Booth Babes Don’t Work

[FarCenter]

This past week Las Vegas played host to the annual CES conference and concurrently, the annual chiding of tech companies by tech press for their time-honored tradition of using booth babes in marketing their wares.

It’s a pretty indefensible practice. The hiring of young, college-aged females to dress as provocatively as possible to help promote…um, Ultra HD TV sets, Android tablets and Internet-enabled toothbrushes. It’s a relic of old enterprises, but that’s just the way they like their world. But what nearly every critic has failed to mention is a real concrete business reason to end the practice.

Well, I do: Booth babes do NOT convert.

How do I know? Well, I actually split-tested this a few years ago and the results were indisputable. If you have invested in a trade show to generate new business, using booth babes is a lead conversion boat anchor.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/13/booth-babes-dont-convert

[NightWatcher]

1. Everyone knows that it's Beer Koozies that get you the real business

[geek tragedy]

2. there never was a business purpose for the practice.

just like there's no business purpose to having business meetings at strip clubs.

[riqster]

4. I had legitimate business at strip clubs...

Back when they paid musicians to back the dancers, instead of using DJs.

[hedgehog]

3. Not to mention - there are actually women empowered to purchase products!

I know, right?

[mainer]

5. I was at CES a few years ago, and the Booth Bunnies were a turn-off

I'm female, and I can tell you that female tech people were really pissed off about it. At one booth, a female VP told me she told her male CEO in no uncertain terms that if he hired booth bunnies, she and the other legit female employees would refuse to work their booth.

[jmowreader]

6. Using women who resemble booth babes doesn't work either

Agfa used to sell a printing machine called an Avantra. When they sent one to a trade show two people always went with it: the woman who invented it (you remember that old Bo Derek movie "10"? This woman was somewhere between a fourteen and a sixteen.) and a guy so old he used to work for IG Farben. The old Nazi got way more booth traffic than the beautiful engineer who could actually answer your weird questions about the machine.