Mega messages: the latest in trade-show innovations.

• Author: Barr, Mary
• Position: Trade Shows & Exhibitions

A TRADE SHOW THAT can be clocked at 65 miles an hour? In the past year, the most dynamic trade-show innovation to come to town literally does so.

"Mobile marketing is aggressive," says Tom Dempsey, senior account executive at the Exhibit House in Indianpolis. His full-service display and exhibit company has outfitted six clients this year with vehicles that in themselves are the exhibits. "You roll up in these vehicles and open your door to more than 1,000 square feet in someone's parking lot," he says. "You bring your message directly to your prospects on their turf."

The vehicles range in size from minivans to semi-trailers, which are leased and then customized inside and out with branded imagery, interactive displays and audio-visual technologies. Once at their destination-be it inside a convention hall at a trade show, outside at a sporting event or at a company headquarters parking lot--the vehicle can transform into an exhibit space through panels and awnings that open up and out. Visitors may walk around and even through the exhibit vehicle.

The Exhibit House outfitted a van for the Indiana High School Athletic Association for its anti-tobacco campaign. One week the mobile exhibit drove in and parked on the Indiana. Convention Center floor to set up shop for Indiana Black Expo and the next weekend it motored over the Brickyard 400.

Demsey says while mobile marketing may seem costly, clients have found high returns on a captured audience that won't soon forget the experience "We usually make the participants' jaws drop," he shares. The applications are endless, such as health testing where attendees may visit with a professional right after the on-site screenings in the vehicle. Decorating smaller vehicles can carry a price tag as low as $6,000. He says generally a bigger campaign that will tour for a year costs about $1 million. Even so, "all our customers have come back for a second year," he says.

"Mobile marketing is on the forefront," says Dempsey who is pitching the idea to more and more clients. "But thankfully, the traditional show is still there."

Trade show attendance by invitation. Another push-messaging trend on the rise in the trade-show industry is the private trade show--where attendance is by invitation only or is company-specific. Since the sponsoring business is the centerpiece, there is no competition, and no distractions fighting the company message.

National research by Exhibit Surveys Incorporated, a tracker of...