Should I show new products at NAB?

[Steve Wargo]

I believe that Boomer would have the info on booth cost because he did that for several years.

I, too, have thought about some products along the lines of what you’re discussing. I am a former machinist and metal fabricator, having designed and built things for both the custom motorcycle and off road racing industries and I still make all of my own brackets and mounts whenever I need them.

Whenever I was in the custom car business, the had a “new products” area at the SEMA show every year where people like you could introduce something new without buying a booth. NAB has needed that for decades and when we contacted them in the early 90s to suggest it, they were not receptive at all.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1.

[Mike Cohen]

perhaps we should have a “new products” forum here on the cow.

Obviously a website, videos showing the inventions in action and some press releases are part of your plan. I would think that going to NAB would be risky due to the possibility of getting lost in the clutter. You might think about a regional Video expo.
Another option is to engage the services of a independent manufacturer’s rep, who can in fact make sales calls to video equipment re-sellers. You pay the rep a percentage of the gross.

You could always sign up some beta testers here on the COW! 😉

Mike

[Steve Wargo]

[Mike Cohen] “You could always sign up some beta testers here on the COW”

That was going to be my next suggestion. Run your thoughts past some of us old timers to see if we know of it ever being presented before. I have had a zillion ideas that I’ve never acted on because of the time and money involved in bringing a product to market.

One group that has done a few interesting products is VF gadgets. We have one of their handles on our F-900. Their stuff is far from cheap but it all works.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1.

[Mark Suszko]

I won’t ask what you’re making. Let me make up an imaginary example though, to create a point of reference.

Something that would probably sell well in that market space you’re talking about could be an affordable, portable, and easy to use motion control rig. Not quite a technocrane, but something that was good enough that you could shoot repeatable accurate motion moves in the field for post-roto’ed stuff like Michel Gondry does. For example, you shoot a motion pass with your actor/ music video singer walking thru a scene, then they leave and the crane shoots an identical motion pass of a “plate shot”, and any number of other identical passes where you have other things going on. That all gets sandwiched in post to create a very complex and rich composite. Used in music vids, commercials, some theatrical SFX. This is something most companies and individuals would rather rent than own outright, I imagine, so your real marketing target, I think, is to get lots of rental outfits, and a few SFX specialty production companies, to line up and buy one.

With that as the preface, I would look at a couple things to try before going to NAB. I would make a tour of the top five market cities demoing the new toy at the most prestigious rental shop in each market, and maybe offer each one a week’s use of it. I’d promo the hell out of that using the internet forums and places like the COW, plus a few key printed magazines. I would hit a couple of the regional shows with the unit, and maybe a film school or two, then generate more marketing materials and buzz with the results and user feedback from those exposures.

With that base in place, I would then look to a debut in the smallest NAB booth you can get. It’s a pyramidal strategy, with each tier feeding into and funneling interest into the one above. If your product is thought of as a story, we’re creating an arc to that story, timed to peak when you finally make the NAB debut. This, to my way of thinking, will be more successful than appearing at The Big Show cold, out of nowhere. Though once in a while you WILL see somebody do just that and get a big buzz over a little gadget, I think that’s more an exception than a rule.

[Ron Lindeboom]

As a first-time vendor at NAB, Todd, you will likely get a corner “office” back in the back somewhere. Counting all the fees even for the tiniest booth, you are likely going to be set back no less than about $20,000 (minimum) for the show special “dinker in a stinker” — that’s a crappy spot way off any real traffic patterns, in a locale where you can fire a cannon and rarely if ever hit a soul (and will likely join the Maytag repairman in dieing of loneliness, yearning for a soul to come by and talk to you). To that cost, you can add the other associated costs to it — hotel, travel, etc.

A better way to do this, might be to work out a distribution deal with a major retailer, distributor, etc., who is going to be showing at the event and support their showing of your product with advertising monies that you spend to drive people to the booth. They will likely be delighted to have you spend money in support of the product release and also work the booth to demo it. This way, you know it’s being shown.

