Promotions

Learning from Bissel - A Trade Show Master

Over the years, I have probably been to hundreds of trade shows. My clients frequently ask me what I think of trade show/Expo X and if they should exhibit/speak there.

To me it always boils down to:

• Who will be there?
• Will  you have a chance to engage meaningfully with prospects (and the media/bloggers)?
• How crowded will it be?
• What commitment is involved.
• How much will it cost?

This weekend I ran across a company that deserves praise for picking an absolutely perfect trade show for them - Bissel.

I took the family to LEGO Kidsfest. A three day 140,000 sq. ft. LEGO extravaganza.

One of the exhibits was "Big Brick Pile”  a 50x100' file of LEGO bricks. At the end of the pile Bissel was there demonstrating the power of its Super Sweep Turbo (it is not a vacuum) to pick up LEGO bricks of all sizes.

Kids were lining up to use the sweeper, pick up bricks and dump them out again.

This is a great example of experiential marketing where the company identified a use of its product, and provided prospects a chance to try it in a real work environment. The Bissel staff was also handing out coupons and explaining the three different stores you can purchase the product at.

What really drove this home to me was after my four year old swept up LEGO bricks for the third time and almost go into a fight with a six year old over who got to pick up the bricks next - My wife turned to me, grabbed me by the collar, looked in my eyes and told me "I don't care about the 'husband rule' that says 'thou shalt not buy your wife appliances as a gift.' I want this. I want this. Do you understand me?"

I am positive my wife was not the only person with that reaction.

So a tip of the hat to the Bissel marketing executives, and a story for all companies to think about. Does your trade show participation and display create that type of reaction from prospects? If not, what can you do to create that scenario.

Posted by Mark McClennan on December 5, 2011 at 9:24 AM
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Two of Our Talented PR Professionals Promoted to SVP

The great news that Laura Kempke and Ross Levanto have been promoted to senior vice president at Schwartz Communications is satisfying and significant. It’s satisfying to me because I’ve had the good fortune to work with both of them for more than a dozen years here at the agency. Both are a sort of laboratory experiment: if you were to design the perfect strategic senior PR person you’d get Laura and Ross. They’re brilliant, omnivorously curious, able to pull the most important essence from mountains of complex information…and yet they still do hands-on work for their clients.

These promotions are significant because of what they say about the rapid changes and the new direction of the PR profession. Both Laura and Ross were early to recognize the importance of SEO, content marketing and the execute/measure/refine cycle. Several years ago they each took on the role of advocate/guru – educating the agency and encouraging (sometimes forcing) us to deploy these techniques for our clients. As a result – to the great benefit of our clients -- Schwartz was an early adopter of PR 2.0 techniques.  Laura and Ross are still our go-to gurus, and every time I think I’ve finally figured it all out I hear about something else and I take the familiar walk down the hall to where they sit. “Hey, what do you know about this (fill in the latest online thing)?” They patiently take a few minutes to explain it to me, and usually show me how they’ve already used it for a client. Check out what they have to say for yourself.

To get some advice from Laura on closed loop marketing visit
http://web.schwartzcomm.com/closed-loop-content-marketing-services and if you want to hear Ross opine on the integration of PR and marketing check out http://web.schwartzcomm.com/the-integration-between-pr-and-marketing

Posted by Dave Close on December 2, 2010 at 9:44 AM
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