Alex in November 2007 and he still has that shirt!

Content is usually one of the last things thought about at these exhibitions simply because the majority of people exhibiting are AV folks or from a technology hardware and software background where what they feel is most important to show off is the screen/player/latest piece of software – which in part of course it is BUT what many exhibitors forget is that any new screen or player is only seen to be as good as the content being played out on it or by it!

So here are some simple suggestions for good content delivery at your next exhibition:-

Please…

1. Be relevant Always think primarily about your target audience. At a show you should, by using the right sort of content, illustrate how your solution works in any particular environment AND demonstrate to attendees the vertical sectors that they might be interested in. Bottom line explain to them how your solution is relevant
2. Engage with the event At far too many shows you see stands which could have been erected anywhere. Don’t be lazy, promote yourselves as a proud exhibitor; use bespoke content to show your stand number, use illustrations from the city that you are in and don’t forget to show you care enough about that particular show to reference it in your content!
3. Embrace social media Find out what the event’s twitter hashtag is and use it as part of your content strategy – it helps enormously demonstrating that you have ‘engaged with the event’ (see above). If there is a venue id for foursquare then promote that as well. Of course a great way to promote all of this is to have your own twitter wall either somewhere on your stand (or integrated into your booth design elsewhere). Remember to show the status of foursquare check-ins and who’s the (current) mayor
4. Be Topical Another good way to be relevant to the event and city where you are exhibiting in is by being topical. Is the City you are in preparing perhaps for the Olympic Games? Is there a big soccer match on next weekend? Is Barry Manilow performing down the strip at Paris? You get the idea I’m sure!
5. Be Interactive You know of course that you don’t necessarily need touchscreens to be interactive but did you know that a touch of interactivity helps people stop and stare? The likes of LocaModa will often supply free of charge to events (and their exhibitors) cool twitter / foursquare widgets which can easily be incorporated into your content. Or take a look at folks like Screach and see what they can offer you

There are in fact two things that we suggest you avoid completely: -

• Do not play Pixar, Top Gun or James Bond Don’t setup your stand, plug in all your amazing new technology and then play Top Gun on that ultra thin bezel-less LCD screen or that large LED screen. Quite simply it demonstrates to the attendees that you have put no thought into the event at all and shows a distinct lack of manners
• Try not to re-use content from earlier shows If you have followed some of our advice above and tailored your content for a specific event then it is actually harder to re-use content from show to show. One of the worst things that you can do is attempt to recycle content – it will look dated and some eagle eyed attendee will recognise it as being old. At every show, re-evaluate what you want to get out of exhibiting and revisit your content strategy – what worked last year might not work the next!

Remember then, that piece of hardware or software can only be truly showed off well when the content is relevant to that product or service and when it has been designed and thought through to be relevant to its context.

Take a look at the vibrant colours on display in these four columns on the Christie stand shown above. They also had lots of shape on their stand as you’d expect.

We’ve only walked a few of the halls so far but haven’t seen many twitter walls. Are they going out of fashion?

Shown above^† are some new Samsung Square Displays they are err ‘square’ – that’s right Alex, a square, i.e. a plane figure with four equal straight sides and four right angles, Ed and they were neatly arranged in a nice retail setting.

The Samsung stand here at #ISE2012 is absolutely awesome, they have really done some nice contextual stuff similar to what is being done with Christie MicroTiles around the rest of the show.

They have also cottoned on to the fact that realistic environments help demonstrate their solutions better. Very nice.

Samsung can be found in Hall 9 on stand C111.

^†The Issy-Neale formula for the Samsung retail display is of course _3X3_HTH_THT_HTH_

This photograph was published in Saturday’s Guardian newspaper…

As you can see from the picture above (taken from said article) we now have documentary proof that this is so. He claims it is not him but what do you think?

The Issy-Neale formula describes the video wall’s dimensions best as…

_11X12_4T3H4T_
4T3H4T_4T3H4T_4T3H4T_4T3H4T_11H_11T_11T_11T_11T_11T_11T_

When I saw the video wall yesterday, it was displaying a single (but massive of course) video picture for one of the new stores in the centre – Gilly Hicks, described as “the Cheeky Cousin of Abercrombie & Fitch”.

Today, we borrowed Scala <> MicroTiles expert Andrew Neale to help us implement the content which is to be shown specifically on their curved wall of MicroTiles on-site.

Shown above is Calum Walker, Amigo Senior Designer (on the left with the crazy cardigan which was no doubt last year’s Christmas present from his mum) and Andrew Neale (we liked the fact that Andrew is now a fully fledged MacBook user!).

Christie’s MicroTiles are of course software agnostic but most of the MicroTiles at their head office in the UK are increasingly powered by Scala – no doubt due in some way to the tremendous impact that the London Stock Exchange installation has had, Ed and if it’s not a Mac Mini that we are personally using to power a MicroTile display then we usually find it’s Scala.

I was also lucky enough today to get a sneak peek at the so-called ‘Bluebook’ that Andrew Neale and Adrian Cotterill have finished which documents fully (and I mean at 20,000 words – really fully!) everything that went into the London Stock Exchange deployment – it’s sure when published to become a Spyder / MicroTiles / Scala bible of what to do (what not to do) and how to do it!

We didn’t need to wait around long for an opportunity when the organisers of the The 17th Annual GAIM International 2011 came calling.

GAIM is the World’s Largest Alternative Investment & Hedge Fund Conference being held in Monaco 20 – 23 June 2011.

We rolled out a nice temporary pop-up style event network using signagelive in Monaco consisting of ten screens showing event information, conference agendas and live dynamic content such as twitter and video interviews.

We have had an extremely busy year creating some very exciting projects for some great clients; so do come over for an Espresso, see what we have been up to and visit Stand G9.

So… where can you find great content at #ScreenMediaExpo? The answer? The Amigo Digital stand G9!

I spotted this DigiAdvan from SA Group running a campaign for BT Infinity on the Saturday. Did I mention the score?

The digiadvans were seemingly busy all over the UK that weekend, we understand there were 3 vans in Cardiff on behalf of BT and 1 van in Cambridge on behalf of the NHS and on the Sunday 3 vans were at Twickenham (DID I MENTION THE SCORE) for Standard Life, Ed