Event marketing in B2B: from booth to brand experience

Stories are a powerful tool in marketing. But when those stories come to life is when you make real impact. To promote Thermo King’s presence at the crucial IAA Commercial Vehicles fair, we created a concept that turned into an all-encompassing brand experience.

Enter the world of Thermotopia…

A chance to make a stand

Industry insiders know IAA as the world’s leading trade show for commercial vehicles, transportation and logistics. Over its past 67 editions, it has become a platform for the most important world premieres, boasting appealing booths and innovative products. In short: it’s a place where you want to make a stand when you’re the leader in transport temperature control.

So that’s what we did.

Make the booth bigger

Starting from an existing booth design, we decided to not put products, but an idea at the center. The idea of a city of the future. A place where business and people thrive together. A place that focuses on comfort, sustainability and well-being. It was both a vision of a future that people want to become a part of, as a well as a showcase for Thermo King’s innovations.

We wanted our story to extend beyond the walls of the Hannover Messe, and the one-week period in which it takes place. We wanted to take our booth and its story to the world, so we…

made it real and plausible
by creating a lifelike 3D city model out of the booth design
built a mystery that people want to uncover
by starting our campaign without giving away our brand
blurred the divide between fiction and reality
by enriching our imaginary city with real-life topics and challenges

But first we gave it a name: Thermotopia

When everything came together

The months leading up to the fair gave us enough time to build out a strong set of assets. A campaign page drew in 4,610 people in the unbranded phase and again 4,160 in the branded phase. Thanks to an integrated chatbot we could determine that more than half (56%) fit the relevant profile. The supporting media campaign generated millions of Thermotopia impressions.

But it was at the main event that people could finally be fully immersed in our story, with a diverse collection of assets building a consistent, rich experience together with a stellar booth.

VR experience
linking our vision of the future with concrete Thermo King innovations
Magazine
covering important Thermotopia topics as sustainability, electrification and compliance
Thermotopia interactive map
helping people explore the booth together with its hidden secrets

Wondering what that all looked like on the ground?

We’ll let our footage do the talking:

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