Exhibitions you can bank on

When I first worked in London, you could tell a bank branch a mile away. They were big, solid buildings, with thick wide columns standing guard over monstrous oak doors. The cashiers were buttoned up tight, secured behind bulletproof glass, and access to your money was as easy as cracking a Rubik’s cube blindfold, underwater.

The message was clear.

Your money is safe with us.

If it’s this hard for you to access your hard-earned savings, those banks seemed to say, imagine the trouble Michael Caine and his motley crew will have removing it without permission…

Today, most of those fortresses have been replaced by colourful open ‘shops’, with staff on the retail floor to help consumers navigate the plethora of machines designed to make banking easier. Now, those same institutions are there not to safeguard your money, but to help you buy a home or borrow your way through a looming financial crisis. ‘We’re on your side’, today’s bank environments are designed to communicate.

I am no architect, but a lifetime around some top-class environmental design talent has taught me much about the communication of brand and messaging through space. Now, as I walk around retail outlets, and especially exhibition halls and the ultimate expression of this opportunity, I am sometimes bewildered and confused by what I see.

Exhibitions are the greatest expression of your brand

Exhibition stands are the greatest free expression of your brand. They’re constrained only by budget, imagination and the flexibility of your corporate brand standards. But often the real message is hidden within the walls, rather than making the ‘walls’ a seamless representation of the message.

All things being equal, 2023 sees the return of DSEI, the world’s most successful Defence and Security exhibition and an opportunity for brands to showcase their message to an international audience. And many defence companies are having to think again about their exhibition design to communicate their capabilities in one of the largest areas of growth – innovative digital technologies.

Visualising and describing these technologies, many of which are embryonic and to all worthwhile purposes ‘invisible’, is no easy task.

Visualising technology is no easy task

They’re not like conventional military platforms which can be showcased. They’re not existing capabilities which can be demonstrated. And unlike other new consumer technologies, we may not want to talk specifically about them at all.

This means thinking carefully about messaging and content, as well as design. It means plotting a course between hyperbole and promotion, between the promise of a technology and maintaining a delicate balance of showcasing versus security.

Above all, this requires that most coveted of artforms – effective storytelling; navigating the nuance to interest and enthuse an audience to want to engage further. It means crafting the message ahead of the environment and making sure your exhibition space speaks the language of your promise.

This demands an old-fashioned creative partnership – copywriter and designer working in tandem to create an environment which communicates. An environment which tells your unique story in a way that is unique to your brand.

Telling your story in your unique way

These are the challenges that as the dust settles on the strewn wrapping paper next week, we at Engage will already be thinking about ahead of DSEI and other exhibitions in 2023. If you’d like to come and think with us, drop us a line. Otherwise, have a fantastic Christmas and here’s to a prosperous New Year for all our industries.?