THE animated advantage at trade shows
Whether you decide to bring your product to life through AR, create an immersive VR experience, or employ a simple product demo in a dazzling display, animation can champion your company over the competition and help your booth stand out at trade shows.
Trade shows can be crucial stomping grounds for consulting companies and government contractors hoping to win contacts, interact with potential clients, or solidify a competitive edge in their industry. Trade shows provide ample opportunity to advertise your company, but it can also be easy to get lost in the crowd. Most trade shows have tens of thousands of guests, with vendors attending in numbers not far behind. In 2019, AUSA’s October trade show boasted a total attendance of 32,722 people with 21,388 attendees and a whopping 11,334 exhibitors. With booths only open for a few hours at a time and exhibitors vying for the attention of attendees, standing out is essential.
That’s where animation can help.
demonstrations
Product demo videos provide excellent opportunities to walk potential customers through what you do. Not all products are easy to demo in a convention hall. The big, bulky, and loud would have their work cut out for them trying to sell and explain their products to inexperienced consumers in a crowded venue like a trade show. Instead, a custom animation can introduce customers to your products in a quick, digestible way without the excesses and impracticalities of in-person demonstrations or filmed video. Animation allows for a breakdown of the product and for special insider access to otherwise hard or impossible to see places. It also allows for scaling issues to vanish. Anything too small to see or too big to haul into convention centers can still reach those audiences through animated graphics and videos.
In order to properly showcase their new seal technologies, MIDE used animation to demonstrate the application and functionality of their products. Animation allowed their audiences to enter into a normally inaccessible space and view something on a larger, more understandable scale than an in-person demonstration or live video format could have practically delivered.
memorability
Beyond just solving the practical issues of product demos, animation demo videos help relieve personnel at the booth. With animated product demos, you’re free to let the animations and experiences do the tedious work so that you can answer individualized questions or concerns and sell your company with more personality.
Even better, animated demos can help generate a memorable link between your product and company. Videos personalized with company branding inextricably connect your products and technologies with your company’s name and logo. Audiences then know where and how to find you. Beyond that, face scanning technologies allow your personnel to scan themselves into a VR experience. Potential clients who stop by your booth can interact with representatives in person and personalized virtual versions of real employees. That way, when attendees leave the trade show, they aren’t just talking about what you can do, they are talking about you.
offer an experience
Another way to ensure notability among attendees is to provide an experience that your potential customers will remember and talk about after. The Pipeline suggests, “Create an experience. Don’t just talk at your prospects, get them involved!” One way to bolster engagement is through virtual experiences using VR and AR technologies. VR employs animation to help immerse the audience in a new world where they can interact directly with your product or whatever else you may want to highlight from your company. In contrast, AR tech brings your product into your client’s world, where they can test it out with a 3-D virtual model. After they download the AR experience at your booth, attendees can even take it with them as they move around the convention, spreading the word about your company as they go. Both types of alternative reality tech will give your clients a chance to engage with your company in a cutting-edge and memorable way.
The Pixeldust Virtual Conference Software provides an example of the type of user-driven virtual experience that allows for immersive audience engagement. Through animation, these experiences allow the audience to envelope themselves in an alternative reality and interact with their surroundings. There are even options that allow your booth’s attendees to customize their avatars and interact with your virtual employees.
For more on the difference between AR vs. VR technology check out our blog here!
The Verdict / Bottom Line
Animated product demos, VR, and AR are all powerful tools that can help your business capture the attention of potential clients. Distinguishable logos, animated product displays, and alternative reality (AR/VR) experiences can bolster your booth and company’s claim on the attention of attendees and make your company the buzz-worthy talk at the trade show and long after.
See more on the benefits of animation in our other blogs!
