Give it to Yahoo Mobile for pulling out all stops at last week's CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment 2008 show in San Francisco. It sets the standard for deep-pocketed mobile companies in marketing itself confidently and smartly.

Most booths at the two-day event in the Moscone West convention center were all business: computer monitors in four corners, brochures at eye level, uniformed staff and a few giveaways here and there. But there was something missing.

Personality.

That's where Yahoo scores. And here's how. The online giant took a huge enclosure near the show floor entrance/exit but not bang in front of it. Some companies, such as Microsoft, were directly across the entrance/exit.

The benefit in facing the door is tremendous exposure from being the first object in sight. The downside is that the people take in the entire show floor to get their bearings and lost in that exercise is the first booth that is often walked past fairly quickly.

Yahoo Mobile was smart, whether by design, seniority in exhibiting at CTIA or by not willing to pay top dollar for the entrance/exit position. Either way, the Yahoo enclosure was easy to locate just a row sideways of the Microsoft booth.

One more thing: the smart companies, including Yahoo and Microsoft, were located on the ground-floor level. Traffic was brisk there, unlike the show floor above. Some people complained that they were unaware of another exhibit hall upstairs. Not that there was any shortage of signs pointing to that fact.
As reported last week, the Yahoo booth was packed with people on both days (see story). Among the contributing factors were an eye-catching purple tone, the popular football theme -- two former 49ers on hand to sign jerseys and footballs -- and a bar serving margaritas.

Equally important, there were plenty of demo stations and possibly the most number of employees of any exhibitor tasked to do booth duty. They busily pitched prospects on Yahoo oneConnect, Yahoo oneSearch and the new Yahoo Mobile Blueprint toolset for developers.

Now there were a few companies at the show who expended the same amount of money on booth space as Yahoo did. But none, bar perhaps Microsoft and a couple of others, attracted the attention and buzz that Yahoo Mobile did.

What was it? Attitude. A positive tone. An energetic staff. Enormous wooing of media. Feeding into football's popularity. Creating a theme. Eye-catching callouts and banners. Oh yes, and the equivalent of the velvet rope for the two celebs to autograph footballs toward the end of the first day.

Not a standard-issue booth, in other words.

Admitted, not every marketer has the budget of a Yahoo. But that shouldn't stop them from creating a custom theme around each show.

Understand the mindset of the typical attendees to the show, which in last week's case was entertainment-focused. There didn't seem to be too many booths that offered entertainment-related solutions. And even if they did, their displays, collateral and callouts didn't reflect it.

The wireless industry has perhaps the most shows of any major industry. Sad to say, there is little to differentiate most mobile marketing or wireless technology shows. Not surprisingly, registrations suffer as reality feeds perception that the show is not unique enough.

Our conference coverage last week reported conflicted view-points. Some delegates thought the CTIA show had less traffic than the previous year. Others were happy with the educational agenda, exhibitor base and delegate traffic. In any case, CTIA expected 15,000 people to show up.

Marketers need to take a page out of Yahoo's book and customize their marketing to each show.

If companies end up spending anywhere from $15,000 to $30,000 on show-related expenses, they must practice what they preach: targeted marketing with emotional as well as rational appeal to elicit the desired reaction in prospects and customers. That's the best way to score a touchdown in mobile.