Staking Out the Campground at Dreamforce 2016

Author: PCMA Admin       

Dreamforce 2016, Salesforce.com’s user and developer conference held at the Moscone Convention Center and various hotels in San Francisco from October 3-7, 2016. (Jakub Mosur Photography)

At its annual Dreamforce conference, Salesforce claims a big piece of real estate on the show floor for its own booth. Called Campground, the space covered 37,800 square feet at Dreamforce 2016, held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco this past October. “It’s where Salesforce demonstrates all their products and solutions,” said Melissa Stevenson, an account director for George P. Johnson (GPJ), Salesforce’s agency of record. “And we work very closely with [Salesforce’s] product team to develop the attendee experience — what types of demo opportunities they’re going to present. It can be varying, from a one-on-one demo to a theater demo or a hands-on workshop.”

At last year’s show, for the first time Salesforce combined two previously separate areas — one for its eight product “clouds,” another for customer case studies — into a single sprawling booth space, all decorated in lowercase-c campground style to reflect Dreamforce 2016’s “Trailhead” theme. GPJ partnered with Sparks, another brand-experience agency, on the project. “Sparks basically handled the customer and industry side of the booth,” Stevenson said, “and then we still continued to manage our product team.”

GPJ is used to thinking big for Salesforce — Dreamforce 2016 had 171,000 registered attendees — but Campground was something else entirely. “This is, I believe, the largest proprietary trade show where, there are certainly sponsors and there are sponsor booths, but everything in that space is owned by one company,” said Annette Griffin, group account director for GPJ. “And it’s really spectacular after seeing trade show after trade show after trade show, to see this really, really, really beautifully well-designed Campground. It’s pretty stunning when you walk in.”

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