Marketingandsuch: Sales & Marketing, events, tradeshows tips,video and humor

Seize the moment marketing. Flood saves tradeshow

Posted on 14. Nov, 2008 by PJS in Promo items and concepts, Tradeshow tips and tiffs, War Stories

“We survived the Houston flood – XYZ Company, delivering solutions through anything”

This was many, many years back.  We were exhibiting at a show in Houston and we had nothing in the way of creative promotion or promotion at all.  Essentially we were just armed with corporate brochures and our good looks to draw attendees to our booth.  Why?  Poor planning, miscommunication and we did not have a budget approval until two days before the event.  A recipe for disaster… but then came the flood.

Houston had recently fallen victim to a hurricane, yet the show was not cancelled.  As well, flights were not cancelled to Houston, but the city was a war zone.  After the hurricane, it kept raining and there was massive flooding everywhere.   Power was out in many places, cell phones were not working, even ATMs and credit card processing were not functional in many places.  I took a cab from the airport and it took me three hours to get there.  First, because we had to take many alternative routes due to underwater roads and second, because I had no cash (to pay cab) and had to find an ATM machine… that worked!  We drove around forever.

Now I was at the show a day before the event for setup, which was also delayed.  While sitting in my hotel room, with no power and nothing to do but watch rain, I remembered I had no promotion for the show but now finally had a budget to make something happen.  It took so many meetings, presentations and battling to get this budget.  I did not want to waste it and I wanted to do something unique.

At that point I decided to “seize the moment”.  This flood was something people were not going to forget.  Everyone attending the show was going through the flood pains I was, so I knew it was going to stay in their memories for a long time. So I decided to combine a company message with the flood, so both would stay in the prospects mind for a long time.

I grabbed the phone book.  With just a day I knew it would be almost impossible to get any type of logo imprinted promotional items.  Another option, printing some lame brochure or piece on the flood went against all of my creative ethics… it just lacked any type of spunk. Then while unpacking my clothes, I remembered t-shirts.  From past experience, I remembered, if you caught a custom t-shirt manufacturer at the right time, you could get shirts produced in literally hours.

I grabbed the phone book and went to work. I called around and found a t-shirt place that was #1.OPEN and #2.READY TO DO BUSINESS.  It was a small place but they printed shirts onsite.  Due to the hurricane, a lot of his business was delayed and they literally had nothing to do, so I was welcomed with open arms.

Now some of you seasoned marketers at this point are probably asking yourself this: “Why is this idiot going through all this trouble?  There was a hurricane and a flood.  Who was going to be at this tradeshow?”  Good question.

When I landed in Houston, I was sure to first ask the cab driver about show attendance.  Cab drivers have a wealth of information. They pick people up, and often people make small talk…just like I did.  My cab driver said her company was seeing people coming in for the show.  She was surprised because she figured not many would come during the disaster.  Second, I was staying at a hotel that was part of the show’s hotel room blocks.  I asked the front desk if the show’s room blocks were being filled.  They were filling up gradually and attendees not yet there were calling to say they would be. Of course there were a good deal of cancellations, but there were also a good deal of people coming.  We additionally called other hotels that the show had room blocks for.  They said the same thing.

So I had an audience, and I was assured they were coming to the show… because there was definitely nothing else for them to do in Houston.

Moving forward, within a few hours, the t-shirt guy (or savoir) had his assistant (or girlfriend) come to the hotel and picked up the disk with our company logo and shirt message.  This was so long ago that I had put it on a floppy disk.

By the next day, 300 custom t-shirts were at my disposal.  They were not able to get them to me at the start of the show, but they made it in the afternoon, and then we started our promotional campaign.  Not bad for very, very, very last minute.

To lighten the whole “disaster” experience, I came up with a humorous, yet effective message.

The t-shirt read:

“We survived the Houston flood – XYZ Company, delivering solutions through anything”

Attendees went wild for the shirt.  We seized the moment and the experience of all of the attendees who made it to the show.  Note:  The attendance was about 50% of what was expected, but whoever came was still valuable.  Honestly, the shirts were not great, but the messaging was, and so attendees flocked to our booth, and for post show follow ups, prospects immediately remembered us.

To recap: So how did the flood save us?  Remember, due to delayed budget approval, we had nothing by way of promotion.  The flood, while a disaster, provided us with a window of unique opportunity. This disaster was something people were not going to forget and definitely go back and tell their friends and associates about back home.  We “seized the moment” and piggy-backed off that experience…. people remembered the flood and people remembered us.

Tags: disasters, innovation, marketing, moment, promotion, seize, tips, tradeshow