A few months back I wrote about life as an exhibitor at mass spectrometry-related conference and trade shows. I mentioned in passing about the visitors to the exhibition stand that are there primarily to take any free promotional objects (A.K.A. freebies, swag etc.). The various companies I have worked for have taken quite different attitudes to this “swag” so I thought I would take a closer look.
Giving away promotional goods has a long history dating back to the ancient Romans, who carved advertising logos into stone tablets to give out at “man versus lion” events at the Colosseum. OK, so that’s not entirely true but it is definitely a tradition with a long history. But how do you determine the value? I’m sometimes asked by those in control of the purse strings; “did we get an extra order because of those 1,000 promo pens we produced?” The answer to that is obviously no, but that undersells the value of promotional material, particularly if you target it correctly and produce the most appropriate swag.
Almost without exception, companies exhibiting at conference and trade shows do have freebies of some kind on their exhibition booth. So what type is best? This question is best answered by considering what you, the exhibitor, is trying to achieve. Obviously the ideal outcome is that someone buys your product. If you’re selling fifty dollar hoodies, or five hundred dollar sample preparation kits, then there is a very real chance of this happening. But if you sell half million dollar mass spectrometers, the chance of someone visiting your stand and saying “I’ll take one now, I have a tail lift truck out back” is vanishingly small.
So what is it that Isotopx, and indeed all the other mass spectrometer manufacturers are hoping to achieve? I think that can be split broadly into two categories depending on the size of the company.
For small companies like Isotopx it is all about brand recognition. Now, this isn’t supposed to be an educational blog about how marketing works, but it is worth explaining what I mean. Isotopx, along with plenty of other companies on our line of work, is not exactly a household name. Therefore it is really important to get our company name / logo in front of as many people as possible. This is just subliminal advertising really, the premise being that if a lab has enough mugs, water bottles and mouse mats with our logo on them, then when it comes to the time to buy a new mass spec, we’ll be one of the companies that comes to mind.
For bigger companies (think Agilent, Waters, Thermo etc.) it can be more about brand loyalty. These brands are already well know, assuming you work with analytical instruments anyway, so the brand building was done many years ago. Companies of this size are trying to create brand advocacy, in other words brand loyalty. In my opinion this means you, as the marketeer, need to work a bit harder to create promotional material that goes a little bit further, and often at quite a lot more cost. You can then choose to be selective who you give this rather more impressive swag to, creating smugness in your users and jealousy in your competitor’s users.
Does it work? In some cases I think it does. One of the larger mass spec companies has been creating branded Christmas tree baubles for the fall conference season for quite a few years now. They are virtually snatched from the exhibitor’s stand – surely a sign that this was a success. I’m ashamed to admit that even as a competitor to this company, I have also snuck off with one of these baubles; my exhibitor badge identifying me as the enemy was safely hidden away.
With the background covered, I’ll take a look at my experiences and preferences regarding particular conference swag:
Tote bags: one of my favorite. They’re cheaper than you think, and people love them. I first realised this when working for VG Elemental in the late 90’s. Tote bags seemed quite novel back then. We had hundreds of them hanging on a clothes rack adjacent to the VG stand at a big geochemistry show. Conference attendees were continually coming up to me and the other booth staff asking to take a bag. Then five minutes later the same person came and asked again (having hidden the first tote bag away). Five minutes later they would walk past the booth, again, and appear to suddenly notice the bags for the first time. I am sure you can imagine the look of fake surprise on their faces… “Oh, a tote bag, how nice! May I have one?”.
These days I have fewer tote bags to give out, so I have a policy of giving some terms and conditions along with the bag… “if you use the bag now, and put your other swag in there, then you can have it”. Works every time. Free bag for them, a tiny bit of advertising for me.
Pens: Absolutely! If a student asks for a pen, I give them five, and ask to distribute them around the lab. Surely this is the cheapest form of advertising. Just make sure they work (yes, there is a story in there).
Mouse mats / mugs / stickers: Yes! As above they tend be either useful, visually interesting or both. They are also cheap. Give a bunch to each student and your name is all over their lab.
USB memory sticks / pen drives: In principle these are a good idea, although ones with low memory capacity are of limited use to technically-minded students who talk in terabytes rather than megabytes. And be warned, in the isotope ratio community there is a tale of woe. About 15 years ago, at a well-known geochemistry conference, one of the larger mass spec companies gave out a USB memory stick containing all the presentations they gave at the show. However, unbeknownst to them, the memory sticks had hidden files on them, and they were of an adult nature. Needless to say this was the talk of the conference, most of the memory sticks were taken back but the damage was done.
Edible items: These are great, people will sharpen their elbows to get to your exhibition stand when you have good munchies, but unfortunately once eaten they have no long term marketing benefit, so I use them sparingly. Plus I tend to eat half of them before the conference starts.
Personally, I like to have large numbers of cheap stuff that will end up in the lab, pens, mouse mats and mugs are always good. Having a few example of higher quality, more expensive goodies can also work well, you just have to be more selective about how many you give out. We have branded metal water bottles, but I have to keep them hidden under the counter top or they’d all be gone within the first hour!
If you have any comments or stories about exhibitor swag please let me know, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. As always, send to:
