Client Snapshot
Weidmuller is a global industrial connectivity company with a U.S. headquarters in Richmond, Virginia. Their products — terminal blocks, connectors, power supplies, and automation components — are embedded inside control panels, energy systems, and data center racks across more than 80 countries. They serve some of the most technically demanding industries on the planet: energy, manufacturing, automation, water treatment, and beyond.
The challenge Weidmuller faces at trade shows is the same one every industrial B2B brand faces: their products are everywhere, but they're invisible. A terminal block doesn't sell itself; it’s part of a complex system with many moving parts. Getting an engineer or procurement lead to stop, pay attention, and walk away with any real product knowledge takes much more than a banner and a brochure.
Weidmuller USA came to Xponent21 with three specific problems. Dwell time was near zero. Lead data coming out of events was thin, with no behavioral signal attached to it. And proving that event investment drove anything downstream was nearly impossible without connecting booth behavior to actual pipeline activity.
The ask was to build something that stopped people, taught them the product portfolio while they were stopped, and produced leads with qualified data behind them.
The Challenge: Dwell Time, Lead Quality, and ROI Proof
Three problems shaped the brief.
First, dwell time.
A typical booth interaction lasts only seconds. Weidmuller's product portfolio is deep and technically complex — there's no meaningful way to convey it in a glance. Sales conversations that don't start in the booth rarely start at all.
Second, lead quality.
Badge scans produce a name and an email address. They don't tell a sales team what a prospect cared about, which product categories caught their attention, or how engaged they actually were. The data collected at most trade show booths is nearly unusable without significant follow-up work.
Third, ROI attribution.
Proving that trade show investment drives the revenue pipeline is notoriously difficult. Without behavioral data connecting booth interactions to downstream conversions, marketing budgets for events are always on shaky ground.Our Approach: A Custom Interactive Game, Built to Scale
Turning the product story into a game
The insight at the center of this project was simple and strong: Weidmuller products really are everywhere. Every data center, every automation cabinet, every control panel. The game made that idea literal, visual, and touchable.
Players approach the Weidmuller booth and enter an industry-specific scene — either a detailed data center environment or a street scene. The mission: find as many Weidmuller components as possible before the clock runs out. Each discovery triggers a micro-learning moment that surfaces real product context in the flow of play.
There is no need for visitors to download or scan anything. Instead, players experience a fluid, fun experiential piece of marketing that feels more like a game than a product listing.
The format Xponent21 developed solved the dwell time problem without forcing it. Visitors turned into players, which became engaged leads with actionable data to inform future marketing efforts.
Building to grow with Weidmuller's trade show calendar
The game was designed from the start to grow with Weidmuller's trade show calendar, not just serve one event. Xponent21 built a modular scene architecture that allows Weidmuller's marketing team to publish new scenes tailored to each show's vertical — renewable energy, HVACR, utilities, automation — with minimal technical or design lift between events.
Connecting every piece of the pipeline
Supporting infrastructure includes fast-acting admin controls for prize management, lead export, and real-time game management from a single dashboard, plus full HubSpot integration so every player interaction appends directly into Weidmuller's marketing pipeline — tagged by product interest, vertical, and engagement depth. GA4 and GTM event tracking connect in-booth behavior to downstream campaigns and closed-loop ROI measurement.
Piloting a real-world proof of concept before high-stakes deployment at VCU
Before deploying across Weidmuller's trade show schedule, the team chose a live pilot at a Virginia Commonwealth University engineering event — “Powering Up Virginia” — in March 2026. VCU’s School of Engineering students, along with industry partners including ABB, DigiKey, and Hourigan, played alongside Weidmuller customers at the Shift Retail Lab on campus.
This lower-stakes environment let the platform prove itself in the real world. Students and customers competed in the same game, providing an authentic test of engagement mechanics, technical performance, and lead capture flow.
And it doubled as a recruiting touchpoint, putting Weidmuller’s brand and products in front of engineering students in a format that felt like a challenge, not a presentation.
The pilot was strategically useful: it gave Weidmuller real behavioral data and a working proof of concept before bringing the experience to high-visibility industry events packed with members of the target audience.
The Main Stage: Data Center World AFCOM
Data Center World AFCOM brought the platform to its target environment: a major industry conference in Washington, D.C., in April 2026, attended by data center operators, engineers, infrastructure managers, and procurement decision-makers. Weidmuller operated Booth 753 with the game running on a dedicated kiosk throughout the three-day show.
The context of this deployment was incredibly relevant for Weidmuller. NEMA’s updated study projects U.S. electricity demand will rise more than 55% by 2050, with data centers accounting for 38% of net electricity consumption growth through 2037. That backdrop made the data center scene inside the game immediately recognizable to every attendee who walked past the booth. The game was more than a gimmick to bring people in; it created an opportunity for education to people who are increasingly focused on the components that make data centers possible.
Weidmuller USA also participated in an industry roundtable at the event alongside the NEMA president and ABB’s Data Center Segment Leader, discussing AI, data center expansion, and electrification. The game ran in parallel, generating leads while the brand was building thought leadership at the same show.
"The 'Weidmüller Is Everywhere' game was a great addition to the booth experience. It helped draw people in, sparked more natural conversations with visitors, and created an engaging way to capture meaningful lead data that our sales team can use for follow-up."
— Carlo Zuffi, Sr. Digital Marketing Specialist, Weidmuller, Inc.
The winner of the Meta glasses grand prize Weidmuller offered was from M.C. Dean, an infrastructure contractor that builds and maintains critical facilities across the federal and commercial sectors. That’s the profile of a qualified Weidmuller customer.
The Infrastructure Behind Custom Gaming
The game’s platform was built to do more than run one event. Xponent21 developed a modular scene architecture that lets Weidmuller’s marketing team publish new scenes for each show’s vertical — renewable energy, HVACR, utilities, manufacturing automation — without rebuilding the platform each time.
Every player interaction feeds directly into Weidmuller’s HubSpot instance, tagged by product interest, scene completion, and engagement depth. GA4 and GTM event tracking connect in-booth behavior to downstream campaigns. Admin controls handle prize management, lead exports, and real-time game management from a single dashboard.
The platform went from concept to live debut in just a few weeks. It was fully integrated and publicly deployed in time for the VCU pilot in March 2026, then carried without modification to Data Center World the following month.
What's Next: Full Calendar Rollout and Weidmuller.com
Both events were phase one. The platform is built to run across Weidmuller’s full trade show calendar, with vertically-tailored scenes for each show. A manufacturing floor scene and street scene are already in the platform alongside the data center environment. Longer term, the game is scoped to live permanently on Weidmuller.com as an always-on engagement and education tool.
Build something like this for your brand
B2B trade show marketing has a measurement problem. Badge scans produce contact lists, but interactive experiences produce deep data. If you want to understand what your booth visitors actually care about, Xponent21 builds tools that capture that signal.
We've packaged this expertise into OnScreenGames, a platform where you can build your own branded quiz, calculator, or spin-to-win widget, usable at your booth or anywhere else you want to engage an audience, with your first widget free forever.
Got a bigger idea? Play the 60-second Pitch Run and we'll hand-craft a custom pitch deck in three business days. Request a pitch at OnScreenGames.com.
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