For the money that you spend for a booth, you could buy a banner in the hall in which you will have your product — or perhaps buy a few 1/4 page ads in multiple editions of the Show Daily magazine given out at the event. (Be sure to grind on them as they have decreased in actual in-hand circulation due to lesser traffic even though they damned near doubled the rate.)

There are other magazines and things to do but as I seem to have offended one of the leaders here by mentioning the COW in relation to NAB, I will leave that to you to figure out. ;o)

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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[Walter Biscardi]

your cheapest bet would be to set up in the space of an established retailer who will also be selling your product. you can essentially “rent” space in their booth and then advertise that you’ll be in XYZ company’s booth. Just like many of the storage companies advertise when their products are used in the booths of other companies.

No easier way to find out the costs than to simply inquire. And be sure that the booth number they give you actually exists. I’ve heard from multiple people that booth numbers quoted in estimates and even the actual contracts didn’t even exist when you looked at the map of the show floor. Then you’re relegated to wherever they feel like putting you.

Magazine ads are nice I guess, but especially with hardware, you really need to find a show where you can showcase it so folks can actually try it out. NAB is definitely the largest of those.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Tim Kolb]

[Ron Lindeboom] “There are other magazines and things to do but as I seem to have offended one of the leaders here by mentioning the COW in relation to NAB, I will leave that to you to figure out. ;o)”

OK, I’ll bite. I assume that’s me. No offense of the kind taken… I did remark at one point that it seemed to be getting difficult to have an “NAB-Pros/Cons” discussion as it seemed to devolve into an “NAB vs. the Cow” discussion. Tough for NAB to make much of a showing in that one. Interestingly, I did not feel that Ron’s article had any of that in it…it seemed fairly focused to me. The threads that came after created that new context, and I would say there were multiple sources, it certainly wasn’t Cow staff incited…

Mention away with the options…I’m not interested in suppressing discussion. I’m not a counter-agent of change… 🙂

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Creative Cow Host,
Author/Trainer
http://www.focalpress.com
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[Jason J rodriguez]

Hi Todd,

I will echo the sentiments of Walter . . . at NAB06 as a first-time vendor, we were working on our first digital cinema prototype camera, and because of the R&D expenses didn’t have the marketing budget to purchase a booth in a spot on the convention floor where we could get the exposure we wanted, nor present the product in the manner we wanted.

Rather than trying to foot the bill alone, we went to one of our partners and saw if we could find space in their booth, and not only show-off our new prototype digital cinema camera, but also highlight it’s integration with our partner’s software for high-end digital cinematography workflows. Furthermore, demonstrating the combination of our partners well-established software, and their support helped to “validate” our product . . . where it would have initially been seen as a “nice-experiment” if we simply had a small (but expensive) booth in the back of the central hall, telling the entire story of the system and it’s powerful integration points with our partners gave the product a real-world backing and substance that it other-wise would not have had.

Finding the right established partners who are willing to help you nuture and mature your product is one of the best decisions you can make, and the combined synergy between parnters together benefits not only both companies in the end, but customers as well. I think in today’s day and age, it’s the integration points that your product can provide, not how it excludes others (and end’s up being something “new” to buy that is proprietary and invalidates other products) that will help it sell in the end.

So definitely go for it, and I wish you the best of success!

Thanks,

Jason Rodriguez
Virginia Beach, VA

[Steve Wargo]

Mark, I got tired just reading that.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1.

[Mark Suszko]

Yes, well, I’m told my writing sometimes has that effect, Steve. 😛

I do really like the suggestion of teaming up with an established NAB exhibitor; if the products have some kind of synergy working together that’s quite the bonus, and it likely would be a little cheaper than going it alone your first year.

Still, I think that pyramidal strategy, touring certain key sites in key markets to build up some buzz first, or some variation on that, would help a lot. How hard that is to do, how intense you make it, has to relate to whatever the product is and the market segment you’re trying to hit.