CHALLENGE
Having only attended one show in their 22-year history, WARDJet knew the stakes were going to be high. There was little room for error when being surrounded by their competition at the show. After partnering with the IMTS Student Summit, the event had to appeal to both young mechatronic students and manufacturing professionals.
SOLUTION
WARDJet designed an interactive event that had never been seen before on the tradeshow floor. The Build It Challenge put students against pros building a kit-based waterjet. By being a participating team, you got entered into a drawing to win a free waterjet valued at over $100,000.
To drive traffic to the booth, T-Shirts were given away and if an attendee was seen wearing one, they could win a Free Amazon Tap. WARDJet also utilized a Microsoft Hololens to show other waterjets in their product line through augmented reality.
RESULTS
For starters, the booth was so crowded during the middle of the week that neighboring exhibitors called security to corral WARDJet visitors closer to the booth space! The word even spread to IMTStv and they did a live broadcast to announce the winners to the show along with the WARDJet team.
The entire event created a 3.5:1 (350%) return on investment and accounted for over 20% of the annual lead intake. In terms of brand awareness, WARDJet definitely left their impression on the IMTS attendees. In terms of “did it work?”, it was widely considered an overwhelming success.
DETAILS
Category
Branding
Design
Event
Motion
Video
* All work shown is owned by Anthony Thomas Advertising and was produced during my employment with the company