Turning Product Displays into Customer Value: Transforming an Exhibition Booth into a Lasting Sales Asset
- Client
- RYODEN Corporation
A Showcase of RYODEN’s Technical Expertise
Formerly known as Ryoden Trading Corporation, RYODEN Corporation adopted its new corporate name in 2023. Established in 1947 as an authorized distributor of Mitsubishi Electric products, the company has evolved from originally only handling product sales to currently delivering effective solutions by combining technologies and engineering expertise.
Today, RYODEN is continuing to expand its businesses beyond its traditional trading company roots. By identifying emerging social challenges and developing innovative solutions, it is positioning itself as a company that creates new businesses and delivers new value.
For RYODEN’s exhibition at Smart Factory Expo, Japan’s leading exhibition for manufacturing technologies, K&L provided solutions extending beyond booth design. We developed the exhibition strategy, messaging, and visitor experience to optimally align with their corporate vision and management philosophy.
Challenge
Addressing Visitors’ Unrecognized Needs
The annual Smart Factory Expo held in Tokyo is one of RYODEN's most important opportunities to showcase its solutions, including factory automation (FA), building electronics, and HVAC systems, to manufacturing customers.
Rather than simply organizing the booth around RYODEN’s business divisions and product categories, we designed it to help visitors identify their challenges and explore the solutions that RYODEN offers.
Approach
Turning Expertise into Customer Value
Visitors to Smart Factory Expo come from across the manufacturing industry, but not every visitor arrives with a specific need already defined — whether it’s visualizing equipment operation status to support management improvements, or cooling part of a large warehouse to improve comfort.
RYODEN is a company that has fully earned customer trust by walking alongside their businesses, uncovering underlying challenges, and proposing optimal solutions. It's through this process that RYODEN's "technical capabilities" as a technical trading company have been refined and perfected.
K&L believed that reflecting this mindset in the exhibition booth was essential to RYODEN's business growth. We developed and proposed the exhibition concept, exhibits, and booth design around this important value that RYODEN delivers.
Exhibition Concept
Although RYODEN's roots are as a trading company, its distinguishing feature is that it has an in-house engineering organization that develops technology in partnership with manufacturers. In preparing the exhibition, K&L conducted interviews with the engineers involved in technological development and in introducing technologies to customers. Alongside working to deeply understand the products and technologies on display, we also sought to effectively put into words the actual "value" these technologies provide.
Rather than the conventional, product-centric categories of "automation," "environment," and "labor-saving," we categorized the exhibits according to what a "smart factory" should truly aim to achieve: "easy operations," "better quality," "reduction of waste," "more peace of mind," and "easier to work in." Under the exhibition message "This is a smart factory," the booth presented RYODEN's solutions from the perspective of customer value, bringing together expertise across multiple business divisions.
"This is a smart factory"
What is a smart factory?
Using robots. Connecting through networks. Visualizing data.
Of course, all of these are important, but they're also only the means to an end.
What truly matters is creating factories where everyone can work in a better way and achieve much more.
Making operations easier. Building better products. Reducing waste. Giving both managers and frontline workers greater confidence and peace of mind.
At RYODEN, we're committed to realizing that kind of smart factory.
Because that's what a smart factory really is.
At the RYODEN booth, you'll discover ideas and solutions tailored to the unique needs of your factory.
Booth Design & Exhibition Content
The booth was designed as an open, spacious environment that encouraged visitors to explore at their own pace and engage in meaningful conversations, instead of simply showcasing products. This layout faithfully reflected RYODEN's consultative approach, giving staff the opportunity to fully understand each visitor's operational challenges before recommending the most appropriate solutions.
To extend the experience beyond the exhibition, we also developed a pamphlet introducing the same customer-focused themes featured throughout the booth:
･ Make operations easier
･ Make better products
･ Eliminate waste
･ Improve safety
･ Create better workplaces
Drawing on insights from interviews with RYODEN's engineers, the pamphlet explained real-world applications, product features, and the value each solution delivers. It served as a practical reference that visitors could take with them, supporting continued assessment after the exhibition.
Impact: Long-term Marketing Assets Beyond the Exhibition
Every factory pursuing digital transformation faces its own unique operational challenges. As a result, each requires different priorities and different solutions, particularly in an exhibition setting where visitors arrive from diverse backgrounds, with a variety of needs.
By shifting the focus from products and specifications to customer value and RYODEN's consultative approach, the booth clearly differentiated the company from competitors exhibiting similar technologies.
The content developed around RYODEN's engineering expertise and broad solution portfolio has continued to be used as sales and marketing materials long after the exhibition ended, helping to effectively connect the company's evolving business strategy with its frontline sales activities.
K&L’s Value Proposition
Planning
- Workshops
Execution
- ･ Content development
- ･ Graphic design
- ･ Exhibition planning and management