Veteran Marketer Proves Booth Babes Don't Work

[Jadak]

I can't say the same for all fields.. But as far as video game and tech related stuff goes, no shit. Nerds are often nervous about approaching beautiful women? No way!

 

[Doom972]

It probably depends on the booth's purpose. For example, booth babes probably won't help you sell insurance, but they will help you get attention for your new video game (especially if in cosplay).

 

[Akytalusia]

makes sense to me. i too would avoid a booth around which they were lurking, now that i think on it. though, still, can't fault anyone for taking advantage of their assets in pursuit of [resources necessary for survival]. i hope those that lose their jobs to this research find alternate means to meet ends without too much trouble. simply wishing for them to lose their jobs would be going to far, i think.

 

[Daaaah Whoosh]

This makes sense, after all if you go to a convention, chances are you're not there for the women. You want to talk to people who know as much about the subject matter as you do. The booth babes are just an awkward (yet slightly pleasant) distraction.

 

[Shinkicker444]

The real trick would be to hire booth babes that could do the same work as the professional saleswomen that he hired to 'compete' with them.

It would be interesting. The issue may not be booth babes, but may be the degree to which they're objectified. What about an attractive girl who is only slightly provacatively dressed (subtle and not too unrealistic) that is well trained on the product? Would that perform better or would that cease to be a booth babe?

The expo's I've been to where there are (attractive?) girls dressed more or less the same as the guy are much more approachable then the ones wearing spandex leotards with plastic smiles, also it's liable you'll get more information about what you're looking at that way it seems, as the setting seems more 'natural'. Although there was a booth babe at a... street fighter booth (iirc, could have been another fighting game) who knew her stuff, and was fighting against show goers fairly well too, had quite a crowd actually when she was there - so they're not all terrible I guess..

 

[FPLOON]

As much as I am one of those people that are saying "of course Booth Babes don't work", I wonder if a "Booth Babe Convention" would be more effective with or without actual Booth Babes at the actual booths of said convention?

...Just a thought, that's all... Anyway, glad to see a "myth" fully busted by someone who's not a Mythbuster, I guess...

 

[Sarge034]

So you can have attractive models or informed sales reps...

As for the study, I don't know one way or the other. There are quite a few variables that we have yet to hear about. What if the booth with the older, but more knowledgably, sales reps was near the entrance of the convention center and the "booth babe" booth was near the back? That would skew the data fairly heavily.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

As to the "why not both" argument, there's absolutely nothing saying that professional salespeople can't also be attractive women. The whole point of "booth babes" is that that's NOT what they are though. If that's what they were, nobody would have a problem with them.

Honestly I don't have a problem with booth babes in person or as a sales technique. The babes themselves are just women doing a job to make a living (I've been harsh on Jim Sterling recently so I'll credit that one to his video on the subject); and as for the technique, it strikes me negatively rather than otherwise but I can always just avoid them. I'm not at all surprised by the conclusion this man drew in the slightest - I'm a straight guy but being approached by scantily clad women with a commercial "agenda" would absolutely put me right off.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

As much as I am one of those people that are saying "of course Booth Babes don't work", I wonder if a "Booth Babe Convention" would be more effective with or without actual Booth Babes at the actual booths of said convention?

Well personally I'd like to think that it would be staffed entirely by overly-well-dressed men of between thirty and fifty years old, all trying to hide the mark on their finger where their wedding ring used to be...

 

[hermes]

As someone that had to work on a trade show because of my knowledge and was close enough of other stands with booth babes, I have to doubt the results of this experiment. If your intention is drawing attention and traffic on your booth, babes work a lot better.

 

[VonBrewskie]

So wait. The dude used grandmothers as booth babes for the first one? Did he end up using younger girls eventually? Did he keep using older booth babes? I assume then he used the "normal aged" girls for the rest of the tests? I guess it's not really important, as the main point of the article is that the tests seem to indicate that informed people in a non-threatening environment generate more sales leads than booth babes. Weirdly worded article.

 

[InvisibleMan]

To be fair, it's not the booth babes' fault: someone somewhere decided that booth babes were an effective generator of leads (probably at a car trade show), and the rest just went with it. This is probably the first study that tries to put that assumption to the test.

