sitting in sessions all day, they are naturally drawn to it.”
Knoesel said the amount of traffic generated by the booth's coffee shop theme has also pleased exhibitors nearby.
“We have other exhibitors coming up to us and telling us that they are happy to be close to us because of the number of people we have stopping by,” he said.
The two companies said both the amount and the quality of traffic generated by their newly designed booths have been good.
