Exhibitors at trade shows - especially large ones like the International Consumer Electronics Show - have to compete for booth traffic with thousands of companies. 

At MD&M East, the trade show bringing together advanced manufacturers and suppliers who serve the medical device industry, the number of exhibitors were not as high as that of CES, but still several hundred exhibitors vied for people's attention. 

There were exhibitors using bright lights, T-shirt giveaways, food and other gimmicks to attract people to their booths, but two companies incorporated their product in visually attractive ways to draw in traffic. They were Westlake Plastics and Vulcan Spring.

I had a chance to interview executives from both firms at the show held in mid June in Philadelphia. See video below:

[Photo Credit: iStockphoto.com user EduLeite]

By Arundhati Parmar, Senior Editor, MD+DI