There's a popular saying that stretches all the way back to ancient Rome – right around the time Mt. Vesuvius got salty with Pompeii: In vino veritas. Meaning "In wine there is truth," suggesting that there are secrets and realities spirits can ease out of the most reticent among us. Applicable in everything from wedding toasts to New Year's Eve celebrations, the adage has survived the toughest metric of them all – the test of time. But when it came to Louisville, KY-based Material Handling Systems Inc. (MHS, now recently acquired by Fortna Inc.) and its most valued customers, a phrase that fits better might be, "In speakeasies there is success."

Like all good stories you've heard over a dirty martini or an aperol spritz, MHS, a global provider of material-handling automation systems, has its own unique yarn to tell with a clever payoff. So sit back and hoist a few while we spin a story about a 150-proof VIP promotion that Sizzle Awards judges toasted as, "The perfect opportunity to engage the right people."

Bar Code
With the 2022 edition of the Modex show coming up in MHS' backyard, the company wanted to create an exclusive, VIP-hospitality experience that would take a select group of its clientele off the show floor and create a convivial space to hold in-depth conversations and strengthen relationships.

That's by no stretch an unusual goal for many exhibitors. But it was terra incognita for MHS because it had never pulled off a VIP promotion before. So why do it now? "It's pretty simple," says Greg Tivadar, creative director and president of Chicago-headquartered EDE Corp, which designed the booth and award-winning activity. "The year prior, MHS threw a party in its booth and it was jam-packed. In fact, it was such a hit, the show organizers forced them to send everyone home because it kept on going after show-floor hours." A great success – or so MHS thought until a data review showed the attendees were not the audience it sought. This time, a VIP promotion would supply a more focused effort to engage with the right audience instead of the entire audience.

Laser-focused on cultivating its VIPs, the next step was to identify those who qualified for bigwig status. MHS distilled its target audience down to key decision makers and influencers – that is, those at the C-suite levels, along with logistics managers, project managers, warehouse managers, systems engineers, and maintenance managers. Out of that pool, MHS decided the VIPs would be those who made an appointment to visit the booth. Ultimately this august assemblage would form a marketing bull's-eye about 150 strong.

Booze Traveler
Now the challenge was to craft a potent activity that would appeal to this busy audience, one that could have them licking their lips in anticipation or at least piquing their curiosity. Since Modex was being held in Louisville, it was hard to avoid alcohol-related themes in its promotions. Which is why, when MHS and EDE scouted venues to hold a show-related event, they ended up touring the Old Forester distillery, whose setting ultimately fermented the winning idea. "The distillery had an exclusive area, and with MHS wanting select customers to feel like VIPs," says Tivadar, "it was a light-bulb moment where the idea of a speakeasy was quickly brewed." The very definition of a restricted space, these illicit yet iconic bars appeared with lightning speed during the Prohibition era.

Of course, there isn't a given design template for a speakeasy you could just cut and paste. Back in the days of Tommy guns and flappers, speakeasies ran the gamut from dens of booze disguised as men's smoking rooms to Italian trattorias to soda shops. But the one trait they all shared was that they were hidden from view. In keeping with that common denominator, MHS decided that its own speakeasy would be concealed out of sight in the back of its booth, camouflaged as just another storage room no one would think twice about. The chosen VIPs would only be able to enter with a password.

Sip, Sip, Hooray!
The promotion's enigmatic tagline that would later also be used in marketing collateral, "If you know you know!" came about through serendipity. During a casual conversation between MHS and its digital marketing agency, Koroberi Inc., MHS marketing manager, Lauren Pedley, mentioned she wanted the experience to feel like a speakeasy. This prompted someone else to free associate passwords and secret knocks on concealed doors. Patrons in the Jazz Age all just seemed mysteriously to know where a speakeasy was located. Thus, the tagline, "If you know you know!" was born.

