Nostalgia; everybody loves it! An article in techtarget.com describes Nostalgia Marketing as:
“In marketing, tapping into nostalgia means associating a product, service or brand with memories from the past to establish an emotional bond.”
If you’re looking for a unique idea to add to your next meeting/event, consider something that creates an emotional bond between both the attendees and the vendors who have been coming to your meeting for years. This is an extremely cost-effective way to create meaningful engagement to your event.
What I’m suggesting is some sort of display that showcases pictures of your meeting throughout the years. Consider creating a huge mural in one part of the exhibit hall where people can go look at images from the beginning until now. Think of how much fun people will have finding the long-lost photos of themselves and their colleagues.
Get exhibitors involved as well by showing then and now images of their booths. There are several ways to get creative with this idea like using black and white photos of the past to having an almost color gradient effect going through to color as the photos become more recent.
Get your OG attendees and exhibitors involved by asking them to send photos over of their previous experiences. Digging up these relics is sure to evoke the feeling of togetherness that we all appreciate when looking back at our favorite past events.
Thoughts? Questions? Email Me!
Sarah Breymeier: beheard@podiatrymeetings.com
-Sarah Breymeier