Simple is tasty. Simple is beautiful. And simple is memorable.

Simple is tasty. Simple is beautiful. And simple is memorable.

One afternoon, my travel companion and I took a hike in the Chianti region on a return leg from Volpaia to Radda. As I reflected on the incredible Tuscan meal we had just shared, I found myself thinking about trade shows. (OK, it only lasted for about five seconds, but still …) What I walked away with was a renewed desire to bring a “menu” of simple, succinct messaging back home with me.

Ninety-five percent of the time, trade show messages are too complicated. Yes, the technology may be intricate or advanced, but the telling of story doesn’t have to be. It fact, it needs to be simple. It needs to have two or three high-quality ingredients just like the meals in Tuscany (perhaps the technology, a feature and a benefit). Whatever those ingredients are, they need to be mixed in as simple a way as possible … and that’s it. Delicious, digestible, memorable.

Every time I ate a meal in Tuscany, I thought to myself, “This is so simple. I can cook this!” But I’d need that sage. I’d need olive oil that good. I’d need red wine that fine. I’d need noodles and tomatoes that fresh.

Hiking in the Chianti region, reflecting on great meals and great messaging.

So, Part I is keeping it simple, and Part II is having the right components. What it looks like when you don’t have the right components is those people at trade shows trying to sell “vaporware” — essentially mixing a whole bunch of stuff up in a convoluted mirage of messaging. In reality, there’s nothing there. It’s “The Emperor’s New Trade Show Product” hidden in a complicated presentation.

If you have the right components — if you have compelling technology — then have faith in that. Have faith that what you’re there to talk about is worthwhile and just find the simplest possible presentation of that information.

Be a Top Tuscan Chef. And whip up something delicious at your next trade show.

Karen, you’re right. A lot of companies are in a serious mood right now and are concerned whether laughter in presentations is appropriate. Generally speaking, companies have the tendency to hide behind, “We have a serious message.” The fact is, every organization has a serious message. Business is serious stuff. But there are a million ways to communicate that message.

Haven’t we all gone to the movies where we’ve seen a “serious” film, and found ourselves laughing?  You might be laughing through your tears.  Or crying through the laughter.  But the power of the film, its message still comes through.

If you’re going to impart information — especially if it’s difficult-to-grasp, complicated information — people are more likely to remember it if they’re laughing about it.

I had a Chemistry teacher in high school who made the dullest material come to life through story-telling, crazy props and even costumes.  His classes were like 45 minutes of stand-up punctuated by the occasional explosion.  I’m sure you have your own version of that science teacher, and I’m sure you remember a lot of what they taught you.

To appreciate the lasting power of humor, all you have to do is walk up to someone on the street (preferably 30 and up) and say, “Remember ‘The Puffy Shirt’ episode of Seinfeld?” Instantly, that person’s face will brighten and they’ll start quoting lines from it … despite how many years it has been since that person saw it on TV. For my generation, you can do the same experiment reminiscing about the campfire scene in “Blazing Saddles,” or your favorite Monty Python sketch.

There’s plenty of evidence to support laughter as a highly effective memory device. When you have a booth of people laughing about something, you can ask them two hours later “what was so funny?” and they’ll be able to tell you not only what was funny, but the substance behind the joke. They remember. And in the same way, they will remember your company and your featured product or service.

I have watched scores of trade show presentations over the past few months, and the vast majority of them are horrible. About as riveting as watching paint dry.*  No laughter. No smiles.  Just a lot of vacant stares.  The presentations are little more than a staged reading of a product white paper, followed by, “Thank you very much” and “Here’s your free shirt.”

Ask someone what they remember two hours after a presentation like THAT, and they’ll say,  “Um … well I did get the free shirt.”

(By the way, I actually did find a video of paint drying on YouTube. Watch it and judge for yourself.)

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No problem, Walter.  As long as you can talk three times faster than normal and bring it in at SEVEN.

Seriously, here’s a question for you:  If you only had that seven minutes to tell your product or brand story, what would you say?

Imagine you’re the point person at a big trade show presentation. You’ve set up a small theater in your booth. You don’t have a professional presenter, so it falls on you to entertain, stimulate and inspire this throng of attendees that’s formed around you. The microphone has just been placed in your hand and you have to go … now! You have only seven minutes and then the mic goes dead. That’s it. You take a deep breath and step in front of the crowd. With such limited time and so much on the line, what do you say?

This is the essence of a compelling trade show presentation. It’s not how much you can say; it’s how little. What actually is your message when you’re “forced” to distill it down? The reality is those people in your audience are visiting 25-30 booths a day. They will only walk away remembering two or three key points, along with the “feeling” they got from the message and from your energy and enthusiasm. So, what are those two or three points they cannot leave without?

If you’re finding it difficult to answer that question, there’s an approach that can help: If you had to offer up all your messaging on just one piece of paper, what would you say? Many of my clients have 200 products and a worldwide audience. They deserve at least 10 pages, right? It doesn’t matter. No one is going to listen to that. It has to be ONE page — and not 2pt type!

Try to challenge yourself on that single page. Make a list of all the corporate jargon you’ve ever heard, read it over carefully, and then toss it. There are immense benefits in brevity, and even greater benefits in originality.

Now it gets even harder. Cut that in half, and give it to your booth staff as a guide for talking with attendees. Condense it even further and give it to the crowd gatherers as an elevator speech. For them, it’s perhaps one great phrase that encapsulates what you do and what your presentation will be about.

