Recently the good people at Go-To-Market Strategies published a review of the Mplanet 2006 exhibitor performance. They start by saying that there is no better place to learn tradeshow techniques than at a tradeshow by marketers for marketers. Unfortunately, their general evaluation of the exhibitor performance in two key areas was poor.

Positioning -- you know, that part of marketing that differentiates our products and services from our competitors -- well, they hit the nail on the head when their Lessons Learned report gave a less than average grade. I have to admit I was bored most of the time walking through the exhibit floor -- and I had money in my pocket and was looking to buy! There were less than a handful of exhibitors who were able to give me any reason why they were different, unique, special, or provided any type of advantage whatsoever.

Attraction -- that other key part which gets people's attention. Ugh. While I enjoyed spinning the wheel at Eloqua, practicing my bowling at GroupNet's booth with the new Nintendo Wii, and even getting my handwriting analyzed at Factiva, the majority of exhibitors failed to inspire, amaze, and wow. While the Go-To-Market report may criticize that floor traffic was painfully slow, I would say that this crowd was the most targeted group the exhibitors could have found...and for the most part, if their booth wasn't successful, they can only blame themselves.

As marketers, we should know better than to show up to a conference with nearly 1000 of our peers and do anything less than a stellar job. This was a chance to shine, stand out, and do all the things we read about and talk about... But with a performance such as what I saw, no wonder marketers have a hard time being seen as a profit and investment center since many exhibitors sat at their booths working on their laptops, or just seemed bored. C'mon people...we can do better!