TOP EXHIBITION SUPPLIER FEATURE

A taste for exhibition engagement

Today, the competition for visibility and attention at exhibitions is fierce, with all kinds of attractions being employed to draw crowds and deliver that ‘wow’ factor. But it’s all too easy to remember the ‘wow’ and forget the brand. In an environment already saturated with brands, these attractions may not be the answer to boosting your engagement and exhibition ROI.

At Barmotion, we believe that the pleasure of sharing good hospitality is the most effective way to cut through the noise and create a moment — that vital opportunity to connect with your target audience on a personal level. In a busy exhibition hall, it can be challenging to engage with attendees in a meaningful way. Branded hospitality gives you a shared focus on which you can build a dialogue with a new prospect, strengthen relationships with clients, and wrap visitors in your brand identity.

However, it’s important to keep in mind that branded hospitality is not just about entertaining your guests. It’s also about providing them with a valuable experience aligned with your brand and values. To be truly effective, your hospitality offering needs to be well-planned and executed and should be designed to meet the specific needs and expectations of your target audience.

Standard coffee bars, serving espresso, cappuccino and so on, plus teas and herbal teas are hugely popular, of course. They provide some pep for flagging exhibition visitors and have almost universal appeal. We like to take a more imaginative approach wherever we can! We work with taste, colour, nutrition and even chemistry to create a hospitality package that, at its core, echoes your brand or amplifies your messages in some way. Naturally, this includes first-rate coffee and tea, but we use everything from ice cream, doughnuts and waffles to sushi, pizza and popcorn to create a customisable branding platform with a reach that goes beyond the stand.

By wrapping your brand around the visitor –using your stand, your staff and your branded juice bar, doughnut stand or mobile coffee cart – you create a consistent and continuous look and feel across the whole visitor experience. This gives your brand vital credibility the moment you invite a visitor to enjoy a refreshing drink and take a moment to hear what you have to say. By aligning your hospitality strategy with your overall brand identity, you can ensure that your guests leave the exhibition with a clear understanding of who you are and what you have to offer. And even if visitors don’t remember everything you say they will remember how you made them feel.

In addition to these benefits, branded hospitality can also provide a valuable opportunity for lead generation and sales. By creating a comfortable and relaxed environment to host your guests, and sharing your branded food and drink, you can multiply the benefits by increasing dwell times, allowing you to develop more substantive conversations, answer detailed questions, and build confidence in your product or service.

Plan your hospitality around your goals. On one level, we can deploy a simple juice or coffee bar with branded cups that will give you some brand visibility on cups across the whole exhibition. It will attract passing footfall and visitors looking for a bit of an energy boost. On a whole other level, we can create a thought-provoking menu that chimes with your brand and your message in clever and delicious ways, to help launch your much anticipated new product line. We have a ton of ideas to fire your imagination, whatever the scale of your exhibition ambition.

Your food and drink need to be first-rate, and so does the service. At Barmotion, we emphasise the role our staff plays as brand ambassadors. It takes determination and resilience to treat every new visitor as the first, to give them the same enthusiastic reception, quickly build rapport and seamlessly hand over to the right person. Our staff are awarded their coveted ‘Rockstar’ status when they complete our training, which covers the correct and flawless preparation of food and drink. But it also teaches them how to greet people, make them feel welcome, comfortable, and looked after at all times.

The combination of a succulent treat for the senses and a genuinely warm welcome is a versatile and effective way to put your stakeholders into a receptive frame of mind. It works at different scales and offers plenty of branding opportunities, it can be used to attract visitors, lengthen dwell times, and reinforce brand values.

At Barmotion we are experts in creating precisely the right solution for your budget, your audience and your event, and making branded hospitality work for your exhibition presence. Our imagination and creative flair are built on years of experience creating bespoke branded hospitality for our customers. In that time we’ve learned that exhibitions are an irreplaceable part of the marketing mix. Face-to-face marketing can be an incredibly effective way to make connections with benefits that other channels can’t match. But it can also be an expensive enterprise, so it’s crucial to squeeze every last cent of return on your investment — and that will depend on the depth and breadth of your visitor engagement. And that’s where Barmotion comes in.

Contact details

Tel: 0861 937 625

Email: info@barmotion.co.za

Website: www.barmotion.co.za