Sure, you refresh your show or reposition a couple of elements every year. But how often do attendees or exhibitors notice and, more importantly, is it driving attendance or exhibit sales? If not, it could be because the changes you make are too marginal to make an impact. But it also could be that the strategy — and your promotional effort surrounding it — just isn’t hitting the mark.

When Pack Expo show organizers wanted to attract more brand marketers to its annual Las Vegas show (the event’s audience consists largely of managers, engineers, manufacturers and purchasers at large packaged consumer goods companies), they decided a little, well, repackaging was in order. This year, the event (which is owned and produced by the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute) launched the Brand Zone — a new take on the show’s “materials and containers” pavilion, repositioned with brand marketers in mind.

The Pack Expo refresh made a splash. The result: The 65,000-square-foot pavilion sold out well in advance of the show. Organizers are still tabulating the percentage of brand marketers that attended the event (the show took place Oct. 5-7), but anecdotal evidence is strong.Matt Croson, Vice President of Membership and Communications for PMMI says several companies, including Sara Lee, Procter & Gamble and ConAgra specifically brought brand managers because of the repositioning. “We think it spoke to the brand manager,” he says.

Three tips for making your refresh hit the mark:

Bring in the pros. When you’re refreshing or repositioning a show element, just updating the signage won’t cut it if you want results. To create a strategy that would really connect with brand marketers — and for visuals that would match — PMMI enlisted New York City-based brand and design agency Lippincott. The new look included brand new entrance units and signage, and exhibits were re-divided into brand marketer-friendly categories including “ergonomic,” “shelf appeal,” “innovative” and “on the go.” The reformulated look and feel tied the exhibits together in a way that appealed to attendees old and new. “In this industry, brand managers often have the idea for a new package format, but they may not understand the complexity it takes to create and get that product to market or in the package,” Croson says. “The Brand Zone gave them a place where they could see both the new package formats and the machinery it takes to run them.”

Speak the language. If it’s a new audience you want to connect with, make sure you’re speaking their language. “We were really trying to entice and promote to brand owners the fact that they can come to this part of the show and find packaging and container innovation,” Croson says. “We wanted to increase the awareness of materials and containers at our show and move away from what we felt was a commodities kind of verbiage. ‘Containers and materials’ has a different kind of tone than a ‘brand zone,’ which is terminology that a brand marketer might be more likely to use.”

Promote, promote, promote. The bestconceived repositioning will be all for naught if you don’t match it with a strategic publications effort. PMMI promoted the pavilion in advance of the show through a partnership with Package Design magazine, which reaches brand marketers. The organization highlighted the Brand Zone in advertisements in the publication, and the magazine also mentioned the launch of the pavilion in editorial throughout the year.

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