Ask any Sauder Student what its like in the Sauder building on weekday around noon and most of us will give you the same answer, Chaos. There are so many events and clubs who are advertising themselves and trying to get the attention of the hundreds of students walking by. Yes, This is not an easy task. With so many booths for different things its hard to differentiate yourself from the table next to you. Some groups hand out candy, or home made cupcakes, I have even seen one table giving away Tim Horton’s coffee and TimBits! And this all works, Students are lured in by the food and then the representatives have the chance to swoop in and make the sale.
The other day I saw one table that really caught my attention. There was no big crowd around them, no cupcakes and no coffee, Just a lone student holding a small white-board which read “Why is this guy holding this sign?”. This made me wonder, why was this guy holding the sign? seeing as I had a few minutes before class I thought I’d go find out. Turns out he was trying to get people to sign up for Update, a conference hosted by the UBC e-business club with the goal to update students on the current state on the web.
The only reason I know this, is because out of all the booths set up in the hall way, This is the only one that successfully got me to take their brochure. Since then I have seen him many times with some clever slogan written on his board. I think this is a great way to differentiate their event booth from all the others and instead of just drawing people in for a free candy or cookie he draws students in for reasons that actually benefit the group, because they actually want to know what hes offering.. Clearly someone has been paying attention in Marketing class.