Trade shows are one of the biggest events of the year for many companies. This is an important avenue to meet potential new investors, clients, or collaborators. You will want to put your best foot forward and dazzle the visitors to your booth with the best representation of your business possible.
Here are some reasons why using a video at your next trade show is a good idea:
Video is extremely versatile: it can be used in many ways to illustrate the story of your company. This could be through animation or live-action, using actors or testimonials. A trade show video could also be adapted later on and used in social media or television campaigns.
Video is much more powerful than using banners or handing out pamphlets—it helps you tell your story to the maximum amount of people, and incorporates a human element to add to depth. It’s also much more efficient a method to convey information to your audience.
The human attention span is constantly shrinking, and it will be even harder to grab and maintain attention when you’re surrounded by other booths trying to do the same thing you are. Using moving images is one of the best ways to catch the eye.
Video can help capture the ‘feel’, or culture, of a company. It’s difficult to describe an atmosphere on paper, but video can capture this much more fully and easily.
Now that we’ve explored some of the reasons why corporate video will benefit your next trade show, let’s look at some tips to get the best use out of your film.
Here’s a great example of a trade show video. We’ll use this as an example in our tips below:
Some tips to help your video stand out:
- People are constantly on the move at trade shows, so keep your message short and sweet. Remember the 5-second rule: you have a very limited window with which to convey your message, and 5 seconds is roughly the amount of time it takes for someone to walk by your booth in a leisurely manner. Each of the Bluehat video’s scenes last no more than 5 seconds each: the editing is quick to help keep attention.
- Make any text easy to read. Black text with a white outline or white text with a black outline will stand out over any color.
- Use exciting visuals to convey a sense of urgency. The animation used in the above video adds a creative, colourful aspect to the ad that really draws the eye.
- Avoid static images. Bluehat’s video contain a lot of shots in which the camera is moving, making the viewer an active participant in the ad. The protagonists are also consistently moving around on-screen.
- Utilise music—consider skipping a voice-over for a well-thought out soundtrack. The Bluehat video has an upbeat, exciting soundtrack that may get old for the people working your booth, but to a potential client passing by it will draw the ear and then the eye.
- Show off your products in your video! Believe it or not, some trade show videos will not include any of the company’s products they actually offer. Bluehat does an effective job of this by demonstrating exactly what people will be doing when they use the Go Team app.
- Display your video on a large screen that can be seen far away—and don’t forget to record in a high-quality format.