Japanese Trade Showing

I accompanied Ichihashi-san to a Tokyo trade show, scrambling along behind him as he navigated both metro and JR trains to arrive at a large pavilion. It was not well attended and we quickly found CTC’s booth — spartan by American standards. The information was there, but the presentation lacked the Las Vegas glitz.

This puzzled me, as I had seen Asians walking entire showroom floors with video cameras in hand, capturing the latest in American sales glam. What did all that voracious recording yield? It seemed marketing techniques were still evolving, nowhere near the “sophistication” of American retailing events. There were few freebies — swag as we knew it — and not even carpeting in the aisles. Entire backs of booths displayed only blank billboard space, as if someone designed the booth in 2D. I saw none of the big booth techniques that Americans have hyped into the realm of sponsored entertainment.

More importantly, there were no automatic name capture devices, no scanners, no enticements to make contact with a website — nothing to track the flow or capture leads. Only occasionally was there a request for a business card. Where America had fallen into the realm of hucksterism, Japan was still playing the shy girl waiting for an invitation to dance.