We continue to share experiences and real cases of participation in exhibitions and conferences. We have already told about the money changer game, now our most interesting case is next in line - about the organization of the fake stand-opponent of Megaplan and the subsequent “military actions”.



We hope that our experience will be useful for young companies that are trying to come up with something extraordinary to promote their products.

Tasks

Using the standard opportunities of the exhibition, to conduct viral activity, which should ridicule the standard approaches of doing things “on paper”, put a problem in front of visitors, the solution of which is Megaplan products.

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And:

• Attract additional audience to the stand;
• To hold a bright image campaign => brand awareness;
• Test the new format;

Concept



As part of the brainstorming of the marketing department, an idea emerged to create a fake organization, which is a collection of all stereotypes about the “standard” approach to business management in Russia and making fun of them with one of its grotesque views.



It was coined the name " effective managers " (as already used meme) and the designation "E-mana" for the planning system on pieces of paper, which these same managers use.

It was decided that we are doing for them a special stand at RIW, which is cluttered up to the maximum with papers and other garbage, we hire actors and arrange a “war” with the main stand of Megaplan.

Implementation

The concrete implementation was close to the originally conceived concept:



On the first day of the conference, “managers” pestered people (and people - them) with their slogans and manifesto (do not use the Internet, the computer atrophies the brain, etc.). A lot of people gathered around the booth. Among other things, the guys interviewed the participants, what planning systems they use (which was useful to us already for practical purposes). When the conversation turned about solutions, the “managers” promoted speeches of approximate content “Anything, just do not go to the Megaplan booth!”.



At the end of the first day from the stage, the “effective” summoned Megaplan to a public battle.







On the second day, the war became even more obvious, the poster “Megaplan Atrophies the Brain!” Appeared on the stand, and the managers invited the public to the battle on the stage.



The battle took place on the RIW stage in the middle of the day. It consisted in the fact that the effective presented their management technique on pieces of paper (losing them and confusing), and your humble servant calmly sat with the laptop in Megaplan, having had time to start all the cases and tasks about which they spoke during the presentation.







On the third day after the lost battle, the managers re-educated, removed the mess on their booth, put the laptop with Megaplan, and even helped distribute our flyers. In general, there was a revolution of consciousness.

results

The action was image-based, therefore it is rather difficult to assess the main effect. But we can mention some points:

• By their actions, the “effective” people were well on the Megaplan stand, especially on the first two days (about half of the total audience of our stand). In just three days, we spent about 400 communications with potential and current customers.
• Only I have about 40 people familiar asked what it is all about, and if this is not our PR action.
• The stand of "effective managers" against the background of the rest of the glamor of the participants was one of the brightest and most prominent at RIW.
• About 200 people gathered to watch the battle on the stage.
• As a support for the action, a mini-website www.e-mana.ru was developed, which was a chaotic pile of comments from managers and visitors themselves. Without any announcements (except for Facebook and Twitter), the site gathered about 500 visitors and about 70 user comments.

Thus, the overall effect of the stock can be considered positive and justified our initial calculation.



Our cost items:

• Organization of participation of the stand in the RIW, activities on the stage (as part of a general sponsorship package);
• Stand design, razdatok, clothing, printing and manufacturing;
• Payment for the work of actors;
• The time of our managers (design, copywriting, organization);
• Minor overhead.

Feil

Not everything was smooth, it was possible to work more efficiently. Of the shortcomings can be noted a couple of points:

• The “battle” scenario on the stage was not very detailed, so it looked a bit strange.) Some of the spectators didn’t really understand what it was. Could make funnier.
• On the third day (when the “managers” stand was already clear and they started using the Megaplan), visitors who had not been in the first two days simply didn’t really understand what the stand was about, and where did Megaplan.
• The fact that “managers” was an action was quite obvious, but we tried to resist (as it was intended) - and this was sometimes hampered by organizational issues that had to be solved with the actors by representatives of Megaplan. So a couple of times burned a little =)
• We wanted managers to defiantly throw Megaplan’s stand with toilet paper (the main carrier of their planning system) in the morning of the second day, but did not have time = (

Conclusion

Artificial creation of antagonist projects was not invented by us and has long been used in advertising. Partially, the mechanics are similar to the teaser-plezer ad mechanism. Creating an antagonist allows you to put (ridicule, hypertrophic) before the consumer some problem, which then solves the main product.



It is better to conduct such events at events with the maximum number of visitors - on narrow industry parties everything will be too transparent.



If you use actors - be sure to prescribe and rehearse in advance the key points of performances / actions. And if you do not use - too.



We tried to implement this approach at the conference (I think that the first ones are on the Runet, but I will not give guarantees) - and we liked it.

Other RIW micro ideas

I decided not to make a description of the rest of our micro ideas in a separate post, but simply to list them at the end of our story. Hopefully this, too, will push the readers to any cool ideas. So, we came up with the following items for RIW-2011:



3D roll-up



Rollap is a small format in which it is difficult to think of something, but we tried. Instead of printing the logos of our free products, we made them from paper and attached to the canvas. It turned out pretty.







Become a shark business with Megaplan!







The specially trained Megaplan motorized shark, which entertained the public, was launched into the airspace above RIV. I want to note that this is not just a balloon, and a radio-controlled thing that waves its fins and changes the position of the fish vertically (there is a load attached below that can travel from nose to tail).



Fortune cookies, don't plan on napkins - use Megaplan



During the conference, our flight attendants from Megaplan distributed cookies with predictions (“It will be easier to work”, “You are almost in the clouds”, etc.) with napkins “Don't plan on napkins, use Megaplan”. Scattered instantly + it was a good support of our war with effective managers who do everything on paper.







Business gymnastics from Megaplan



In continuation of the topic of getting rid of paperwork, we developed a comic video “Prevention of paper-reporting hemorrhoids” , which we played on the plasma next to the stand.







Well, in the end - just a photo of one of our beautiful flight attendants

Conclusion

We came up with a lot of things at RIW. Something worked out perfectly, something could be done more effectively. The overall return was rated as very positive. We hope our experience will push you to various useful thoughts.



We want to thank Svetlana Abzalova for the selection and organization of the work of actors and other promotional personnel. Recommended!



We also remind that for startups (and any other small companies) we have free SaaS-products for business automation - Task Manager Free and CRM Free . And for private use - free Miniplan . Enjoy!