Starbucks (Threebucks), Disney and Trade Show Experiences

I read an article today discussing that the vast majority of trade show attendees don’t remember the booth spaces they visit. The article, published on BtoBOnline and titled The personal touch, also stated that trade shows aren’t about the number of leads, but the networking opportunities and qualified leads that a company gathers at the booth space. In the ever constantly changing world of “business lingo” this doesn’t sound that new as it’s always been my opinion that any company who doesn’t have a clear cut plan always uses “number of leads” as an indicator of a successful trade show. In other words, if your only measure of success is “number of leads” you were lazy and didn’t prepare for your show in a way that would maximize ROI.

I do agree with this article as it states that creating unique experiences helps attendees remember you…..well DUH! For any of you who are married or have witnessed your child being born can attest that these “experiences” are forever imprinted on your brian because thay are extremly unique events in your life. So how can you create unique experiences at your next trade show? Here are a few places to start.

The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre & Every Business a Stage – by B Joseph Pine, James H Gilmore – Harvard Business School Press. Read excerpts online with Google Books. Buy Online at Amazon.

This book is AWESOME and a definite read for any business professional. The book details the progressive steps of a product or service from Commodity, Wholesaler, Distributor, Retalier and finally Experience. An example would be Stabucks, or as my father likes to call them Threebucks. The coffee grower is selling a Commodity (whole bean coffee) to a converter who grinds the coffe and sells as a Wholesaler to a Distributor who may repackage or add additional features like flavors, etc. The distributor sells to a Retailer like a fast food restaurant or gas station who sells to the end user at $0.75. That same coffee may be served at Starbucks for a much higher price (hence the name calling by my father). Why can Starbucks get a much higher price? Because they have created an experience. Other “Experiental Marketing Masters” refrenced in this book include Disney.

Jack Morton Worldwide – Experiental Marketing Agency. According to their website…..”As a leading experiential marketing agency, Jack Morton helps the world’s best companies build brands, sales and success by creating experiences that engage and transform employee, business and consumer audiences.”

Experiential Marketing : How to Get Customers to Sense, Feel, Think, Act, Relate – by by Bernd H. Schmitt - Description from Amazon – Experiential marketing, a decidedly turn-of-the-millennium form of corporate persuasion that strives to elicit a powerful sensory or cognitive consumer response, is rapidly superseding the stodgy features-and-benefits approach generally in vogue since the gray-flannel ’50s. In fact, says Bernd H. Schmitt, a professor of marketing and director of the Center on Global Brand Management at Columbia Business School, leading enterprises ranging from Gillette and Martha Stewart to Amtrak and Oprah Winfrey are already using such emotionally loaded techniques successfully to develop new products, communicate with customers, create business partnerships, build innovative cyberspace and brick-and-mortar sales outlets, and boost profits. Experiential Marketing presents Schmitt’s insightful and thought-provoking examination of this growing trend, along with a series of suggestions (for example, how to create an “us vs. them” atmosphere) for implementing similar efforts. By dissecting a series of relevant campaigns undertaken at the leading-edge firms mentioned above, along with those at other major players such as Harley-Davidson, Volkswagen, Celestial Seasonings, and Taster’s Choice, Schmitt demonstrates its effectiveness while deftly pointing out salient techniques that readers might adopt. –Howard Rothman