Standing out while standing apart. Gioteck

 
Challenge:
Competing for attention at the world’s most attended gaming tradeshow is the stuff of gladiators. Especially if you are an up and coming gaming accessories enterprise, such as the UK’s Gioteck.
 
Gioteck is producing some of the gaming community’s favoured headsets, controllers and gaming chairs and is fast becoming a player in the gaming industry. But, going up against goliaths such as Sony and Nintendo, requires hubris and investment.
 
Gioteck challenged Imagination to create a compelling E3 experience at which to engage their key North American retailers and fans. Yet, with weeks to spare before opening, space on the show floor was not to be had, not at a financially viable way.
 
Insight:
In order for Gioteck to stand out, they would have to stand apart. The best showcase for the accessories would be away from the E3 show floor.
 
Solution:
Our LA-based team scouted an athletic equipment store within minutes of the LA Convention Center and proposed to Gioteck creating a pop-up retail experience; one that would host their retail clients, invited guests and passers by an environment most likely to resemble where and how people would actually play with Gioteck equipment.
 
Also, one could not underestimate the value of inviting people outside, away from the show floor, to experience the LA sunshine and a break from the sensory overload.
 
Finding a venue, to shipping boxes back to the UK took two weeks, with the Imagination team designing the physical environment, graphic direction, merchandising the space, training hosts and gamers, installing and managing the space for three days.  
 
Results:
Though a curious metric, an important one to note: not one meeting was cancelled or missed, despite being off the show floor and a few minutes walk from the convention hall.
 
Gioteck saw increased orders from each of the scheduled meetings, and received important praise from the trade and gamers alike.
 
Gioteck has reserved the space for next year.