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Our client

Many companies use exhibitions and conferences to build brand awareness, but focus on stand design, rather than giving their people the tools to make the most of every potentially valuable introduction.

The challenge

Talent Lab has worked with numerous clients with the same goal: to maximise the impact of their investment in trade shows and stands at conferences.  

The rules of engagement for Talent Lab, whether our client’s focus was lobbying at party conferences, industry exhibitions, or recruitment fairs is to focus on maximising the space’s potential for engagement and help the stand teams know what and how to start a conversation with those they meet.

How we helped

By agreeing with each client what success looks like, we then worked with our design teams to create visual impact that would draw in visitors, and then manage each encounter to maximise the ROI: return on introductions.

Companies often forget that a busy stand can lead to lost opportunities so during preparation, we created a critical role of Stand Manager who would keep the conversations and connections flowing.

Key programme steps:

• pre-show planning and engagement to define and agree the vision for success
• creating spaces with different zones to first attract visitors and then allow conversations with appropriate levels of privacy
• training stand teams to identify and prioritise those identified as principle targets
• understanding how to frame key questions to filter and move visitors around the stand
• collecting data and managing post-show communications to maximise effectiveness.

Outcomes

By focusing our clients on maximising the potential for stands to help brands interact at a human level with their audiences, we surpassed the goals set for each conference and exhibition.

In one specific case, for five years the company had failed to recruit a single candidate. Using our approach, they met and spoke to four optical scientists who subsequently joined their R&D team.