No More Stalling : Conventions: Lackluster, slapped-together exhibit booths are losing ground to slick, attention-grabbing creations that make companies stand out.
Exhibitors showcasing their goods and services at jam-packed trade shows have learned a difficult lesson about life on the promotional tour, says Robert Young, a National City-based maker of custom exhibit booths.
It’s tough to stand out in the crowd.
“Conventions used to be a two- to three-day vacation,” said Young, president and founder of Motivational Systems Inc., which both designs and constructs exhibit booths. “But today, they’ve become really sophisticated business tools.”
“There are hordes of people who go to conventions these days,” Young says. “As a result, it’s become one of the most important and least expensive ways of generating new business.”
But capitalizing at conventions has a prerequisite: Exhibitors must be able to draw prospective clients to their booths.
The days of generic, slap-dash booths built with 2-by-4s and plywood panels are long gone, Young says. Motivational Systems helps exhibitors attract crowds by fabricating booths that present the promoter in the best possible light by putting a company’s name in neon lights, or designing stand-alone tables to showcase a new product, or using space-age decor to emphasize a high-technology company on the cutting edge.
By helping exhibitors drum up new business, Motivational Systems is capturing a share of the $3 billion that companies spend annually on building and transporting exhibits. And, as conventions grow in importance and in numbers, Young expects his slice of the pie to get bigger.
According to the International Assn. of Convention and Visitors Bureaus, more than 318,643 conventions were held last year nationwide, up 17.5% over 1988. Such meetings attracted 74.7 million delegates, up 11.5% over 1988.
“Organizations have come to recognize the trade show element of conventions as a cost-effective way of generating sales . . . that it’s cheaper than sending a sales force out on the road making calls,” said Al Reese, spokesman for the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau.
“The exhibit side of the convention has been one of the fastest-growing segments of the industry,” Reese said. “That’s why you see convention centers expanding their exhibit space.”
Founded in 1974, Motivational Systems’ revenues have been growing annually at an average 22.5% clip since 1985, and last year the company generated $11 million in sales. Motivational Systems’ list of clients includes local companies such as General Dynamics, Rohr Industries, Hahn Co., Fujitsu Systems of America and Ocean Garden Products.
The closely held company owns a 50,000-square-foot office, storage and production facility in National City and leases a 25,000-square-foot storage and service area in Miramar.
In addition, Motivational Systems leases two 15,000-square-foot sales and production plants, one in Corona and one in Livermore, near San Francisco. Last year, Motivational Systems opened a 2,000-square-foot leased sales and limited production office in Las Vegas.
Motivational Systems’ bread-and-butter business, however, is not building exhibit booths, Young said. Nearly two-thirds of the company’s revenues are generated by developing marketing products for residential developers, such as decorating and equipping the development project’s on-site sales office. The company also makes off-site signage and other marketing items that direct traffic to new housing projects.
Six years ago, Motivational Systems began developing architectural signage--for example, letters that appear on the building’s exterior and help identify the structure. The company provided architectural signage for downtown’s Symphony Towers and the Aventine hotel-office complex in La Jolla. The company also makes makes architectural scale models for marketing and planning presentations.
In 1987, Young decided to diversify his company’s product line and turned his attention to manufacturing custom exhibits and displays.
“We really didn’t want the success of our business to depend on the ups and downs of the real estate market,” Young said. “We were looking to stabilize, and we were looking for a way to diversify.”
According to Young, Motivational Systems ventured into exhibit booth manufacturing because of its production similarities to the company’s earlier products.
“With the same equipment that we used to set up our residential sales offices, we could design and manufacture exhibit booths,” Young said. “It was a natural extension of what we were already doing.
“There’s a common thread in everything that we do--we’re here to identify a client’s product or name,” Young said. “Whether it’s a sign on a building or an exhibit for a client at a trade show--we identify them. The only difference is the stage that we work on.”
Motivational Systems’ 200 employees include designers, cabinet makers, technicians, graphic artists, printers, installers, shipping personnel, painters and electricians who assemble the modern-day exhibit booth.
Michael Steen, who heads Motivational Systems exhibit division, said a typical exhibit booth consists of panels, cabinets, shelves and columns. The plywood “shell” is coated with paint and “high-pressure plastic laminates that can create just about any look you want: marble finishes, granite, stripes and patterns.” Often, acoustic fabrics, plexiglass and metal components are added as finishing touches.
“These days, if you go to a convention with an outdated booth, it’s like going into a meeting with a 6-inch tie,” Steen said.
Motivational Systems manufactures a range of exhibit items, from small table-top displays that cost about $1,000 to stage-like productions, which cost more than $200,000. Typically, Motivational Systems charges $100 per square foot of exhibit space. A typical exhibit booth costs $20,000 to $50,000.
Witnessing how competitive the trade show environment has become, Ocean Garden Products, a San Diego-based importer of Mexican seafood products, turned to Motivational Systems to build an exhibit booth that would turn heads.
Motivational Systems created a back-lighted sign that made Ocean Garden’s logo visible from every corner of the convention hall. The 20-foot by 20-foot booth also featured a kitchen, where chefs prepared seafood dishes, a private conference room and display cases.
“We’re a leader in the marketplace, and people have come to expect a certain level of excellence from us,” said Holly Adrian, a company spokeswoman. “It’s important for us to have as much of a presence (at trade shows) as possible.
“The display cases were lit from the bottom,” Adrian said. “We had our seafood products on ice with a glow from underneath. . . . It was really attractive.”
Young says he owes much of his success to the Minnesota school system’s strong industrial arts program, which allowed him to learn woodworking and welding skills.
“Thank God for the Minnesota school system,” Young said. Although successful today, Young is the first to admit that as a young man his career had little direction.
In 1970, Young left Southwest Missouri State University after studying business administration for two years and started a string of odd sales jobs, including hawking baby pictures at shopping malls. “You know, those photos you get of your kid for Aunt Nellie and grandma,” he said. Young followed that stint by building car washes in San Diego.
Then, in 1972, Young got an opportunity to work for an Orange County company that sold signs to subdivision developers. When the company closed its San Diego office in 1974, Young decided to go into business for himself and offered his services to the abandoned clients.
“For the first six months, I was out getting clients during the day, then I would come back around 4 and work until midnight building the signs,” Young said.
