Trade Shows

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, the Official Candy of the Consumer Electronics Show, which was held Jan. 6 to 9 in Las Vegas, took its inspiration for the unveiling of its new Minis from a typical Silicon Valley product launch, but did so in its own sweet way. The candies, which Reese’s calls the “Next Big, Little Thing,” are about the size of a dime and come in a resealable, standup pouch.

Smart makes one of the smallest production cars in the market. But belying its stature, the brand went tall and broad with its exhibits at this month’s North American International Auto Show at the Cobo center in Detroit. The brand kept its little efficient cars in the spotlight, not taking focus away, but enhancing the fun with simple, neat coolness. The best interactive was designed to highlight the consumer’s ability to customize everything about the Smart experience by showing just one feature.

Last month, the Cobo Center in Detroit played host to the largest automotive show in the country and some of the largest and most elaborate exhibits and consumer activations in the industry. EM was there to bring you the highlights.

The North American International Auto Show, in preview week right now in Detroit, was chock-full of hot cars and sweet interactives, and the digital star of the show was the Toyota Vision wall. The wall is made up of three 82-inch LCD panels, equipped with multi-touch technology and loaded with tons of content and features about the new Prius. Each of the three screens focuses on one area of content, combining to tell the whole ownership story of the Toyota culture and the lifecycle of the vehicle. The software that runs the experience is based on Microsoft Surface, but is custom-designed.

When interactive learning technology provider Promethean saw trade-show attendance drop last year, it created the ActivClassroom Experiential Tour, which takes its products directly to customers and beefs up its experiences at industry events. The tour is geared toward school district decision-makers at K-12 schools, such as superintendents, principals, teachers and IT consultants. The tour travels in a 36-foot ActivBus, which started up in April and is currently on the road with a second vehicle in the works for 2011.