14 WEEKS TO GO: BOOTH BRAINSTORM

Making a small booth stand out at CES?

How hard can that be!

Turns out, open-ended questions are the worst. Every square foot needs a decision. 

Our home at CES will be a 10-foot-wide by 8-foot-deep booth in Eureka Park. We get an tall back wall, two low side walls, a cabinet and a stool.

That's it.

Enough room for Priamble, two people and a lot of ambition.

This week, we started figuring out what those 80 square feet should actually look like.

And almost immediately, we ran into the first problem.

HOW MUCH DO YOU TRY TO SAY?

Priamble™ Audio Earrings combine open-ear audio and jewelry. They're earphones, but they don't look like conventional earphones. The jewelry overlays are interchangeable. They sit outside the ear canal, so you can stay aware of what's happening around you.

That's a lot to explain.

Our first instinct was to put more information on the booth. Then we started looking at Eureka Park booths from previous years.

And something became obvious:

The booths that caught our attention weren't necessarily the ones that said the most. 

Color matters. Scale matters. A great visual matters.

So our booth-design problem became an editing problem.

THE BOOTH DECISION TREE

BACK WALL: Bring our own or have CES produce it?

We considered portable panels and displays that we could bring with us. They'd be reusable and potentially less expensive.

But we're already getting ourselves, Priamble, demo units, jewelry displays and everything else to Las Vegas.

Decision: Let CES/Freeman produce the back wall.

It's simpler. It's seamless. And it gives us almost ten feet of uninterrupted visual space.

One giant canvas.

Now we just have to decide what to put on it.

IMAGE

This has turned out to be one of the harder decisions.

Some of our Priamble designs are subtle gold and silver pieces. They immediately communicate jewelry.

Others, particularly our orchids, are bigger, brighter and far more dramatic. They communicate fashion and couture.

At CES, we're designing for someone walking down a crowded aisle surrounded by hundreds of other things demanding attention.

So we're leaning toward vavoom.

Big color. Big image. Priamble unmistakably on the ear.

The question isn't simply: Which image is prettiest?

It's: Which one makes someone stop walking?

I finally understand why runway shows pieces that make most of us ask: who'd ever wear that? 

MESSAGE: Explain Priamble or make people curious?

This is another exercise in restraint.

We could fill the wall with benefits and specifications.

Instead, we're moving toward something much simpler. Logo, Name, Motto. 

If you want to know how an earring can also be an earphone, come closer.

MONITOR: Do we need one?

We have the option of adding a monitor to the back wall.

At first that seemed obvious. We're showing an audio technology product at CES. Of course we need a screen.

Now we're not so sure since the only option is a central monitor. So that's out. 

A moving demonstration could help people understand Priamble immediately. But CES will already be filled with screens.

SIDE WALLS: More graphics?

The side walls are low, only about 40 inches high. 

We considered adding more messaging there. 

Right now we're leaning toward less.

If the back wall is doing its job, we don't need every available surface shouting for attention.

CABINET: Keep it clean

We want Peripherii to look like a modern consumer brand that happens to be exhibiting at a trade show.

So we're stripping it back.

Clean cabinet. Clean branding. 

This is not the finished booth. Not even the finished design. But we're getting closer.

AND THEN THERE'S PRIAMBLE ITSELF

We're not just getting a booth ready for CES.

We're getting Priamble ready for CES.

We're beginning work on new overlays specifically for the show. We're also working through demo units, displays and some of the less glamorous engineering details that have to be right before thousands of people get to see and hear Priamble.

If we're introducing Acoustic Couture to the technology world, Priamble should arrive dressed for the occasion.

Which brings us to this week's checklist.

14 WEEKS TO CES

GETTING THERE

☑ Selected for Eureka Park
☑ Booth secured — #61465
☑ Hotel booked

GETTING PRIAMBLE READY

☐ CES collection
☐ New Priamble overlays
☐ Acoustic shield
☐ Demo units
☐ Test everything. Then test it again.

GETTING SHOW-READY

☑ Brand assets uploaded
☑ Booth design started
☑ Booth displays ordered
☑ Jewelry trays ordered
◐ Hero image
◐ Back-wall design
☐ Monitor decision

14 weeks. 80 square feet. Lots still to do.

We'll show you what changes next week.

See you on the Runway to CES.