How to surf on a wave of success with the skilled use of advertising materials as mailing enhancers was demonstrated by the promotional product agency Viering. The agency, located in Senden, Westphalia, hails from the trade fair business. Its in-house exhibition, currently the 14th, is one of the largest in the industry in Germany measured by the number of exhibitors and visitors. "The yearly customer event is an essential part of our marketing, even though this was the first year it was actually held on the company site, in the still empty high-bay warehouse of the only recently occupied corporate headquarters," managing director Mark-Oliver Schrader explained. As every year, he again used the two days to promote his sector. The trade fair is a challenge for the company to design and plan the motto, invitation, day's schedule and location as a single unit.
 
"Obenschwimmer" (floaters) was this year's motto. The key visual was the floater par excellence, a rubber duck in the Viering corporate colour ruby. To explain: Advertising messages that are not drowned in the daily flood of advertising but float on top like a duck - and these come in the shape of physical advertising vehicles and the matching concepts that Viering wants to implement for its clients. The two-stage invitation campaign was conspicuous certainly in the post: The packaging was a fold-out cube printed with ruby ducks floating in a pond in front of the stylised façade of the new head office building.
 
The first package sent to 2,550 addresses six weeks ahead of the event contained - what else - a rubber duck, a countdown calendar, a response element, and an indication there would be more information about the exhibition to follow. The package was designed to be re-used as a pencil holder. A few days before the exhibition, the company sent the second mailshot to 2,600 recipients. This time, the package was filled with index card tabs on which information about the exhibition was printed, including a list of "swimming instructors" - that is, exhibitors. As an additional incentive, the package contained an incomplete USB stick in the shape of a duck that could be completed at the trade fair. The work and cost of the mailshots paid off: Around 550 registrations were received - a response rate better than 20 %.
 
Schrader is not just interested in the number of visitors who actually show up as the outcome of this activity - although that is important, of course. In his opinion, these kinds of elaborate mailing activities have a second function: "They are reminders for non-visitors. Promotional products that tell a story stick in the mind long after the in-house exhibition is over." Not everyone who visited Promotion Days or received an invitation happens to needs advertising material at that particular time. But when they do, they will remember the "floater" more quickly than an impersonal mailshot.
 
That is what it is all about: sticking in the mind. That applies both to promotional product dealers and manufacturers and to their clients. Sometimes a departure from the familiar can achieve attention: Emerald popcorn was what Mazda chose to get itself talked about at Autozüri in Zurich. The Swiss agency Diewerbeartikel developed and designed a popcorn bag with the new Mazda2, which consistently appeared branded green in the accompanying campaign - an unusual colour for the finger food but it certainly made an impact. 10,000 popcorn bags were distributed at the trade fair and at the booth - with the "guerrilla marketing effect" that the empty bags, which were often simply dropped on the floor by visitors, formed a trail to the stand. ank