Originally Posted by Lil4X

For nearly thirty years I spend a good deal of time at petroleum and industrial shows and have conducted seminars for dozens of private meetings, large corporations, and industry groups. I NEVER recommend the use of "models" in a professional exhibit for several reasons:

• Thirty years ago there were dozens or hundreds of models on the show floor of any major technical or industrial trade show. They have all but disappeared along with the comedians, magicians, and pitchmen that distracted from the primary purpose of the exhibit. Put a model in your exhibit and you take your organization's image back to 1975. Show delegates are a WHOLE lot more sophisticated now.
• Today, most businesses recognize the trade show as a powerful business opportunity - and a showcase for the company and it's latest technology. Exit interviews for the past twenty years have shown that the #1 reason people attend these shows is to see new technology. That applies to car shows, gun shows, boat shows, as well as technical, engineering, and industrial shows.
• The people who will be attracted into your exhibit by a bimbette are NEVER people who can sign the checks. Face it, no matter how emotional the appeal of a product might be, there have to be good technical data behind the buying decision for anything but an impulse buy. That's where your salesmen, product and application engineers come in.
• In today's business world many of the decision-makers are women. Why tick off a good portion of your target audience with a sexist appeal? You are lowering the image of your company in the eyes of not just the woman executive, but any thinking individual.
• It's distracting to put a clueless 20 year old model, no matter how well rehearsed, on the stand as your spokesperson - WHAT do you think they are selling here? Certainly not your product. . It doesn't make good business sense to floorplan a model, no matter how stunning - particularly if she's handing out her business cards, good for a free drink at the local upscale strip club. (Yes, it happened to one of my clients.)

Trade Shows have become serious business, with booth space going for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Add in the booth construction, lighting, media, and decoration, and it's easy to drop a half million on a single show if you have only a mid-sized exhibit in an international show.

Then you look at the "secondary" expenses - transportation, setup, teardown, and storage - travel and entertainment for your visiting salesmen and reps. Then there are the "unledgered" expenses - downtime for the key people that will be out of place for a week hanging out at the show, tossing back expense-account drinks at the hotel bar, and not taking care of the customers back home. Double that first number and you get an idea of what that exposure on the show floor is really costing you.

The Trade Show isn't the drunken carnival it was as late as the mid-'70's, when professional women at the show were not affiliated with any of the exhibitors. They were there to sell their own services, and often roll their customers. Once in a great while nowadays you meet a really professional model, but they are increasingly rare. They are also deadly serious about their work - as in the OP. Understand they will not be pawed, and can deflect roving hands with a clipboard like a bullfighter executing a perfect Veronica. Oh, and if you call the number they give you, it's going to be answered down at the animal shelter.

Originally Posted by IS350jet

Great post!

Originally Posted by 1SICKLEX

I stated in my last ATL auto show review there was an obvious increase in women models and boobage around...

Originally Posted by NemeGuero

"This is a Lexus, its pretty. Do you like my ****?"