Recession Strategies Part 2

"There is an important meeting today at your company -- between AV and IT. You should be there."

--Advanced AV corporate brochure

Holding conferences to spike sales is hardly creative. But what is creative is holding a conference and making it look like it’s a true industry tradeshow rather than just a typical vendor-sponsored event. That’s what my client Advanced AV did recently with their CTEC 2008 Conference. Note the branding. They could have called it the Advanced AV conference.

Advanced AV, based outside Philadelphia, is a leading provider of audiovisual technology and consulting -- anything from a single slide projector rental to a complete university campus private cable TV network.

This was the fifth annual CTEC Conference. By inviting their technology providers to participate as speakers and exhibitors (a privilege for which they pay), the event doesn’t smack of self-promotion even as it makes Advanced AV look more like an industry leader. All of Advanced AV’s technology partners signed up as sponsors, including NEC, Sony, and Panasonic. A conference like this is also a great way to move yourself to the top of your partners’ referral lists.

My involvement was to write Advanced AV’s corporate brochure. I’ve done several projects for them in the past -- so they were familiar with my work -- and at the last minute they decided not to go with the copy that their web design firm had provided. I appreciated the opportunity to show them what was possible on such a key assignment with just three days notice.

The challenge here was to convey several core messages in a very small amount of text. My approach was to use the “nightmare scenario” -- an experience dreaded by everyone who has run a meeting. This adds drama to the copy, which is often a challenge in technology or corporate brochures. It also makes the copy shorter since it provides a convenient check-off list of reasons to hire an AV expert. A writer could have just started out by claiming how great the company is or by reciting customer needs, but that’s very conventional and much less engaging.

Take a look for yourself. In the window above, I have divided the brochure up into its cover and inside spreads, which you can view as individual PDF downloads.