Setting up a stall at a trade show is an excellent opportunity for showcasing your product and making new connections. The disclaimer is that this is only true if you have all your ducks in a row. How do you ensure that everything is in order? Avoiding these mistakes would be a good start: Going to the wrong show Signing up for a trade show “just because” is not a good business strategy. The trade show has to be relevant to your business and its goals. First and foremost, the audience – or trade show attendees – has to be the group you want to target. Research the audience by Read more

Creating a sign for an outdoor space is a tough job. It needs to be designed to catch a person’s attention quickly. Drivers and passengers are only going to see it for a few seconds – unless they are caught in a traffic jam. Billboards must be memorable and need to be read quickly and easily while being passed at a high speed. These signs usually contain strong images with little text. Some smart and savvy advertisers are getting this very right by using the location in which their advert is placed to convey extra elements. Best in the business At the Cannes Lions awards for outdoor and billboard advertising, Read more

First impressions last, no more so when it comes to your business. And nowhere is more important in a brick-and-mortar operation than the reception area. From the manner of the receptionist to the comfort afforded to visitors, the room should be an extension of what you hope to convey; a business that is as congenial as it is excellent in services or products rendered. There is a certain degree of irony that so many businesses spend large amounts of cash on advertising campaigns yet overlook the state of their own reception areas. Pharmaceutical companies are a very good example of this. Television, radio and the print media are filled with Read more

No matter what kind of events happen, there will be branding. Here, logos, products, and all manner of company insignia will litter the areas where events take place – as everyone fights for the attention of potential customers. Branding, obviously, always matters – but at events that are aligned to your company’s interest, there is no better time to draw the attention of investors and customers. Obviously the nature of the event is everything: is it an opening for one of your stores, a conference, a merger, and so on. Priorities shift depending, thus we need to cater to the kind of event it is. For example, if the event Read more

t’s Father’s Day, and the product table at the front of the store is besieged by hordes of women desperately vying for that last minute gift. Even though cut-price shaving kits are all that’s left, the melee is backing up the human traffic something awful. The usually serene fruit and veg aisle is beginning to take on the look of a polling station in downtown Mogadishu, although far less organised. Children are screaming and grandmothers are flustered by not being able to access the queue for weighing their goods. This is but one example of what can happen when managers of a retail store have not thought through the layout Read more