Every year when I walk the aisles of the International Home + Housewares Show, I am shocked by how poorly so many exhibitors’ booths communicate to the people who are attending the trade show. Cookware manufacturers are among the worst of the offenders. Walk the aisles of the South Hall where all the cookware manufacturers’ booths are and your eyes will glaze over from the sameness. Many cookware booths have absolutely no signage except for brand names and maybe a couple of beauty shots of some of the products. Few of the manufacturers have any signage that communicates the brand’s positioning or differentiates the brand from all the other cookware brands that are also exhibiting at the show. Few of the manufacturers even have signage that communicates at a glance what new products the company is introducing at the show.
In contrast, take a company like Bissell. Stand in the aisle by the Bissell booth and within seconds you will know what new products Bissell is introducing at the show and what the key selling points are for each new product. You will have learned about Bissell’s “closed loop manufacturing process” … all before you ever step foot in the booth and without ever having talked to anyone in the booth. Bissell’s booth is a very effective silent salesperson for the company. I can’t think of one cookware company whose booth was anywhere near as effective at communicating their positioning, their points of differentiation, their new product offerings, their brand as Bissell is.
It’s like the cookware exhibitors (and exhibitors in many other product categories) are saying to the thousands of people who walk past their booth over the course of the three days of the show, “it’s on a need-to-know basis and you don’t need to know.” Sure, the retailers who are already buying from them know all about the brand. After all, they get the personal tour. They have someone who takes them around to the various new items and tells them about the selling points of each new product. But what about the buyers from other retailers who aren’t current customers who are walking by the booth? Wouldn’t it make sense to have signage that sells them on the brand and highlights the new products? What about all the other people who walk by the booth? Whether they are trade guests, media, buyers, or exhibitors, they are also consumers of housewares products. Why not have signage in your booth that does the same thing that your packaging and point-of-purchase displays are supposed to do in the retail store -- be your silent salespeople?
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