Monday, 20 September 2010

The exhibitor’s story – Part 2


One minute we were four weeks away, and then – we blinked – and now there are only two weeks left. How did that happen?

The National Wedding Show is looming large on our horizon at the moment. Have you ever had one of those dreams where you turned up at your wedding with no frock and a bad-hair day? (No? Maybe that was just me then....erm...anyhow...) Well, I have definitely had a dream that we were standing at the wedding show in an empty stand – or ‘shell scheme’ as the exhibitors’ pack calls us..

So, what have we done? Firstly we have moved up a gear today. Gone are the chocolate hobnobs, we’re on the serious stuff now. Oh yes. Krispy Kreme doughnuts are now powering our organisational skills.

We have spent the last two weeks designing, and redesigning, stand graphics. Taking a brand and converting it into a 2m x 2m stand, we have found, is a tricky business. As with all forms of marketing, people look at different media in different ways – what works in a gift voucher pack, isn’t necessarily going to work on an email – and all the team had different ideas about how Alter Ego should be presented.

We did all decide that it needs to be simple and striking, but we decided to get advice and ask the experts – so we picked up the phone and called (the wonderfully patient) Gabi, the Marketing Manager at The National Wedding Show. Her advice was to think about our objectives and to consider doing something interactive on the stand. For example, do we want to hand out three thousand leaflets, or do we want to be able to talk to people after the show?


In previous years, exhibitors have created interest by having stilt-walkers on the stand and women in wedding dresses – both of which made the stands and the companies memorable. Gabi also recommended continuing the themes from our website and gave the example of the lovely lady from a business called Shoot It Yourself who pulled this off perfectly and had great success at the last show.

In addition, she suggested overlaying the shell scheme with beautiful wall paper or a back-drop to create an environment which draws people in, and encourages them to investigate further.
So, we now have a background which we all love. It is simple, elegant and carries on our branding from all of the other work we are doing in the studio, in our literature, in the press and online. We had a fabulous vintage hen-party shoot last week, and the girls have kindly said we can use some of these fantastic shots for our literature. And, we also have a few tricks up our sleeves which will hopefully cause a bit of a stir during the show. We just need to find a way of getting all of the equipment down to London on the set-up day. Van anyone?
Erica from Alter Ego Portraits:

http://www.alteregoportraits.com/
www.facebook.com/alteregoportraits
or call 01604 871187

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