The affiliate.com crew is back in the office after another big ad:tech New York show last week.  We have a great time at the show, meeting so many affiliates and advertisers.  I’ll be writing a few posts about the show this week, but thought I would hit a couple of highlights today.

Prizes Galore
Congratulations to all of the prize winners in our BargainMovieTickets.com scratch-off promotion during the show!  We handed out several hundred prizes at our booth, with our two big winners being Lee Morreale who took home $500 cash and Roman Buzaker who won the iPad.  This was one of the most popular promotions we have ever had, so expect something even better when we head out to Vegas for Affiliate Summit in January!

While we handed out over 1,000 scratch-off cards during the show, it was interesting to see how many people simply walked by without taking one or responding to “would you like to win a free iPad?” from our booth crew.  It got me thinking about different ways to grab a consumer’s attention in a chaotic environment (like the trade show floor).  I’m putting together a blog post on this topic for later this week.

Traveling is Always an Adventure
If I’ve learned anything about business travel over the years, it is that you have to be ready for surprises.  Hotel reservations get lost, flights are delayed or canceled, shipments arrive late or don’t arrive at all, etc.  After a few very smooth trips in the last few months, we were probably due for a surprise – and a combination of bad weather and flight delays threw us a curveball on the way home.  We got to the airport on Thursday evening to discover that our flight was delayed and we would miss our connecting flight back to Denver.  After working with the airline staff we learned that there really wasn’t any solution that would get us back home until Friday morning.  So, we collected our bags and made our way to the airport Holiday Inn for the night, with most of the team catching an early morning flight and the rest heading home closer to lunchtime.  (If you follow our posts on Facebook, you probably saw a lot of the photos of our little New York detour adventure on Thursday night.)

While there was some initial disappointment about not getting home when we planned, we definitely made the most of it by making a last minute reservation at the Holiday Inn’s Pine Restaurant for a serious team meal.  If you find yourself at the Pine someday and you’re looking for an entrée that can feed a small family, consider the pork chops, which filled a plate that seemed like it was three feet long.

After a ridiculously large meal, we took over the hotel bar and hit the dance floor to an eclectic juke box mix including Tom Jones, Bell Biv Devoe, Michael Jackson, Bon Jovi, and the Starland Vocal Band.  Unfortunately, photos from the dance floor were unavailable as of the writing of this post.

After a few hours of sleep, we made our way home on Friday morning.  Interestingly enough, we met a few people on our flight that could result in some new business opportunities for the company.

All in all, ad:tech New York was a great show.  We met with some great people during the show and look forward to continuing those conversations in the days ahead.  Our booth promotion was a big hit with attendees – especially those that won some of the bigger prizes.  Even though our travel plans back to Denver went a bit off the rails, we made the most of it with a great evening for the team and may have even benefited by finding some new business on the flight home Friday morning.

Filed under: Outside the Office by Tom Wozniak
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