Vertical Market | Automotive

Recently, ASB had the incredible opportunity to assist a customer in wowing attendees at an annual event. This event takes place in tandem with SEMA, the well-known Las Vegas automotive aftermarket specialties show. The customer, a nation-leading tire distributor, was looking for a new way to surprise and delight their guests. Having experienced several similar types of events in the past, we recommended a room drop for attendees, something that the customer was unfamiliar with. Once we walked them through the concept and process, they enlisted one of their tire manufacturer partners to sponsor the room drop.

There are two very important people to consider when selecting the items for your event room drop: the primary and secondary audience. The primary audience is the recipient of the room drop, in this case, tire dealers, often small business service repair shop owners. The secondary audience is anyone who might encounter the items once the room drop is received. In this case, we considered the commonalities in the lifestyles of the recipients, mostly the repair shop owners or upper management.

Recipients tended to be male, age 25-55, with a mechanical background and most enjoy outdoor activities. Therefore, the primary consideration of the items we would choose was utility in the lifestyle of these recipients. The branding of the items was the logo of a consumer tire manufacturer, therefore, not only would these items market to the room drop recipients, but they would also market to the public that would see these branded items as the recipients used them in their daily life. So, we chose items that were closely linked with travel and an outdoor lifestyle.

The vessel to hold the items was a 36-can Olympus soft cooler backpack, white in color to complement the large purple and black logo imprint on the front pocket of the backpack. Recipients would serve as a walking billboard for the tire brand each time they donned this backpack on their backs. Inside the cooler, we included 2 lanyards for the SEMA event badge passes, that would be seen by thousands attending the event, 2 different types of chocolate treats, a hangover kit, a sand-proof 30×60 beach towel with full color imprint on both sides, a dye-sublimated trucker cap that included an imprint of the tire manufacturer’s most recently developed tread pattern, and a power bank that lights up the logo of the tire manufacturer. Also included in the bag was a 4×6 postcard with a welcome message from the tire manufacturer and a QR code inviting recipients to an off-site customer appreciation party happening later that week in Las Vegas.

As we aim to be an extension of our customers’ teams, we took care of all the details of the room drop, so the finished product was as much of a surprise to the team representing the tire manufacturer at the show as it was to the recipients. The feedback the tire manufacturer received from recipients was immensely positive, meeting the goal of surprising and delighting attendees. The next time you host an event, consider the impact a room drop could have on the experience of not only your attendees, but on potential exhibiting sponsors as well. When choosing items for a room drop, consider not only the primary, but secondary and even tertiary audiences involved. If you’d like assistance in developing a room drop, contact one of our experienced sales associates today to get started.

To learn more about American Solutions for Business, visit http://www.americanbus.com.