HostingCon 2008 - Ads Where You Don't Expect Them

One quick thing before I head over to the Navy Pier for the start of the sessions.

I'm staying at the W hotel, as are a lot of HostingCon attendees. It was one of the venues with reduced rates for people attending the event.

This is no doubt why we received the "welcome to HostingCon" information page - which was a pretty helpful touch - when we checked in.

I pretty promptly locked my key card in my room and had to head down to the front desk to get it replaced. Interestingly, what I got was this:

It's a room key with a HostingCon specific ad for HiVelocity Hosting, understandably aiming at resellers and encouraging me to "visit our booth for a free VPS." Very cool.

Hopefully I'm not too far out of touch here, but I've been to more than a few conferences, and this is the first I've seen of anything like this. The back of the card had a tiny URL for the company PLI, which claims to be the "nation's largest plastic key card manufacturer." So it's possible this is old hat for everyone but me. I hope not.

Not everybody seemed to have one, but a few other people did. That's not to say I think they were set aside for anybody in particular, but probably that they were shuffled into the regular mix of cards being given to HostingCon rooms.

As marketing efforts go, I think it's pretty unique, and a great way to set themselves apart at an event where that can be difficult (old standbys like throwing a party, giving away something great and having some kind of unique booth are good, but you're definitely not going to be the only person doing it).

I'm going to leave it at that and head over to the conference. More to come.