There's an art to standing out at a crowded trade show, especially if you're the new kids on the block. For Looped LOGIC, we created a set of four tall banners instead of a single booth backdrop. Placed on top of the product instead of behind or in front, they give the booth extra height and visibility across the trade show floor.

Alternating colors means that the client can swap out individual panels when new products are introduced, without worrying about slight inconsistencies in printing when new banners are combined with the old ones.

Finally, we showcased one aspect of the brand's USP -- that unlike their competitors, they publish their price list -- by creating bright, oversized price tags. At our request, the vendor even added grommets to the banners, so that we could attach price tags with twine for an arresting 3D effect.

The plan worked spectacularly. Looped LOGIC went to the trade show complete unknowns. By the end, when the reps said they were from Looped LOGIC, the attendees said, "Oh, right. The green-and-orange guys." Mission accomplished.

The client already had a booth backdrop and table cover. To introduce their new phone-app market research product, we designed a complementary tall banner that showed the product in use.

For handouts, we skipped the usual letter-sized brochure and created a series of pocket-sized postcards with inviting images and benefits from the users' perspective. (Thanks to digital printing, multiple cards were very affordable.)

Instead of piling them flat on the table, we purchased a contemporary vertical photo tree from a home decor store and invited visitors to take as many different cards as they liked. This tactic both captured attention and appealed to the human desire to complete a set.

"Trompe l'oeil" means "fool the eye" in French, and it's an artistic technique that we used to create a unique display for a company that designs, builds, and installs science laboratories. Instead of a big branding message, or a series of images, we shot an entire lab from the viewpoint of a person standing inside it and made that single image the entire backdrop. We suggested that the client forgo the usual table, and instead place an actual piece of their furniture in front of the backdrop.

As a result, it looks like you can walk right into a lab on the showroom floor. Being able to see and touch an actual cabinet adds to the immersive experience.

A few years later, HLF had rebranded, greatly expanded their product line, and begun distributing nationwide. Based on the success of their previous immersive "trompe l'oeil" booth backdrop, the client wanted to use the same idea.

We combined a fresh new laboratory image with a banner message that highlighted fast nationwide shipping. A video displayed a slide show of gorgeous laboratories that HLF had installed for customers. A tablet on a stand allowed booth visitors to see more images, and browse through a product catalog.

The surprising success of this booth began eight weeks before the conference. The plastic-surgeon inventor of this medical device had struggled for a decade to gain traction with his design for a safer, more realistic breast implant, and he wanted his next plastic surgery conference to get different results. The big hurdle he had to overcome was that doctors were convinced that women would be happy with whatever they recommended, and so there was no need to try something new.

We needed data to overcome their resistance. So in advance of the conference, we surveyed women who were interested in breast implants. They told us that they WOULD prefer the new hybrid. Even better, they told us that they would seek out a physician who offered it. Best of all, patient after patient asked "Where can I get the Ideal Implant?"

We created a large, information-packed poster with the survey results, and handouts that also included product information. At the conference, Dr. Hamas got much more interest than he'd ever had before, and a surprise: a multimillion-dollar offer for his company.

C3 Advertising's popular Convergence program is a series of three short workshops where stakeholders in an organization get together to make sure they're on the same page. Part 1, Discovery, is a discussion about past sales, marketing, and lead-generation efforts. In part 2, people from as many departments as possible share their impressions of their clients or customers. In part 3, we brainstorm about the brand: what it's been, what you want it to be. It's a revelatory experience, but it's also fun — it even includes a game.

When COVID hit, we had to change our Convergence program from a one-day in-person event to three online meetings over a weeklong period. And we had to figure out how to keep the interactive games on a digital platform. The result was so successful that we now offer a hybrid that some clients prefer, with a combination of remote and in-person meetings. This is part of the presentation for Part 1, Discovery.

For more information about Convergence, contact us.

When our client had the opportunity to teach a lab-planning workshop at a prestigious conference, we worked with them to create a slide presentation that could contain a lot of material, but still make it easy for attendees to follow along.

One of our visual guides was repeating an image of a laboratory. It was shown in full color at the beginning of the presentation. For each new “chapter,” we used the same photo, but with only the topic part of the image in color. A line-drawing treatment for the non-color portions of the lab echoed the lab planning theme of the workshop, and was appropriate to the audience.

A large presentation like this takes quite a lot of time and effort. So to help the client leverage their investment, we designed the presentation to be flexible. It was later:

• Edited into a shorter “Lunch 'n Learn” program
• Split up into smaller topic presentations
• Adapted to accommodate specific product lines
• Customized to meet the individual sales reps and their territories and customers.

We're good at finding leads for our clients. We've been successful at it for a long time. So when a tutoring center company told us that their franchisees were struggling to find new customers, it was a short step from generating leads to training franchise owners about how to do it locally.

For this client, we developed a simple process that busy franchisees could easily implement into their workflow, and created a presentation to teach them how to use it. We were gratified by the feedback of franchise owners who told us it was the most practical and valuable presentation they'd ever received from Corporate.

This financial management firm liked the brochure we created for them so much that they asked for a slide presentation template to match.

When you need to present a complex solution, a simple presentation is best.

The Chumash Museum asked for ideas on how to solve a problem of low attendance, especially among school groups. We quickly realized that marketing alone wouldn't do the trick. The small, minimally funded museum needed a low-cost upgrade to the experience, too. So we developed a way to use cheap, easily available technology to create a unique and memorable experience.

We put together a team of educators, marketers, UX designers, and programmers — a third of whom were American Indian — who were committed to the project and willing to provide services for the nonprofit at deeply discounted rates. We even found potential grant sources to fund the project. While exciting, it's a lot to take in, so we kept the presentation very clean, simple, and focused on the content.