That part went off relatively easily. Nonetheless, even in award-winning promotions, not everything goes down as smoothly as a mimosa at Sunday brunch. MHS intended to send out branded RFID bracelets to the 150 select attendees to ensure they would come to the stand after making an appointment. The bracelets – which would empower the wearers with a kind of electronic "open sesame" to the hidden and locked speakeasy entrance – would have also come packed with the cryptic "If you know, you know" message. Unfortunately, speed bumps in programming the bracelets forced the company to delay distribution to the VIPs until they appeared for their appointment. The company pivoted from snail mail to a more SOP email blast, which the sales staff piggybacked on with phone calls and yet more emails to entice the targeted people to come by the booth for a bracelet.

When it came to goals, MHS set a high bar for itself: It wanted to increase quality leads and quantity of leads by 20 percent as well as grow the number of media interviews by 30 percent over its 2020 Modex appearance. Additionally, it aimed to boost its social media engagement, enhance its web-based conversions post-show, and increase after-show email campaign conversions compared to industry averages.

If you had walked by the MHS booth on the opening day of Modex, you wouldn't have noticed anything suspicious or even unfamiliar. Just the usual hubbub of attendees milling about, inspecting products and conversing with staffers – which is just the way MHS wanted it. It was a different story when any of the VIPs made their way to the booth, however. These C-level and managerial invitees from various companies were, to paraphrase the promotion's tagline, in the know. They were greeted at the check-in desk and handed one of the branded RFID-powered bracelets, after which an assigned staffer or salesperson escorted them into the space to show them around – and of course to guide them to the clandestine space for a libation and a chat. This is where the placement of the speakeasy proved to be a triumph of design in more ways than just the obvious. To get to the speakeasy, attendees and their escort had to wend their way through the booth, taking the time to stop and evaluate many of the products MHS had on display. After taking in the product line, the guests reached the back of the booth where the speakeasy lay behind an innocent door disguised to look like a storage closet.

It's Five O'Clock Somewhere
The guests tapped their RFID-powered bracelet against the door and it popped open, revealing a room where the ambience changed from pragmatic booth to swanky nightclub. The 25-by-35-foot space glowed with the neon glitz of Miami at night and hummed with the energy of Mos Eisley Cantina in "Star Wars." A "Club MHS" logo in ice blue and glacier white was mounted to a wall behind an oak bar, which sported an LED-underlit foot rail that gave the space a sumptuous shine. The black walls, gray carpet, and flame-red lighting fixtures and chairs – corporate hues – blended as perfectly as a rum-and-Coke.

Split into five sections, the speakeasy was designed for those at different stages of the sale process. The main open-lounge-like space was for those who simply wanted to chill and chat, while those with a keener interest in buying could use one of four conference rooms.

Here, then, is where the magic took place, in a space "off the grid," so to speak, where the very nature of its invisibility makes its uniqueness all the more visible to participants. Whether in an open or more private space, up to 50 guests at a time chatted with MHS salespeople, executives, and various company experts, while enjoying espresso in the morning or savoring small-batch Woodford bourbon in the afternoon.

Often, you might expect that the results of an activity centered on what they called "giggle water" back during Prohibition would end up with a sobering lack of results. Not so with MHS and its speakeasy. Going into Modex, it wanted to lift both the quality and quantity of leads from the previous show by 20 percent. The result was a 34.5-percent high-jump in leads overall from the previous show. On top of that remarkable performance, MHS had hoped to raise the number of press interviews by a substantial 30 percent. It ended up reaping a striking 160-percent jump.

As noted above, MHS came into the show with other objectives not linked to numerical goals. It took aim at intensifying social media engagement and consequently racked up 19.3 percent more followers on Facebook, while its effort to increase web conversions post-show rose by a stunning 383 percent. It also wished to improve on the after-show email campaign conversions compared to industry averages – and it did so by achieving a 24.9-percent open rate compared to a 19.8-percent industry average open rate, Further, it accomplished a 4.5-percent click rate in those emails compared to a 2.2-percent industry average click rate. MHS served a rare bourbon in its speakeasy, but rarer still is the company that wouldn't say, "Cheers!" to those results.E