Integrated Trade Show Exhibit Marketing
EXHIBITOR Magazine · ANA · Sizzle Award & B2 Award · 2019
Goal
One integrated story from pre-show through the aisle to follow-up: exhibit as the anchor, not an isolated build.
My Role
Keep creative, digital, and on-site teams aligned; run show-floor execution so the narrative held up under real traffic.
Recognition
EXHIBITOR Sizzle Award and ANA B2 Award, 2019.
The Challenge
Make the trade show feel like one campaign, not a booth dropped into a blank calendar week.
Trade show marketing works best when the floor isn’t a standalone moment. It has to connect to what audiences see before they travel, what they experience in the aisle, and what happens after they scan a badge. For this program, the ask was to treat the exhibit as the centerpiece of an integrated story: consistent creative, clear roles for each channel, and execution tight enough that judges and customers alike could feel the intention behind it.
What I Did
Bridge marketing, agencies, and the hall: same message on the screens, in the script, and in how the team worked the space.
I stayed close to the teams building the campaign so the physical booth, digital extensions, and staff behaviors all reflected the same narrative. On site, that meant choreography: making sure peak traffic windows had the right demos staffed, media was refreshed on schedule, and leadership had quiet space for customer conversations when deals were in play.
- Aligned timelines across agencies, internal stakeholders, and show services so creative launches weren’t undercut by late graphics or freight surprises.
- Ran show-floor coordination: daily stand-ups with the team, issue escalation with vendors, and adjustments when the hall rhythm shifted.
- Documented what worked for reuse at the next major pet-industry retail shows: less reinvention, more refinement.
Results
Dual industry awards plus a repeatable playbook for retail-focused pet events.
The program earned both an EXHIBITOR Magazine Sizzle Award and an ANA B2 Award in 2019, recognition that the idea and the craft held up under industry scrutiny, not just internal review. For the brand, that translated into a reusable playbook for how Hill’s could show up at retail-focused events: one story, many touchpoints, executed with discipline.