Pharma exhibition booth

A departure from traditional healthcare stand designs, this pharma exhibition booth offers an immersive, sensory experience to tell the stories of MS patients in a unique and highly memorable way.

Background

A global leader in biosimilars and generic pharmaceuticals, our client’s purpose is to pioneer innovative approaches that will help patients worldwide access the best quality medicines.

Attending the ECTRIMS* Congress in Amsterdam was the perfect opportunity for Sandoz to share medical education on generics and biosimilars. With the first biosimilar in MS having recently been approved in the US and the EMA region, Sandoz was attending a conference that attracts 9,000 participants, with 100 countries represented, 200 speakers and 50 international exhibitors – the perfect stage to share their expertise in the field.

Challenge

Ensuring the booth would stand out from competitors in the exhibition hall, and attracting and engaging a high number of delegates, the Sandoz brief, which we shared with our project partner CMC Affinity, was to design a stand that would function as an education tool on Sandoz’s expertise in generics and biosimilars for MS.

Solution

Immediately, the pharma exhibition booth is a total departure from traditional exhibition designs for the pharma industry.

Warm and welcoming, the design embraces the essence of what Sandoz was trying to achieve, helping tell the stories of MS patients through a highly memorable visual approach and a key differentiating point – audio messages of real MS patient experiences.

Inspired by a “writing the next chapter” concept, the stand – a mix of custom and modular design – nods at the idea of innovation in the development of medicines, of what’s yet to come.

The walls of the stand are wrapped in an impactful graphic that illustrates a book tower where the title of each book, clearly legible to delegates on each book spine, relates to an MS patient story. In line with the storytelling theme that drives the design, the stand is “book-ended” by a Prologue and an Epilogue section, helping signpost the delegate journey.

Graffiti-style messaging maximises the stand as an engaging learning tool: the use of informal fonts contributes to a relaxed style that ensures the messages feel highly personal and reach the target audience easily.

A circular opening in the book tower wall generates immediate curiosity and contributes to attracting a high number of delegates to the Sandoz space. When curious visitors pop their heads in to look inside, they’re treated to a full sensory experience that embeds the message even deeper: built-in speakers relay first-person recordings of MS patient stories, while mirrors placed top and bottom of the “tunnel” result in an infinite visual experience that gives an idea of the scale of the impact of MS, which affects more than 1 million people** in Europe alone.

A comfortable seating area adds an element of privacy to conversations between Sandoz reps and visitors, and adds another pull for delegate engagement and increased dwell time. Deliberately low tech to contribute to stand-out in the hall and offer something overall unexpected in the context of a pharmaceutical exhibition, we still maximised the use of some technical features, like a headline lightbox that highlights the Sandoz brand and a touch screen that offers delegates the chance to play a quiz on biosimilars, another contribution to the learning experience.

We also considered the Sandoz rep experience throughout the duration of the conference and provided storage space behind a door that seamlessly integrates with the stand design.

(*) – Congress of the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis

(**) – Source European Multiple Sclerosis Platform