Surtex 2013: Lesson #3

Lesson #3: More on marketing: When is enough enough?

Once you have your trade show theme brewing in your creative stew pot, most of your other marketing tools will fall right into place. We started with a fun trendy color story to use for our booth and our marketing: Dusty Turquoise, Coral and Kangaroo with a touch of Banana and Lime. We were going for vintage with a twist.  We think this group of colors is a fresh new choice for a gender-neutral color story. And, just today, I was delighted to see that Project Nursery predicted a similar story.

We knew we would be needing envelopes for mail-outs as well as something to contain our press kits.  Lucky us that Paper Source had an envelope that perfectly matched the dusty turquoise from one of the circus prints that would accent our booth.

We also knew that we had lots of baker’s twine on hand from my overzealous twine trials for the animal cracker box handles.  (See previous post.)  So I thought of this excellent way to use up at least one roll of twine.  I’m not saying that I designed this press kit around the twine, but let’s just say it inspired me.

The cover page was designed so that our little mighty mouse would be peeking out, most certainly luring a busy editor to want to learn more.  Plus, I was dying to use a phrase I found on a vintage circus poster somewhere in our booth, but it didn’t fit on our walls: “Pachyderms, Pulchritude & Pantomime.”  So, imagine my delight when this verbiage could find a home in our press kit. Plus, this word usage will also provide a great ROI measurement … if any trade magazines use “pulchritude” in describing Cathy Heck Studio, we’ll know our press kits worked!  Although, it might turn out to be a coincidence, since pulchritude does actually mean “physical beauty and comeliness,” and well, just sayin’.

So, when is enough enough in marketing for a trade show?  Maybe when one has a burst of creative genius and is certain that one should provide mustaches for possible photo ops with booth visitors.  Or, maybe enough is enough when one decides that mustaches would be trendier than trendy if they were made from our Little Big Top patterns.  Or, maybe enough is enough when one begins this little project at about 11pm the night before her flight to said trade show.

Clearly, I don’t know when enough is enough.  And I’m pretty sure that we will not earn any marketing awards for this small part of our marketing package, BUT, it sure was fun.

Photos above top: Kim Andersson, textile designer, who was helping Carol Van Zandt, stopped by for a little mustachio. And below, Ronnie Walter and Jim Marcotte model our show ‘staches … wow, Ronnie, we all knew you were stylish, but, you even wear a mustache with a certain panache … and I am pretty sure Jim has worn one of these before.

Here are a couple of links to some fun mentions we discovered after the show, which may have been influenced by our press kits, or possibly our matching mustaches.  One was the post-Stationery Show/Surtex wrap-up by Gifts and Decorative Accessories, in which I was very honored to be included in the list of “familiar names in our industry at large.” (Thank you.  We love being known as familiar  … it’s a little bit like being called a good friend.)  And, another article and photo surfaced in Illustration Today, which is written in another language, but we are confident that the description of our Surtex booth is full of praise … although we’re guessing it does not include the term, pulchritude.

So, next year, when you are trying to decide whether to do a bit of marketing before the show, I say, yessiree, do it.  But, maybe not the mustache idea.  I mean, really, enough is enough.