Human Behavior at Fall DEMO: Impact on Marketing

Last week's fall DEMO Conference in Santa Clara, a start-up pitchfest to which my start-up had been invited to present and which I attended as a "golden ticket" winning individual, provided terrific opportunities to observe stress-driven human behavior in action, and its impact on perceptions and outcomes -- in category clusters covering enterprise IT, mobile and consumer/social media.

Presenters arrived early, looking for coffee and preoccupied with memorizing unfaltering, timed :90 or six-minutes scripts, coordinating with tech teams to ensure, really ensure, that video/screenshot demos went off without a hitch (ah, best laid plans ...), and finalizing their values-rich stories at provided countertop+backdrop stations in the Pavilion area.  

Brand in All Touchpoints

Audience experiences of presentations spanned the gamut:

• On-point features, innovation, monetizing trajectory comments exuding comfortable confidence and camera-ready enthusiasm, but needing some marketing zing showing site pages a bit washed out and busy to read without the benefit of 3D graphics
• Fully ready, on-point features, innovations, revenue streams and partners established, combined with slick, visually-driven and next-gen demos
• Personal story-as-testimonial which extolled male listeners to make wives happy or else, with an offering included along the way
• Personal backgrounder focus while demoing physical green energy producing products -- but not including showing how they actually worked
• A mobile social streams module brand name that didn't connect to its logo font and could be mistakenly taken, in conversation, for a famous Valley chip technology
• An Alpha (:90) pitch that highlighted market need, and left only :15 to mention the offering
• An unfortunate, and expensive, first-sentence brain freeze, then recovery-attempting short intro comments
• Juggling during benefits statements, for audience viewing entertainment
• Tossed cue card summaries of a transportation-focused social media offering
• Concluding with a group cheer-style audience echo response
• An education/parent-focused mobile monitoring offering that highlighted stopping the madness of non-involvement
• Some brands directly referenced their offerings/values, others gave no clues

The Team IS the Brand

Some teams on stage:

• Flanked by big screens, CEOs/management and their crews appeared in suits, jackets and collarless, Ts or rolled-up shirtsleeves, and jeans with high-heeled boots
• Gesticulated in comfort, some with effort
• Stood ramrod "in the headlights", focusing on the guy in the projection room
• Paced, others strolled with "old hat" ease
• Stumbled when Internet connections were repeatedly lost ... others finessed without skipping a beat, ready with Plan B screens
• Held conversations, others spoke solo with quiet tech support
• Met the audience with introductions, others dove into their offerings
• Spoke their tagline, others gave a description 

Some teams on the Pavilion show floor:

• Coordinated and dressed in their brands, others hosted without that aspect of finish
• Welcomed with introductions, others jumped anonymously right into their spiels
• Presented united fronts, others were easy to share their lingering internal disagreements (or, decisions still needing to be made)
• Tagged everyone as spokespersons, others separated out engineering duties stepped back from pitching

Next?

Which ones will make it?  Which will secure that investment round, get acquired, shoot for an IPO?

Time, and markets, will tell.

All in all, a fantastic event in which I'd be happy to participate again as attendee, presenter, prospective investor.

(c) 2010 Lisa C. Clark
All Rights Reserved.