Guest Guru Blogger: Stacy Vandenheuvel, Experiential Marketing Specialist

When our internal Texture Revolution team started brainstorming ways to demonstrate at IFT the significant contributions of texture to foods, we knew the project would be challenging. How would we capture the attention of hurried tradeshow attendees who are working lists of booths they still want to visit and engage them long enough to give them a new appreciation for texture? These interactions would be much more involved than passing out samples of a finished product made with our gums and stabilizers.

We talked about the specifics of the booth and the team asked me what my goals were as tradeshow organizer. I thought about it for a bit then told them that having a visitor to our booth say, "Aha! Now I understand," would be a success in my eyes.

As the date of the show moved closer, we perfected our prototypes, put the finishing touches on our texture attribute maps, and trained our booth staff on ways to teach our customers about texture and answer their questions.

When the show date arrived, we were thrilled by the excitement our visitors expressed as they talked to our Gum Gurus about food texture and happy to see our preshow planning pay off.

And, on more than a few occasions, I was tickled to actually hear visitors say, "Aha! Now I get it!" as they walked away.

If you weren't able to visit our booth at IFT, we've created an website as a way to share our texture knowledge with you. Visit our virtual booth today!.