With companies trimming their marketing and trade show budgets, Mark Johnson, CEO of Star Exhibits and Environments, says that his company has continued to thrive by becoming, in effect, an extension of his clients’ marketing departments.
Though the Brooklyn Center company focuses primarily on designing and building trade show exhibits and in-store retail environments for clients including General Mills, ADC, and Pearson Learning, it can also collaborate with clients to develop brochures, postcards, and marketing materials before an event. Star can ensure that a customer’s brand appears uniformly, with consistent colors, logos, and themes between trade shows or retail environments. Star can even provide people to staff a booth.
Since its founding in 1993, Star also has been creating retail environments. In fact, it often builds out both retail space and trade show exhibits for clients.
One of those clients is Iowa-based door and window maker Pella. Star has designed and built more than 200 of Pella’s retail environments, located in Home Depot, Menard’s, and standalone Pella stores. The retail set-ups include a device that shows window sizes using region-specific scenery to help buyers picture what their finished windows will be like.
Star is also streamlining the way customers track and manage their trade show exhibit inventory with Internet-based software that it developed called Startranet. The software was introduced in 2001.
Each exhibit or retail-environment client has its own branded start page on Startranet that shows which parts of an exhibit are in transit to a trade show. Specific pieces can be reserved for a later date. If a problem comes up that throws a project off course, the software will adjust the online schedule and e-mail all involved individuals to let them know about the changes. Show or retail components are entered into a database that is connected to the Internet, so anyone checking on line can learn whether a component is in the warehouse, being repaired, in transit to or from a trade show, or being used by another store. (Most of Star’s customers store their trade show items at Star’s warehouse.)
In addition, Star’s warehouse facility includes a flex area, where customers can set up new exhibits and check for potential bugs to be worked out. This allows customers to bring in sales reps to do sales or product training using the same exhibit they’ll be using on the show floor.
Last year, revenues at the 100-employee firm came to $25 million, making it a record year in terms of revenues and profits, Johnson says. Twelve percent of Star’s products go to international markets—a growing source of revenues. He plans to double revenues in the next five years.
