Finding compelling ways to exhibit bathroom fixtures such as sinks, faucets, and toilets (imagine that product demo) face to face is challenging enough, but now consider needing to showcase such intimate items in the virtual space. Such was the reality facing TOTO USA Inc., the stateside subsidiary of the Japanese maker of high-tech, high-end bathroom products, in the months leading up to the all-digital 2021 Kitchen & Bath Industry Show (KBIS). So TOTO marketers enlisted Global Experience Specialists Inc. (dba GES) to design a virtual showroom that incorporated the company's "Life Anew" campaign and cast its broad range of products in as luxurious a light as possible. GES designers got to work rendering a 100-by-110-square-foot virtual space that balanced referencing TOTO's past exhibits with nudging the brand into new territory. "The use of light wood throughout the space, the toilet bases, and faucet displays all hearkened back to the physical exhibits, but opportunities were taken to elevate the design beyond pure product promotion," said Karl Baesman, creative director at GES. These elevated touches included canopies with arboreal graphics, displays complemented by lush living walls, and large-scale glass elements.

In addition to its aesthetics, Exhibit Design Awards judges praised the stand's intuitive hot-spot-based navigation and sliding menu bar that allowed visitors to jump among locales with a couple of clicks; its seamless integration of product spec sheets, brochures, and videos; and its inclusion of something often conspicuously absent from trade show booths: easy-to-find product pricing. "This is a valuable step that so many companies miss," said one judge. So when it comes to exhibiting toilets and other bathroom necessities, TOTO USA is No. 1 in our book. E