The ReQtest bug crashes Eurostar

Have you ever been to a conference where all the sponsors and exhibitors stand in their cubic booths, waiting and hovering like hungry sharks until you are nearby so they can brag about their fancy products?

I know I have, endless times over the past 15 years.

We recently attended EuroSTAR 2013, Europe’s biggest software testing conference, held in Gothenburg and it was exactly as we anticipated (as described above), so we decided to spice things up a little bit.

When we founded our company back in 2001 we did not have a big marketing budget to build our brand. We applied a lot of guerrilla marketing techniques, which basically means using unconventional methods on a slim budget to get attention.

Our customers were used to traditional (and if you ask me, boring) campaigns from competitors like HP and IBM. They had the money, but not the creativity. So we used a lot of humour and of course, creativity in our marketing, and the customers loved it.

Over the years, however, I must admit we lost some of the bold thinking we had before, trying more conventional marketing methods, with mixed results. The good news is, it’s never too late to change.

This is what we did, starting with how we approached conferences.

There were two important requirements that had to be fulfilled (see we’re always thinking in terms of requirements, always!).

Number 1 – Stand out from the crowd

Number 2 – Build brand awareness.

ReQtest’s ‘gimmick’, (in fact a central part of our entire visual statement, even on this site), is a superhero and in the software testing industry everyone knows what a bug is.

So, we simply bought two costumes, printed fun, nice looking flyers and let our bug and superhero hand them out to visitors entering the conference building.

Was it a success?

Undoubtably yes. We stood out, 99% of EuroSTAR attendees saw us (and noticed us, as we were told on the social networks during and after the event), people smiled and laughed and we saved a lot on money compared to what competitors must have paid for a booth inside the conference hall. And let’s be honest, you’re not likely to forget a man in a giant bug costume. If we got a chuckle out of you, you’re going to remember us.

Here are a few photos of our bug and superhero doing their thing at EuroSTAR 2013 in Gothenburg. Were you there? Did you see them? Do you think you could forget that any time soon? And if you weren’t among EuroSTAR attendees, what do you think of our idea?