At-show games add a fun, entertaining, and rewarding piece to a good cohesive marketing campaign with multiple touch points.

It’s all part of the experience. Adding a game to your arsenal of communication weapons will improve your chances of being remembered post-show.

Now don’t get me wrong. It’s not good enough to just get any old game in your booth. Anyone can bring a game to their exhibit, and when they do, it’s something typical and expected.

The real goal should be for your game to attract people to your booth, entertain, and then tie your message or your value proposition to the objective. Once people see a connection, they will feel like they’ve spent a few minutes in your booth pretty well.

The success of a trade show game depends greatly on a few factors, the title of which should be your own definition. Define an objective for your game to accomplish. Do you want your game to attract people to your booth? To inform them of an offering? To make them laugh and remember you?

Once you have your objectives written down, take them to your creative agency to discuss how to make it interesting, unique, and capable of achieving your goals.

Midago created a game for Fish Software called “Business Lead or Psycho?” which went over famously.

The established goal of the game was threefold:

1) Fish Software needed a way to inform their clientele of the power of their offering. We used the game to do that by providing real-time feedback on the status of the visitor playing the game; which kiosk they had been at and for what length of time. Which employee they had been talking with, and which offerings they seemed interested in.

2) They wanted to be able to tie in their core message: Without intelligence, you are just guessing. So we made a game where we dynamically generated a result, (Business Lead or Psycho) with a picture. The answers were always different, making the game impossible to win.

3) Fish Software needed a practical way to get their registration RFID tags back from the visitors. We used the end of the game as a call to action: Give us your tag back and you could win this iPod video.

So, by thinking creatively Fish Software allowed us to take their initial thought of using a slot-machine style gambling game and turn it into a unique selling point at the show, and gave the company’s visitors something interesting to talk about for days afterward.

Games offer you a unique opportunity to change the way your clients perceive you. Are you a fun, entertainment-loving company? Great, why not offer your clients a view into your intellectual side by doing a quiz?

Are you a stodgy, suit-and-tie company? Then take this opportunity to let your hair down and show your visitors you can be fun and different. You can’t ever take it too far. After all, it’s only a game!