Let’s face it, the real reason that anyone goes to a trade show is to get their hands on some free stuff. It doesn’t really matter what it is as long as it is free – the best four letter word there is. (For clarity free and food are the two best four letter words that there are, especially when put together. Beer comes pretty close. The best three letter word is pie and the best six letter word is pastry –one of human’s greatest inventions.)
What is it that comes over us? As soon as we walk in through the door our hands reach out to see what we can snag. If you can get a bag even better, even more so if it is made from environmentally friendly hessian as you can get even more swag in it to take home. Leaflets are OK but pens are better. It doesn’t matter how many you have you‘ve still got to have more, especially if they have a torch in them or multiple coloured ink.
I know we really go to sit through the presentations and seminars and round table discussions. We go to network and meet new suppliers and contacts but all the while we’re thinking about the booty and eyeing up the prizes.
Companies work hard to attract us to their stands and so the wackier the freebie the better. I avoid the memory sticks as I have a congenital mistrust of them but model vehicles, toys and puzzles are a dead cert. That’s why I have a wooden puzzle, and a small orange articulated TNT truck on what I call my desk. I don’t know why as I don’t use TNT but I just had to have one when I saw them at the last trade show. What narked me was that Bob, my colleague managed to get two!
So why do we do it when nearly all of it is useful and gets thrown away? Could it be some evolutionary throwback where we grab as much as we can in readiness for the hard winter coming like squirrels gather nuts? Is this the same urge that makes us over buy at the supermarket? Or is it that we like shiny things and feel the urge to possess them like magpies or are we basically just greedy and can’t help ourselves?
Who knows and who cares? I don’t have time to think about such things as I’m planning my next trip to a trade show.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 