Taking your signature, business, interior design identity outward for special events, can be challenging — and tricky. Portability requires careful adaptation of your business footprint that does not compromise the integrity of your marketing plan. Off-site should not become off-point.
When you have made an important decision to have your business represented at a significant venue exposition, a job fair, a community celebration or any other external occasion, you will want to do right by your business and professional image.
In situations where you are combining promotion with festivity, it is easy to get off track and just disappear into the density and confusion of complex gatherings. Successful representation of your product or service must carry with it a message compatible with your basic presentation on home turf. It involves much more than your colors, logo and slogans transferred to streamers and balloons.
Your trusted interior design team is an excellent resource when you have decided to branch out your marketing and promotional presence to an off-site event. The challenge of controlling the integrity of your commercial image is influenced by several basic factors. Your designer will want to know exactly what your goals are for participating, as well as what you anticipate as a return on the investment and effort.
Ask yourself some questions concerning motivation, the probable costs, the investment of staff time and your personal participation. Will the event be held inside or outside? What is the sponsor providing? How much space will be available? What are the restrictions? What are the parameters of time for set-up and breakdown?
Find out the history of the event you are considering. Photos of past event set-ups and previous exhibitors will give you clear impressions of the company you may be keeping by participating. Such research should help you decide if the event will enhance your business place in the market, or pull it into an association that creates unwanted negative assumptions.
Designing for portability is a specialized design niche that begs consideration of the risks as well as the benefits. For instance, does your business have an expo booth design that professionally and accurately presents you, your product or service to an entirely random (and critical) attendance? Too often that “miniature snapshot” of a business at an external event bears no resemblance, whatsoever, to its fixed site presentation.
Taking the show on the road must include measureable results in order to justify its impact on the bottom line. A table with a company color drape, some brochures and clever handouts seldom satisfactorily fulfills the goal of measureable results and justified effort.
Connectivity with an express relationship to your anchor site and image, and a competitive presentation, are key to justifying participation.
External presentations are rich opportunities to market your business or services in a fresh and enticing way. Your message and your promise can’t be retrieved when it is sent outward to a fast moving, instantly critical audience. It is important to acknowledge that special event marketing requires different disciplines.
Robert Boccabella, B.F.A. is principal and founder of Business Design Services and a certified interior designer in private practice for 30 years. Boccabella provides Designing to Fit the Vision in collaboration with writingservice@earthlink.net. To contact Boccabella call (707) 263-7073; email him at rb@businessdesignservices.com or visit www.businessdesignservices.com or on Facebook at Business Design Services.
