Are You Beige?

Joe Greeley here, with Nimlok Minnesota.

Here’s what’s on my mind – Are you beige?

Webster’s Dictionary describes beige as a yellowish sandy colored brownish color – ick! Right? Beige…boring. It also describes it as lacking distinction.  Oh, another exciting phrase, right?  Think of beige for a minute; think about how it’s used, and when it shouldn’t be used.

“Oh, that’s a lovely beige dinner you’re having.”  Oh, sounds terrible, doesn’t it?  No flavor, no color, ick!  “Oooh, look at how fast that beige sports car goes!” When is the last time you’ve seen a beige sports car? I’m sure somebody tried it once.  Or, “Boy, these are lovely beige flowers you sent me, Joe.” I can tell you right now I’m in more trouble than when I started, if that’s the case. Or, “What color beige should we paint this room?”  Who cares? It’s beige – it’s neutral.

Here’s my point – beige is made to just blend in, be just that, be neutral.  When it comes to your exhibit program, it should be just the opposite. Now when I say exhibit program, I don’t mean your actual exhibit structure. I mean the activities.  I mean the unforgettable things that you’re going to do.  They can’t be beige.  Here’s why – If you’re beige on the show floor with the experience that your prospects and your clients have, they’re going to move on to the next one, and guess what’s going to happen? They’re not going to remember you.  You’re just like…you’re kinda like this…you’re really not different. There’s no contrast, you’re just neutral, right?

What we’re saying, and what you need to do, is do something within your booth, within the experience that they have with you that’s remarkable.  Something that’s sticky, something that’s going to make you memorable, because they’re going to spend the day talking to a lot of other people. When you follow up with them you want that stickiness there, you want that memory ingrained. “I remember you, you guys were the ones doing this really cool…yeah, that was great – what a great experience!” That’s the ultimate type of conversation that we want.

Now we understand this too — sometimes being beige is easy…right? It’s easy, it’s simple, you just do a quick demo.  They come into your booth, you have a conversation, you ask them some questions.  Scan their badge, give them a stress ball, and they’re on their way, right? Pretty beige because they’re going to do that fourteen more times during the next hour, or forty more times throughout the next day or two. Again, it’s just beige.  I get it though, it’s hard work, it’s risky, you’ve got to be more creative.

Think of some things that you can leverage.  One is technology. You can do some things with technology that can be really interesting and can have that stickiness providing it plays well with your audience. The other thing you can do is have some sort of activities, too, that they participate within your booth.

Now I know some of you are rolling your eyes, thinking, “Oh yeah, great, we’re not going to do ‘Wheel of Torture’ or anything like that.”  Now, I’m not saying that.  Think of something, though, that your audience wants to participate in.  Think of the demographic. There are things you can do that are going to create a memory, create some stickiness with you, your sales people, and your brand.

So the challenge today is – don’t be beige. Do something to show up, stand out, be different! That’s the goal, be different – don’t be neutral.

If you want to talk about some of these things, feel free. Pick up the phone, give us a call.  We’d love to just listen, and if we’ve got ideas we’d love to share them with you. We can even show you some of the past things that we’ve done to keep you out of the beige zone.

That’s what was on my mind. Let us know how we can help.

Thanks!