Booth bonuses:
Two customized games
Attendees at the ASAE & The
Center for Association Leadership annual meeting this
summer might have noticed a permanent crowd around the Bloomington
(Minn.) Convention and Visitors Bureau booth. The attraction, aside
from the city itself, was a video game similar to NBC-TV’s Deal
or No Deal, developed by the Minneapolis-based event
production company metroConnections to help hawk Bloomington as a
bargain for planners. Contestants each chose a shopping bag (a
symbol for Bloomington’s Mall of America) containing an unknown
amount of money and then began eliminating the remaining bags,
weighing a succession of buyout offers against the value of their
bag.
David Graves, senior vice president of
metroConnections, says simple video games (the rules of which can
be understood in a few seconds) are attendee magnets and include a
multitude of opportunities to customize and communicate a marketing
message. An insurance company, for example, once ordered a game in
which a superhero had to evade fireballs tagged with industry
problems like “High risk!” A software company that used the terms
“workhorse” and “thoroughbred” in an ad campaign asked for a
steeplechase game.
Simple but addictive card or dice games
or trivia challenges also keep attendees coming back, Graves says.
At trade shows, exhibitors can corner those waiting in line or nab
players after their turn for a chat.
Customers usually spend between $5,000
and $15,000 for a game package, including development, A/V
equipment and on-site support.