Here’s a good way to tell just how much of an impact a company’s booth had: wait two weeks and then write up what you thought.

On April 27-29, Savor attended the Global Food and Style Expo in Chicago (made up of three smaller shows: The Spring Fancy Food Show, The U.S. Food Export Showcase and The All Things Organic Trade Show). It was an interesting smorgasbord of edibles. Case in point? There I was chewing away at a strip of beef jerky when an exhibitor offered me a sample of her wares. Chocolate. “Sure,” I said, taking a truffle. “What better to complement this beef jerky?”

And, now here I sit, writing my thoughts about the companies I saw at the show. And, you know what? I can not remember the chocolate or beef jerky companies. In fact, without checking my notes, there are only two companies whose marketing really stood out to me–and whose names I can, therefore, actually remember.

USA Pears – (Organics Show) This pear supplier’s booth revolved around a “Check The Neck” theme, a method for determining the ripeness of your pear. Their handouts included my favorite giveaway of the whole show, a brown bag featuring their logo and instructions on how to use the bag to properly ripen pears. “Isn’t this just a regular brown paper bag?” someone asked. The two friendly men behind the booth’s high counter comically disagreed. “It’s like a brown paper bag. But, it has these pear-ripening instructions, so you can enjoy the perfect pear.” What a great promotion. Tongue in cheek, clever and related back to their product and company, especially in how it showed that they, unlike other pear purveyors, really cared about the perfect pear.

Yoghund – (Organics Show) Yoghurt for dogs? I’m not actually sure if this product makes sense or not. (Although since I don’t have a dog, maybe I’m not the one to judge. ) But, here’s what caught my eye. Yoghund signed up to be in the What’s New Showcase. There they were on a shelf with hundreds of other products. There I was thirty feet away standing in one of the aisles, waiting for my two team members to catch up. And from thirty feet away, Yoghund caught my eye and enticed me to check them out. How? Video. Next to their packaging they had placed a small screen that was playing a short looped clip promoting their product. It was as simple as happy dogs running around and eating Yoghund. But, the dynamic visual, next to all the static displays, got me to check out their product over all the others being exhibited. I was so curious that I even stopped at their booth. Really a very successful and simple way to catch someone’s eye.

So, those were my two favorite marketing efforts at the show. Pears and Yoghurt for dogs. While they shouldn’t have seemed to have much in common, they actually did. Their materials were professional. Their websites are informative, interesting and well designed. And, the most ironic trait for two companies exhibiting at a food show, neither one was passing out samples, illustrating that there’s more to successful food show exhibiting than just your food.