Many years ago when I began producing trade show presentations, I would have my client tell me their story. Their WHOLE story. That typically ran 45 minutes or so. Armed with that and a FedEx package filled with white papers and product brochures, I would craft what I believed was a tight, entertaining seven-minute draft. I’d present it over the phone and await my client’s response.  Often they would rave about the comic framework, tell me that it really “moved well,” but then mention that unfortunately, I had extracted the “wrong” seven minutes. My heart would sink and they would say, “What we really want to talk about is ‘this.’” It was one of the things they’d mentioned, but there was no way for me to know that this was where the emphasis was supposed to be. The client didn’t know at the time, either. It proved to be a clarifying exercise, but not a particularly efficient one.

Now, I work with every client to first find out what they care about.   And then I keep at them until we can fit that on a single page. We talk about the big deliverables. We talk about the key messages. We talk about how this product/service/brand will make people’s lives better. With this, I can begin structuring the routine and build the “right” seven minutes.  I add in the entertaining elements, and this time, when I do the read-through, it’s 95 percent of the way there.

This may be more work up front, but it pays off in fewer iterations and a much better (and tighter) script.

Oh, and on the off chance you think it’s impossible to get your message across in only seven minutes, take a look at what professional trade show presenter, William Hall is able to do in just a One Minute Presentation.

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Dan, the short answer is “sometimes.” Costumes and theatricality can be great, but it’s essential to really engage your audience—whether that’s onstage during a live trade show presentation or by having a giant gorilla wandering the trade show halls.

Over the years, Magnet Productions has been involved in many highly theatrical trade show presentations, including parodies of hit shows such as CSI, phenomena such as Star Trek and physical humor classics like The Three Stooges. In each of those cases, one thing became abundantly clear: You’re bound to attract attention and get people to stop and look (important), but a mere “act” won’t hold attendees’ attention for long (essential).

The problem with a traditional performance is you’re not playing to a captive audience. There’s so much stimuli and so many things to see at a trade show that it’s much too easy for someone to watch your Star Trek parody for a minute or two, laugh at the halting delivery of Captain Kirk’s lines and then move on to another flashy booth. Attendees will zone out and they will walk away.

So, what’s the answer? Break the “fourth wall.” Address the audience directly. Incorporate them into the show. Make funny asides to the crowd. Invite people to play along and show them you’re not taking yourself too seriously. If you’re going to do The Stooges, get someone up onstage to be the reason Curly takes a pie in the face.

Having a sense of humor about the whole thing is incredibly important, and when you can laugh at what you’re attempting, you can take advantage of what the situation offers. If you hire a life-sized banana to walk the trade show floor handing out flyers, people are going to think he’s just a model in a silly costume. So, have him jump up onstage, take the microphone from your presenter and be even more tech-savvy than your own product marketing people. Shock the audience! Defy their expectations. Play off obvious contrasts. Give attendees the unexpected … so that they’ll stay with you for more “unexpected.” And as I’ve talked about before in regards to magic acts, make sure that costume presentation immediately reveals itself as a legitimate way to communicate important client information in an entertaining (non-boring) way. The costume or character must be a device to tell a compelling story.

The star of the show is never the guy in the banana suit; the star of the show is the company.

Do you have an industry-related question you’d like answered on “Hey Newman”? Send him an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.

Magic as part of a trade show presentation is not about shock value or “wow” factor. It’s about storytelling. Once you get that, everything else will quickly fall into place.

I’ve you’re using a magic show to bring people into the booth, that’s fine and it can work when done well, but it’s far more effective to think of it as a show that uses a variety of really interesting visual demonstrations to reinforce story. Here’s an example: While presenting I’m telling a story about a product and want to emphasize the message with a magic device. So, instead of simply holding up fingers for Points 1, 2, and 3, I hold up a coin that suddenly becomes a second coin that suddenly spawns a third out of thin air. All the coins are rare and valuable, and since we’re talking about generating money, it reinforces my point without putting people to sleep with PowerPoint or a bullet list.

If I’m talking about a particularly complicated methodology that somebody has to go through, I could enumerate those points as No. 1-12 and bore myself and the audience to tears … or I could use the same simple brand of magic to entertain and inform while I cover the necessary technical ground. I’ll bring audience members up on stage. I’ll make them part of the magic. And I’ll make them part of the complicated explanation and a part of the fun. Together, we’ll all tell the story in a humorous fashion.

And long after the presentation is done, THAT story will be remembered.

Imagine you’re at a party and someone says, “Hey, tell us that crazy story about what happened to you last week!” Immediately, there’s 25 people listening to you. Now, you’re not a standup comic or a magician, so you just tell that story in as colorful a way as you can. That’s what people forget to do at trade shows.

What’s endlessly fascinating to me is you can go into a trade show booth an find a bunch of salespeople standing around a guy who’s telling them a killer story. He has that micro-audience eating out of the palm of his hand. Everybody’s laughing and hanging on his every word. But that same guy then gets up on stage 10 minutes later, puts on his wireless headset and mike and bores the bejesus out of the audience. This is the same guy, but where did that great sense of humor and storytelling ability go? Instead, he’s up there telling us about Slide 74.

It’s the same thing when a magic show lacks connection to story and message. A lot of people have a negative bias towards magicians and think it’s just “silly stuff.” That’s because magic can seem silly when it’s not serving the client’s purpose.

Demonstrate a technological solution with a straightjacket escape. Make something appear to represent a product’s answer to an industry problem. This isn’t magic for magic’s sake. It’s in support of story. Remember that,  and your trade show presentation will be TRULY magical.

Do you have an industry-related question you’d like answered on “Hey Newman”? Send him an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.