How a Star Wars pun turned a storage vendor into the most talked-about booth at eResearch.
Client
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The Situation
A technical audience, a crowded exhibitor floor, and one chance to be memorable.
OneTeam IT was sponsoring the annual eResearch Australasia Conference, the premier event for research computing, data-intensive science, and digital research infrastructure in Australia. The audience was highly technical: researchers, data specialists, HPC engineers, and IT infrastructure decision-makers from universities and research organisations across the country.
As both a booth sponsor and coffee cart sponsor, OneTeam IT had two opportunities to be visible. But visibility alone wasn't the goal. At a conference full of infrastructure vendors, the challenge was to be genuinely memorable. To create the kind of brand presence that sparks conversations, not just collects badge scans.
OneTeam IT needed an approach that matched the audience: smart, a bit irreverent, and rooted in a real understanding of what this community actually connects with.
At a conference full of vendors saying the same things, the brief was simple: don't be one of them.
WHAT WE FOUND
This audience doesn't respond to corporate polish. They respond to people who get it.
When we looked at the eResearch audience, one thing was clear. These are people who work with petabytes of research data, manage high-performance computing clusters, and build infrastructure that powers scientific discovery. They're deeply technical, culturally sharp, and they can spot generic vendor marketing from across an exhibitor hall.
The opportunity wasn't to out-polish the competition. It was to show that OneTeam IT understood the community. That meant speaking their language, referencing their world, and creating something they would actually want to engage with rather than walk past.
Key Insight
IT professionals at research conferences don't want another branded pen. They want to know you understand their world.
The creative had to prove that before any sales conversation started.
OUR APPROACH
Booth design, branded sponsorship, and a t-shirt that did all the talking.
01 Put the brand where the conversations happen
OneTeam IT sponsored the conference coffee cart, which meant their brand was present during every networking break and every informal conversation. We designed custom-branded cups and a fully branded cart that reinforced OneTeam IT's positioning as an infrastructure partner for research teams. The booth itself was designed to be clean, professional and focused on OneTeam IT's core value propositions for the research computing community.
02 Create merchandise the audience actually wants to wear
We designed a limited-edition t-shirt built around a single concept: "Storage Wars." It merged the Star Wars universe with the eResearch community's defining challenge: managing massive volumes of scientific data. The design was visually striking, the reference was specific enough to land with this audience, and the pun worked on both levels. It wasn't generic conference merch. It was a wearable inside joke that only this community would fully appreciate.
03 Make every touchpoint work together
From booth signage and digital screens to the coffee cart and the t-shirts, every element was designed as part of a single, consistent brand experience. The visual language was cohesive across all assets, and the messaging was tailored specifically for the research computing audience. The goal was to make OneTeam IT feel like a brand that belongs in this community, not one that simply bought a booth at the event.
the results
The booth people actually wanted to visit and a brand that became unforgettable.
#1
Standout brand prescence
OneTeam IT became a genuine talking point at the conference, not just another exhibitor in the hall
Complete
integrated event branding
Booth, coffee cart, merchandise and signage allaligned into a cohesive brand experience across the conference
Wearable
brand recall beyond the booth
The "Storage Wars" t-shirt turned attendees intobrand ambassadors, extending OneTeam IT's visibility to beyond just the event
Event marketing for a technical audience is different. Generic sponsorship assets get ignored. What works is creative that demonstrates you understand the community. The 'Storage Wars' t-shirt proved it. Demand was immediate and overwhelming and every shirt was claimed. Not because they were free, but because they were genuinely wanted. A Star Wars riff landing perfectly in a room full of storage and data professionals isn't luck. It's what happens when the creative decision is grounded in a real understanding of the audience.
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