Trade shows are all about maximizing your engagement in a few short days. Most of the time printed materials end up the attendees hotel trash can and never make it back to their office. How do you make a lasting impression, not by handing them printed materials, you must hand the demo over and get them involved. Here at Smudge Laboratories, we encourage our clients to hand over their iPads and let the attendees walk through their brand story and experience the evolution of their story to build excitement and make the experience memorable. Then, we ask if they'd like a copy of that experience to share with their colleagues or key opinion leaders. Then they share it and it gets shared again and again, now your story goes viral!

1. You can’t just Present,
you need to Engage!
Augmented/Mixed
Reality provides a truly
immersive and engaging
experience for trade
show attendees.

3. Many of you know that I was in the trade show industry for the majority of my
professional career, 22 of those 25 years as an Account Executive who worked with
client’s in just about every major industry. Our objective was always the same, to
create solutions that exceeded the established branding and functionality
requirements while providing strong presence with acceptable cost of ownership
over the lifespan of the solution, usually 3-5 years. We would talk about potential
growth, reconfiguration needs for small regional shows to large annual shows,
how to have a strong presence while having the ability to rebrand as new products
or services were brought to market and how to integrate new technology. So
that’s the fun part in a controlled environment, then you get to show site and all
hell breaks loose!

4. You marketing/trade show managers are already replaying
those “Plan B” moments in your head and know exactly
where I’m going with this. You know, when you walk up to
your booth space at 8:30 am on a Sunday in Vegas to see
no electrical or carpet down in your space. Or, was it no
crates/exhibit properties at your space and the labor crew
of 4 are all twiddling their thumbs on the double-time rate
while you scramble to find out if your freight carrier has
checked into the marshalling yard, is waiting for the
bottleneck at the loading dock to subside, or if the freight
is even in the state.

5. So GES or Freeman finally finds your electrical order, carpet is down, booth
properties have arrived, the labor crew is making up for lost time and things are
finally starting to take shape. It looks like you’ll actually make the big team dinner
at some fancy Vegas restaurant too! Coworkers, your VP, etc. are asking how the
booth looks and how things are going on-site and (of course) you answer, “great!”
Then you turn to see some of your booth staffers ordering their second round of
tequila shots and you start to question how productive they will be at the 8 am
show opening in the morning.

6. Engagement is
key!
Here we go, 7:30 am team kickoff and it’s you and 1 of 4
scheduled booth staffers for your annual big show. You’ve
got the emergency hangover kit out and ready with Tylenol,
breath mints, Visine and antacids as your remaining three
team members (all looking a bit green) walk into the booth
with 5 minutes to go until opening. You review the key
points of your agenda, assign general stations around your
20 x 20 booth space and say a little prayer for a successful
first day. What happens next, boothmanship goes out the
window – The 3 musketeers have abandoned their posts
and are trying to piece together last night’s festivities while
taking calls on their cell phones (a top 5 show no-no) and
letting potential opportunities walk right on by as there is
no engagement and static graphics and the loop
presentation on the flat panels just aren’t stopping
attendees in their tracks.

7. Lexus Utilizes
Mixed Reality
and is the talk
of the
Frankfurt Auto
Show!
I bet you never thought I’d get to Augmented
Reality/Mixed Reality, did you? Will AR/MR solve
these problems, absolutely not. Will AR/MR generate
attention and create a very unique interactive
experience, YES IT WILL. Lexus found this out by
utilizing MR at the Frankfurt Auto Show in 2017, the
largest auto show in the world. Lexus and their event
partner created a Mixed Reality piece which focused
on their “Experience Amazing” slogan and with no
new world premieres to attract media, Lexus Europe
managed to engage nearly 500 journalists through its
on -demand press conference, achieving a more than
50 percent increase in media contacts.

8. Reduce Trade Show Costs, Increase
Engagement and go Viral!
Utilizing new technology such as AR/MR can also allow exhibitors to reduce their show cost. How? By minimizing the size of their
trade show booths, which reduces their booth, material handling, shipping and labor costs. Exhibitors with large heavy products can
now show their products virtually and run multiple scenarios that may not be available with their unit(s) on the show floor. AR/MR
also allows you to make small items (anatomy/stints) large and large items (pipelines/automobiles) small. So now you can show your
Interactive Brochure, traditional marketing materials such as pdf’s and embedded videos, and the cherry on top…you get to share the
entire experience with the attendee by sending them a link before they leave your booth space. We all know that there is a very
small percentage of printed materials that actually make it back the attendees office…problem solved! Did I mention that this
attendee will most likely be so impressed that he/she shares this app and experience with the team back in the office? Guess what,
they can have a copy too! This is the true essence of Digital Transformation. Now the app becomes a viral tool that starts generating
leads for you and your team. The 3D models used in the initial phase of the project can now be tweaked and repurposed for sales
and training needs. And since we are using the same building blocks your additional cost is low and deployment is a fraction of
normal timelines.

9. No wi-fi
necessary -
Your demos
work perfect
every time in
every show
hall.
Our application is a native application which runs
locally on a device, generally an iPad. This means
that those at-show (outrageously priced) wi-fi
connections with poor connectivity are out of the
equation. No need to worry about fishing HDMI
cables under the carpet when they fail or packing
HDMI cables period! You can demo in any hall,
aisle way, lobby or concession area without fear
of losing your internet connection. And you will
never pay a per user fee with us, we help you go
viral and share your info and story with the world!

10. Below are examples of a heart and vascular at large scale in AR in a common area of our facility. You can demo, train or
sell anytime and anywhere. You can’t do that with Powerpoint!

11. Here are links
showing how
companies like
Lexus, Ford and
Price Pfister are
integrating AR/MR
into their trade
show programs.
https://www.exhibitoronline.com/topics/article.a
sp?ID=2638 – Lexus
https://youtu.be/2Zx2gpDvywY - Ford
https://youtu.be/GnU1XRlVqmU - Price Pfister

12. And here are links
showing us moving
from application
into AR.
https://youtu.be/X3j_-Y9FBs8 – CARM
https://youtu.be/_4lpXqPg_JI - Heart

13. www.smudgelaboratories.net

14. Would you like a demo?
If you’d like to explore how AR/MR could benefit your organization with one platform that makes
this all happen seamlessly, please click the link below to schedule a quick 15 minute demo!
www.smudgelaboratories.net
John Yezeski
www.linkedin.com/in/john-yezeski-86b432
VP of Business Development at Smudge Laboratories