Brickstream: Breaking through at the big show

HOW WE DID IT

Divide and conquer: one team within Arketi began work on positioning, messaging and branding to develop Brickstream’s new brand and voice. A second team was charged with developing an attack plan to garner wide-spread attention at the NRF show, despite the lack of a booth.

MESSAGING Following a series of executive workshops and competitive research, we settled on the concept of “smart” – aggressively positioning Brickstream as a leader in behavior intelligence solutions for environments where people shop, gather, work and play.

This positioning gives Brickstream the ability to promote its SeeMore 3D smart data capture technology and advanced behavior analytics for brick-and-mortar locations such as retail stores, supermarkets and banks. “Smart” also highlights the technology’s key differentiators – easy configuration, proven accuracy and completeness.

BRANDING Building on the new messaging, we created a new brand for Brickstream, starting with a new logo and a rich portfolio of brand assets. From these, we developed a suite of marketing collateral and gave the Brickstream website a facelift.

Meanwhile, a joint Arketi-Brickstream team worked feverishly to secure a tradeshow presence in seven partner booths, sponsorship of the opening reception, advertising on the floor of the main show entrance, recognition on the show entrance monitors and sponsorship of the show mobile app.

MASCOT One of our recommendations for generating visibility was to create a mascot. And so Seymour – a play on the concept that Brickstream’s technology lets its customers “see more” of what’s happening in their environment – was brought to life, first as a cartoon, and then as a walking, talking, real-life character. A Seymour mask and costume were created, and we dreamed up activities for Seymour to interact with show attendees on the show floor. This guerilla marketing was complemented by a blog that invited online Q&A with Seymour.

FANCY PANTS To further ensure that Brickstream would not get lost in the sea of 27,600 exhibitors and attendees at NRF, Arketi proposed an eye-catching tradeshow uniform for Brickstream booth personnel – bright orange checkered pants and an oxford shirt with Seymour peeking around the side. After some initial hesitation, the sales team embraced the pants when they discovered they were a great conversation-starter!

Like film of an explosion played backwards, the many components of Brickstream’s re-launch came together at the last moment, right on cue. Just 12 days after the New Year, a Brickstream team of 20 greeted their first guests at NRF’s Annual Convention & EXPO at the Javitz Center in New York City.

THE RESULTS WE ACHIEVED

Brickstream’s desire for a “larger than life” presence was more than realized. The company engaged with more than 200 prospects at the show and netted 30 sales qualified leads as a result.

In addition, Brickstream’s partners were thrilled with the excitement created in their booths by the sales team (and those checkered pants!), Seymour and the guerilla marketing activities, which included on-the-spot lottery ticket payouts and the “how long have you waited in your lifetime?” calculator. Brickstream has since replicated many of these tactics at shows in other countries.