REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK : High-Tech Goes High Camp at Las Vegas Comdex Computer Trade Show : An Irvine firm pushed its product with a rap song, another outfit pulled a rabbit suit out of its bag on tricks.
You’re at the Comdex computer trade show, walking through the aisles and trying to tune out hundreds of exhibitors beseeching you to look at their high-tech gadgets. Then, you hear the faint beat of rap music in the air, you turn a corner and hear this:
Cruisin’, zoomin’, double-clutchin’ database At the speed of light, the information’s in your face From data to info, Pick’s got the power Pumpin’ your machine every hour. Remember, this is Las Vegas.
Dick Pick, president of Pick Systems in Irvine, had the location in mind when he developed his company’s Comdex exhibit this year featuring a rap theme song, break dancers and a portable radio giveaway.
“The idea is to get people in and raise their awareness of our Pick operating system as a tool for businesses,” explained Pick, who said he signed up hundreds of potential customers for his firm’s business computer software product Monday. “We’re not in the main hall (at the Las Vegas Convention Center). We’re off on the side, so we needed something different.”
Comdex, the computer industry’s largest trade show, is the place companies come to to flex their marketing muscle with exhibits that often feature carnival-style gimmicks to attract attention.
Standard marketing fair among the show’s 1,850 exhibitors include video presentations, product demonstrations, product giveaways and one-upmanship exhibits with lots of flashing lights.
Costa Mesa-based WangDAT turned to a traditional marketing standby--a man in a 6-foot rabbit suit. But a company official had some difficulty explaining the rabbit’s relevance to the company’s digital audiotape storage systems.
“It’s sort of the tortoise and the hare idea,” said WangDAT marketing director Louis Domshy, a bit sheepishly. “Our product is catching up.”
Micropolis, a Chatsworth disk-drive manufacturer, was a little more inventive. The company was offering taxi drivers a chance to win $100 if they asked passengers, “Who makes the fastest hard disk drive?” and the customer answered “Micropolis.” Of course, the gimmick only worked if one of the passengers happened to be a Micropolis employee.
Bill Reed, Micropolis marketing manager, said the company decided on the promotion because it wanted to do something different.
The promotion wasn’t without its flaws. One cab driver, Gerald Williams, said he didn’t want to gamble on the chance that his passengers would not have heard of Micropolis. So, he simply asked passengers if they were employees of Micropolis.
“If they answer yes,” he said, “I get a $100 bonus.”
At the sprawling convention center, competition among the big-name computer companies was tough. Lines formed throughout the day at Intel Corp.’s theater-style exhibit, and Microsoft Corp.’s multiscreen video presentation.
Brother International Corp., the office-equipment maker, staged a Ping-Pong tournament that drew crowds even though it seemingly had nothing to do with office machines. And Dataproducts, a Woodland Hills printer manufacturer, blasted onlookers with a high-volume, multiscreen music video touting its printers to the tune of “The Future’s So Bright, We Gotta Wear Shades.”
Douglas Lippincott, president of Stanton-based FTG Data Systems, said his company has stuck to a well-tested crowd pleaser for several years. The company hired a cartoonist to use the company’s light-sensitive pen product to draw computerized caricatures of visitors to the company’s booth.
Is the money for the Comdex exhibit well spent? Lippincott says he isn’t always sure.
But Howard Schisler, a Columbus, Ohio, data-processing manager, seemed to be enjoying himself as he posed for a cartoon portrait at the FTG exhibit. He ordered one of the company’s light pens.
