👋 Hola! Welcome to Out of Singapore. This is Shan and I write every Sunday on business and marketing. I share my journey of building consumer brands from scratch (or almost scratch) in Singapore. While I am building for Singapore now, soon it will be for new markets and the world (I should be not saying this). Global brands are built locally and not globally. I need to build locally in each market and then expect to become globally famous.
The crazy month of November has come to an end. We finished the month with Singapore marathon and a major Facebook stream last night. I need few weeks to recover but Christmas has come in and Chinese New Year is round the corner. We got two new products to market. This means rest will take a back seat. Anyways, right now I am not in the mood of sleeping and doing nothing. 😅
Singapore marathon was eye-opener. I had been on the fence about events, not seeing real benefits from them till now. The last two events have changed my mind. Found prospective customers, existing customers and potential new business partners. Today, let’s talk about our exhibition at Singapore marathon, our biggest and most successful event till date.
What other exhibitors did?
What we did?
What's in plan for next year?
While I say these things, we have not ventured into our independent self-owned events - where we organise and host the complete event. That is something I am looking into and will do as soon as I feel ready! For today, let’s get started.
#1 What other exhibitors did?
The venue had footwear, apparel, supplements, drinks, devices, massage, t-shirt printing and banana companies advertising their products and services. Oh, there was also Westin hotel and an Orange farm from Japan. With close to 30 exhibitors, and 60,000 people in the small space, imagine the crowd density over three days. We put a “Lunch break for 15 mins” banner to eat in some peace. But then that’s us. Let me share some interesting things done by other brands.
AG1 - This was being run by an agency, Alive. They provided the 5-day travel pack as free samples and short cups for live-tasting the product. The booth was designed with taste and meant to demonstrate AG1 and sell the products. I am not sure if people bought, but sure gave the brand an upmarket look.
Running Lab - This was a makeshift retail store. Users could try out shoes (mainly ON shoes) and their supplement gels. They did good amount of sales at the venue.
Muscle Blaze - Their setup was similar to AG1. Counter booth, free whey protein samples. They started selling the 20 dollar creatine and protein bottles on the second day. Manned by freelancers. They were opposite us and we had fun time. They would shout “free protein samples” and we would go “free full sized products”. 🤣 When they said “free protein samples here”, I would shout “and free products here”. It was funny and we both laughed after.
Amino Vitals - This was designed like a humble retail store, displaying the products and available for purchase. No samples were being given out.
Kin Teck Tong - They are a modern TCM clinic, and they provided free 10 min massage. The booth saw long queues. We leveraged their queue and got them to follow us and get a free product. I also advertised for them - “Free massages there, free products here”. Again, fun. They laughed, we laughed.
Therabody - They were selling high-end massage guns. The massage guns were pretty good. I tried the 16 mm depth and warm version. The booth assistant was smart and brought the massage gun to all the exhibitors to try out. We definitely needed to it. No samples at their booth, only product awareness, display and sales.
Sister Marathons - Two other marathon organisers from Australia and Japan also had their booth. Since 50K runners participated in Singapore marathon, it was a good place for them to attract runners as well as sponsors.
Other footwear companies - These were designed to be a retail store. Try and buy on the spot.
2XU - They drove the highest crowd at their stall. They offered 8 dollar and 12 dollar t-shirts. There was a mad crowd haggling to get the t-shirts and buy. They were always crowded. This shows a good deal can attract a huge paying client base.
Now that I remember, a lot of footwear brands were there.
Almost everyone had a “spin the wheel” setup. However, it the amount of freebies was restricted. The most annoying company was Prudential. They jammed the exit and chased people. Every time I saw, I got annoyed.
#2 What we did?
I was thinking of selling products at the venue. But I wasn’t confident achieving significant sales. Plus we had no inventory left after the Single’s day. So instead we focused on engagement and drive social media followers. Instead of collecting emails, we focused on getting followers. We managed to cross 2K followers in 3 days, about 450 new followers through the event. We improvised every day based on user response. The second day and third day saw much higher participation and engagement.
Here is what our booth did
Product display banners - The booth wall frames were designed to introduce our key products - NMN, Protocol X and LPC Neuro. I also wanted to solidify our brand identify or what we stand for at this event.
Spin the wheel - This was meant to be an engagement driver, something for users to play with and win a reward. Most did get a reward in form of a full-sized product. There were long queues to spin the wheel. On Thursday, this continued until 830 pm. We would move the wheel further inside the booth depending on the crowd. At times, the queue covered the nearby booths. Those were proud moments.