 

[Bad Jim]

As someone that had to work on a trade show because of my knowledge and was close enough of other stands with booth babes, I have to doubt the results of this experiment. If your intention is drawing attention and traffic on your booth, babes work a lot better.

It might be that the stands with the booth babes were popular because the companies running them had popular products, and could afford to hire booth babes more easily because they had more money. It's not necessarily the case that the booth babes were generating the interest.

I think they get hired because the managers that run the stands want hot babes on their stalls to chat up when it's quiet. "Sex sells" is just an excuse.

 

[schwegburt]

As someone that had to work on a trade show because of my knowledge and was close enough of other stands with booth babes, I have to doubt the results of this experiment. If your intention is drawing attention and traffic on your booth, babes work a lot better.

It might be that the stands with the booth babes were popular because the companies running them had popular products, and could afford to hire booth babes more easily because they had more money. It's not necessarily the case that the booth babes were generating the interest.

I think they get hired because the managers that run the stands want hot babes on their stalls to chat up when it's quiet. "Sex sells" is just an excuse.

I also think it may have been the novelty of it at the time. Having an attractive woman dressed up in an alluring manner would generate more attention.

Much like we laugh at the blatant bs in advertising from years ago I think our generation has been conditioned to be more skeptical of the presence of booth babes. That and their prevalence means the novelty has been lost.

 

[schwegburt]

As someone that had to work on a trade show because of my knowledge and was close enough of other stands with booth babes, I have to doubt the results of this experiment. If your intention is drawing attention and traffic on your booth, babes work a lot better.

It might be that the stands with the booth babes were popular because the companies running them had popular products, and could afford to hire booth babes more easily because they had more money. It's not necessarily the case that the booth babes were generating the interest.

I think they get hired because the managers that run the stands want hot babes on their stalls to chat up when it's quiet. "Sex sells" is just an excuse.

I also think it may have been the novelty of it at the time. Having an attractive woman dressed up in an alluring manner would generate more attention.

Much like we laugh at the blatant bs in advertising from years ago I think our generation has been conditioned to be more skeptical of the presence of booth babes. That and their prevalence means the novelty has been lost.

 

[Robert Marrs]

I would much rather be shown a product by someone who knows everything about it and is actually passionate about the product than some girl with a nice body waving her hands in front of things like the price is right. Booth babes are pointless imo. I could actually see people being driven away from stations with booth babes because it makes them uncomfortable or they don't want to be judged as losers or perverts. If I want eye candy I will look for it. I don't need it forced into my consumer products.

 

[Robert Marrs]

I think, seeing as "booth babes" are there solely to be sexual objects for men, they should be allowed to judge the men approaching them by exactly the same metric. As in, if a creepy dude who looks pretty much like a bag of testie-sacks someone kicked over, like the dude depicted in the story, they girls should be allowed to make that observation and deride him for not being up to their standards. It'd only be fair, really.

Except those woman are being paid to do a job. They are being paid to stand around, look pretty and attract attention. They don't get to pick and choose what the people they attract look like. Nobody is forcing these women to be there, they chose to be there. You can't get a job at a strip club and then demean the very people who came to the club out of some sense of bitter vindictiveness. It seems like you are personally offended by the mere existence of booth babes and the people that like them.

 

[Realitycrash]

I don't have a broad experience with trade shows, but the one big one that I was at (for a boring, technical industry) I don't recall even a single booth babe. To be sure, if any company had any employee under 40 who worked in the office and was vaguely attractive then she was assigned to staff the booth (my company included), but I don't think there was a single woman there in non-professional attire or who didn't act as a representative of the company with information on hand.

In fact, when I Google image search that trade show's name together with "booth babe" all I get are pictures of fat beardy men in sweater vests and pictures of product. The trade show was pretty boring for me, but then again I was only there for tech support- I'm not actually interested in the product. I imagine for people who wanted to be there, there was enough to occupy their attention without needing boobs in a sling. I prefer my professional environments be professional, radical feminist that I am.

What was the name of that convention? You've made me very curious!

I've only been to Sci-fi conventions, but even though they sell a whole lot of stuff (books, movies, toys, weapons, whatever) I haven't seen a single boothbabe. I count myself very lucky, because I would most likely lose my shit if they started cropping up.