Tigris Personnel teamed up with luxury event management company, Candice & Alison, to staff a team of Oprah’s quality brand ambassadors for her Life Class Tour on Apr. 16.

We booked a team of 6 events staff for a 5-9am shift (yes, that’s a 4:45am call time!), 6 for an afternoon 2-6pm shift and of course, event management, to make sure everything was executed flawlessly.
While onsite, the team were required to engage the 9,000 people in line, offer to take their photo as a momento of the exciting event and give them some information on OWN.

The brand ambassadors were asked to be warm and welcoming – as if guest was being greeted by Oprah herself! It was all about the experience!

The team of brand ambassadors distributed more than 15,000 flyers during the two shifts and took at least 1,000 photos for enthusiastic guests.

As was to be expected, the day was crazy but it was a once in a lifetime experience for many of the show attendees and a tremendous opportunity for Tigris Personnel.

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One of the most popular events promo staff in the industry seem to enjoy are tradeshows! They can be interesting to work and range from extremely busy public tradeshows like the Gourmet Food & Wine Expo or the National Women’s Show to quieter private shows like Grocery Innovations Canada or Sourcefest. Tradeshows can be informative and allow you to check out items and ideas that haven’t even been released yet!

If you’re working at one of these events, it can be easy to become overwhelmed. Here are some tradeshow strategies to help you have one of the most positive promotions you’ll ever work!

1) BE PREPARED: find out which building you are going to in advance (e.g. MTCC North OR South) and which aisle your booth is set up in. Make sure you leave yourself enough time to register for your badge on your first day as well as line ups can be very long.

2) INTRODUCTIONS: be sure to introduce yourself to your contact, any other colleagues from their company and your fellow promo staff. This will break the ice and get things going. Be sure to keep your personal belongings out of sight. There is nothing worse than stopping by a booth that has drinks on the tables and jackets hanging out from behind signage etc.

3) GET ON IT: contrary to what some people may think, you have not been hired just to stand around and look good. You are, to some extent, a “tradeshow model” but you are also much more than that. You are a walking, talking commercial for the brand you are representing so you need to get out there and engage the public. You need to get product into people’s hands and make sure they walk away with a positive impression! As an event marketer, you need to do just that – market the product you are representing! Talking among other staff or stuffing your hands in your pockets is a waste of the client’s money and doesn’t do their product justice.

4) SELL YOURSELF: these events aren’t only about tradeshow selling… it’s also about selling yourself and your own brand. If you stand out at an event, you can guarantee yourself great feedback from the client and future requests for you to work again. You may even be recruiting by other companies for full or part-time work. You never know who is watching!

5) FREE STUFF: depending on the type of tradeshow it is, there may be left over product at the end. This is common with a sampling promotion that involves food. I’ll never forget the time I represented Ganong chocolate and was swarmed by other vendors trying to trade their products for our left over boxes of chocolates during the last hour of the show! Do NOT give anything away unless you have permission from the client. Some client’s would rather donate their left overs to charity but in some cases, they’d rather give it away than have it shipped back to their office or warehouse. If they do give you the green light, this is your opportunity to score some really great stuff. A fellow promo staff and myself were fortunate enough to get an entire green garbage bag full of food EACH after one of these shows… so you never know!

6) DON’T FORGET YOUR P’s & Q’s: after you wrap up each day, and at the end of the tradeshow, don’t forget to say thank you to your contact and their colleagues. This will let them know how much you appreciated the work and enjoyed working with them. A little lip service can go a long way and the next time promotional models are needed, hopefully you’ll be at the top of their request list.

Promotions staffing can be amazing, but it’s not all fun and games. You are representing clients who invest alot of money to have you engage the public and get their product into people’s hands, and into their minds, which in turn, helps increase their sales. A national marketing agency may have a very different approach to a tradeshow than a smaller promotions company, but the goals the clients have are almost always the same. Cheers!

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Tigris Personnel proudly teamed up with another agency partner to create and staff a “Serve Responsibly” Shuttle Program that delivered the LCBO’s ‘Deflate the Elephant’ message in a fun and interactive way, while preparing fans for tennis action on the way to the Rogers Cup and celebrating the  great matches on the way back to Downsview Station.

Tigris booked a team of 10 TSS for the campaign including 2 stationary staff at Rexall and 4 bus hosts for each shift. The Rexall staff helped guide fans to and from the Shuttle to the Stadium while the bus hosts greeted fans taking the shuttle, engaged them with tennis facts and LCBO hosting tips while in transit and handed out giveaways/prizing on departure.

The goal of the campaign was for fans to leave with a memorable experience that connects to the campaign messaging: DRINKING AND DRIVING SHOULD NEVER BE THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM. SPEAK UP. YOU COULD SAVE A LIFE.

Check out the website for additional information: http://deflatetheelephant.com/Over the course of the 6 day program, close to 7000 fans took advantage of the complimentary shuttle.  What an innovative and amazing campaign to be a part of!

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