Daily 10 second challenges - This was a hit with the young crowd. Having said that, older peeps also participated and actually broke records. We had placed a white board, and mentioned the existing record holder names. It drove organic crowd. They wanted to break record. They came with friends, the friends cheered and hyped them to go with it. Initially it was supposed to be max number of push ups or squats in 10 seconds. Later, we realised no one wants to do squats. Push ups are more fun. So we made it push up only.
Max push-up challenge - Some people complained that it should be full push up. So we created a new segment on the third day - max number of push ups someone can do without time limit. We got so many 50+ squats and someone did 81 push ups. The entire environment was ecstatic.
Share more about our new products - While users were spinning the wheel and filling up the delivery form, it gave a very good opportunity to share about our two new products - LPC Neuro and Protocol X. We had a captive audience listening to the product intro and benefits due to spin the wheel rewards.
Beyond this we also did this
Shouted at the crowd - haha, not literally. We were shouting “spin the wheel to win free products”, “Scan to win free products”, and “Free massages and free products”. I did not think I will do it, but it turned out to be fun.
Shouted at challengers - Okay this was not me, but our content marketeer. She shouted “nasties” at those challenging the 10 second record. It was beyond fun and “aunties” gave annoyed looks that made me proud.
So, yes the event was eventful. I was worried that team members would feel it is too much. But they seemed to have a very good time.
#3 What’s for next year?
I am so happy with this year’s event that I already have ideas for next year. Here are some things in my head.
Go bigger - Take 2-3 booths instead of one booth. We were grossly short of space the whole time.
Explore two different locations - We can try separate placements for the same brand - one for selling and one for the new launch. Or it could be separated by products. This one I am not very sure about.
Challenger space - Space for “speed runs in 60 seconds”, “pull-up challenge booth”, “push-up challenge booth”. I was given a very good idea of trying pull ups instead of push ups as it is more visible compared to push ups. Since the audience is athletic, and competitive, it will be good occasion to challenge them and drive engagement.
Product showcase - Unlike this year, next year we will have products that can be demonstrated. Protocol X drinks can be made on spot and the serum can be tried at the venue. If we launch our sports product line up, it will be another great demonstrative product. The theme could be cocktail bar inspired and we could let consumers try different flavors.
Running focus - This year, the booth was generic. Next year we will make it “running-focused” like “your run nutrition partner - before and after”. This should attract more running athletes to work with us.
Samples - Definitely keep sample sachets that anyone can bring home.
Services - Provide recovery service such as cold plunge, sports massage or blood or DNA diagnostic service.
Take the exit spot and give samples for page follow - We could give post run or pre run jelly in exchange to anyone who follows our page. Exit point is the best place to get people. This year it was taken by Sunpride banana brand. They have away free bananas, each would be worth 5 SGD if not more.
Digital “spin the wheel” - We could makes waves by installing a “self service” spin the wheel to win free samples or products. This would remove the need for any people at the place and it will see huge crowd. It will remove the fear from users mind and they would join it. This could be placed at the exit location.
And the biggest thing we need to do next year - Sales. Offer a great deal, bring large amount of stocks in the booth and sell it. The spin the wheel should have more vouchers that would encourage sales at the venue. Users could claim the vouchers right away.
So essentially, there will be two sections in the booth
Experience area - Challenges and services to win vouchers
Sales area - product sales with the reward vouchers
This looks a bit complicated and may be difficult to execute. This also gives me inspiration to host a Protocol X event, an independent event by itself. The returns and branding may be lot more worth it. I will have to give these a proper thought over the next few months.
Bonus video - This guy did 81 pushups. Watch him nail it.
Okay that’s it for this week. It feels great to sit down, relax and write another blog post. I was feeling unhappy at not being to write last week. This feels more relaxing than going to a cafe, or travelling or doing other “relaxing” activities. The entire writing is de-stressing and recharges me for the next week.
Thank you for reading again, please do like and share with someone who will find this helpful. I am also working a video about the different booth formats. I am expecting to post either tonight or by tomorrow.
Beyond writing, making videos has become another past time for me. Again, feels great to document my thoughts in some form. 5 years later, or 10 years later, I would look back at these videos and may feel cringe or proud. Whatever, but I will be so happy that I put this effort in journaling. To all the existing readers, thank you so much. Every time you open your email to read these weekly write-ups, it makes my day.
Jisoo and Rose - My two favourite characters atm
Thanks again, and have a great week ahead! 🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛
Share this post