On the sidelines of Cloud Expo Asia, the whimsical, clever and cool

The fourth edition of Cloud Expo Asia and Data Centre World Asia, Singapore, together with the first Cloud Security Expo host some 300 suppliers. With so many exhibitors on the showfloor, what's a brand to do to get a share of the foot traffic? This year, it seems like the most popular solution is the giveaway - in return for a completed survey form and/or other engagement activities.

Giveaways were popular last year too, but companies did not request as much in return. Show organisers CloserStill Media do provide a barcode scanner that exhibitors can use to capture visitor details, but this data can certainly be augmented.

Intel invited visitors to its booth to request a demo and fill in a survey form in return for an exclusive gift - a USB hub.

Eddie Toh, Regional Director, Data Center Platform Marketing at Intel, explained that survey forms for Intel can determine what a visitor to the booth may be interested in, and allows Intel to maintain a conversation by inviting the visitor to attend other events. Intel is giving away a USB hub in the shape of a cloud in exchange for every completed demo plus survey form, making it a win-win for both parties.

Here's what other brands were doing on the showfloor:

Visitors to the Dell EMC booth could get a drink or a Dragon Breath (liquid nitrogen) infused snack after filling in a feedback form.

Dell EMC staffers prepare 'Dragon Breath' snacks, cooled with liquid nitrogen, given out in return for feedback.

NTT Communications was offering cloud drinks called Transform and Transcend. To receive one, visitors had to sign up at a website.

Cybersecurity vendor Imperva attracted visitors with an instant lucky dip that included a GoPro camera as the grand prize.

Other prizes for Imperva's lucky dip included water bottles, pens, power banks and stored value cards.

 

NetApp was offering different incentives for different activities, such as movie credits for attending a talk, and a lucky draw with a Macbook Air as a prize in return for filling up a survey form.

Completed survey forms can be seen in the clear box to the right at the Silver Peak booth. Visitors stood to win Klipsch audio equipment.

Sangfor, which provides network security, management and optimisation solutions, promised a chance to win virtual reality headsets if visitors to the booth attended talks and left their business cards.

Rackspace asked for a selfie with booth personnel tagged with the hashtag #RackspaceAsia to be posted on LinkedIn or Twitter in return for a mousepad. The friendly Racker in the background was selfie-shy though.

Lantronix, the network management company, had a solar powered backpack as a lucky draw prize.

Visiting the DCW Green Data Centre at Data Centre World Asia also qualified for a lucky draw, with rides in luxury sports cars as the prize.

Delegates were encouraged to visit several booths to collect stamps on a postcard in exchange for a chance to win an iPhone.

Fewer-strings-attached giveaways were still available, but less common:

Apacer makes DRAM (memory) and industrial solid state drives to meet the need for speed. The Apacer booth was offering USB fans.

USB cables were free for the taking from Maestrano, which provides business performance dashboards.

Japanese gifts from Internet Initiative Japan.

Candies from Brocade with words on them.

Coffee remained an attractive draw:

Free coffee at the Legrand, Ortronics, Raritan and SJ booth.

There was coffee at the Intel booth, too.

The Red Hat Cloud Cafe.

But the hits were traditional local snacks:

Barracuda did up kachang puteh, which was running low by lunchtime of day 1. This snack of nuts (kachang) and seeds is traditionally served in a paper cone. Barracuda linked the snack back to its business by naming each type of kachang after one of its products.

Fujitsu provided mua chee freshly tossed in peanut powder in return for a competed survey form. Mua chee is a soft glutinous rice ball similar to the Japanese mochi that is traditionally covered with peanut powder or sesame seeds to prevent it from sticking.

Fujitsu received a lot of survey forms.

And some booths were outright eye-catching:

IBM's Cognitive Gelato Bar recommends ice cream flavours based on visitors' personalities. 

Lemon sorbet, chocolate banana and salted caramel were some of the ice cream flavours.

The analysis was Twitter based, and the software could also recommend ice cream flavours based on celebrity Twitter content.

IBM's Bluemix Tone Analyzer promised to figure out how messaging was being perceived by customers.

Acronis is technology partner for the Scuderia Toro Rosso F1 team.

Zerto makes hypervisor-based data replication software for disaster recovery, making the umbrellas and the motto 'rain or shine, we keep you protected' so apt.

Warren & Brown Technologies does fibre and copper connectivity solutions. What was unusual was the video playing in mid-air under a pyramid.

Akamai offered free slushie drinks - in the colours of its logo.

This superhero held a sign introducing OutSystems' rapid application deployment platform.

Hashtag: #cea16