Mr. Gary Lee

From what I’ve heard, this blog world expo is relatively small compared to all the other technology/marketing conventions out there, but I think there were enough quality booths out there to run an unofficial Best Booth contest. Just so that you know, my criteria aren’t based soley on who spent the most money to create the most elaborate booth. I also took into account marketing tactics, booth service and quality of information provided. To make things fair, I’ve disqualified the Unique Blog Designs booth and Blogging the Movie booth because I spent way too much time there and don’t want to be biased in any way. Anyways, let’s get started:

Here’s Yahoo:

Typical Yahoo Booth - Lots of glitz and glamour, but I had to wait 5 minutes before anyone would approach me to explain what their product was and even then, I didn’t have a complete understanding. I do have to say that Jerri who was the Inside Sales rep was very nice as she came by the Blogging the Movie Booth to hang out a lil. She told me about her own blog called www.jerrific.com which I just checked out. I think it’s hilarious, since I have a similar quirky sense of humor.

Here’s B5Media:

Their booth location was pretty much right smack in the middle of the whole expo, so they were under much pressure to put up a great booth. What they did was go with the Vegas theme and give you some chips to play some texas hold’em poker. At the end of the day, they would auction off some prizes which range from hats to shirts to a new iPhone. I didn’t stick around to see who won, but I know at the end of the convention, they were throwing hats and shirts to anyone passing by. The Booth people were cool, but they came off like they really didn’t want to be there. Overall, the marketing and information was pretty good, but the Booth presentation was rather poor.

Here’s PajamaMedia:

From what I learned, they are a so-called bi-partisan political blog (more right wing than bi-partisan if you ask me) that dressed up their booth to look like the Press Room in the White House. They get a thumbs up for Marketing, even though they covered up the two attractive blondes they hired with very conservative silk pajamas (so conservative, I didn’t even want to take a picture). Anyways, the two girls would walk around the expo and pass out raffle tickets for an iPod Nano and iPod Touch Giveaway. I got suckered into it thinking that not many people would actually show up and I was RIGHT! There were only 15 or so raffle tickets in the bowl, but when I arrived for the raffle, I got suckered into listening to 15 minutes of the worst political jokes I’ve ever heard. This sort of bait and switch marketing makes sense, but the delivery was just horrible. This booth tied for WORST booth because 1) no one approached me to tell me about their site and 2) they wasted my time!

?????:

I have no idea what this booth promotes and do you see those guys sitting there? Well, they were still sitting there when I approached the booth. No one made an attempt to tell us who they are or what they do. So yes, they tied Pajama Media as the WORST booth of the Expo. I hope they don’t come back next year. Sounds mean, but really . . . horrible.

So now . . . the best Booth of Blog World Expo goes to Hacker Safe!

As you can see, they provided beer and Shoemoney took advantage. Hell, we all took advantage. People walking by would ask us, “Where’d you get the beer?” and we’d all respond “Hacker Safe!” . . . and that’s not all, they also had their booth babe walk around the expo and tag people with “hacker safe” badges so that if she sees you later, she gives you $10 of playing chips at Ballys or Paris. To complete the trifecta of marketing, they also had the best looking girl of the expo, who was very informative and very pleasant to everyone.

What do you think of the booths? What do you think makes a great booth at one of these conventions?

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