We’ve seen a number of interesting videos come out of #CES, including the video that our friends Robert Scoble, Michael Sean Wright and Marc Ostrick put together as a part of their Spark Series as well as Art Fewell’s tireless efforts to bring us a mountain of video from the show.

I was recently going over the mess of articles and videos I accumulated post #CES2010 and one in particular by Gizmodo that I had previously missed caught my eye: “Booth Babe Confessions.”

I was immediately reminded of a post Stephen Foskett put out just after #VMWorld2009, “(Don’t) Make Your Startup Look Stupid With Booth Babes And Chotchkies!”

It was a post that generated some of the most controversy and discussion of anything we’ve ever posted here (conversation that, unfortunately, has been lost to the whims of the web after one of our comment synchronizations failed). The idea that actual benefits befall conference vendors by employing either scantily clad or suggestively dressed women to staff their booth is an idea that’s antiquated and insulting to both the women involved and the attendees being pitched.

From Stephen’s old post:

As a speaker on cloud computing and enterprise data storage, I attend dozens of trade shows every year. Yet I am still amazed by the lack of consideration for the consequences of these cheap tricks. It boils down to a simple question: What does a sexy babe, a magician, and a flashing pen tell the world about your company?

It sounds like the beginning of a joke, and makes any company look stupid. Moreover, it demonstrates you’re out of ideas, have little regard for your customer, and don’t think anyone cares.

Still, watching the video, it’s hard to deny that for the crowds typically attending high-profile events like these that they don’t work – watch the video and keep an eye out for how every single head turns around these women.

It’s also intriguing, and the point of the video, that every woman interviewed had some sort of story about how they’ve been sexually harassed in some way, shape or manner in their (sometimes very short) career as a booth babe. Are we really that crass as a species of Internet dwellers (or do I really need to ask when we sub-species like YouTube commentors, Digg community members and 4chan)?

From Gizmodo:

Some slip these girls their hotel keys, pressuring them for a visit later in the day. Others mistake professional flirting for actual flirting and try pick-up lines. "Do you know what the speed of light inside a vacuum is? I do."

It’s hard to deny that booth babes work – sex is a universal marketing tool. It’s also hard to deny that it’s both demeaning and insulting to everyone involved.

Stephen offered some interesting alternatives to relying on junk and babes to be effective vendors at a trade show:

Replace the spokesmodels with informed techies – Rely on your recognizable and respected bloggers, speakers, and authors – you do have those, don’t you? Your solutions engineers and technical executives are another great pool to draw on. Staff with a 50-50 balance between sales and product expertise.

Replace the chotchkies with something that reflects your product – Use some creativity and think of a truly useful giveaway or socially-redeeming contest. Give away a worthwhile chunk of your product or service if possible, or represent the value of the product with a thoughtful giveaway. If you sell on efficiency and green IT, a flashing plastic pen or smooshy foam cloud sends the wrong message.

A hands-on lab beats a taped demo – Let your customers-to-be try your product out in person, both on the show floor and at a better-equipped lab. Offer a free training class with a certificate of completion so they can demonstrate their success back at work.

Get on the agenda and off the show floor – Your best leads and most-informed customers come from speaking engagements and social marketing, not badge-grabbed passers-buy. Arrange a customer roundtable or birds-of-a-feather session to locate and engage real sales leads.

It’s been some time since the original post aired here. I know that our audience here at SiliconANGLE is rife with both vendors as well as serial conference attendees. I have two questions, in light of that:

1) Does the status quo work? If you’re a vendor, do you use booth babes and chotchkies to get attention, and does that strategy work for you?  If you’re an attendee, do you find yourself falling victim to these methods and checking out products that you’d otherwise likely ignore?

2) Stephens suggestions have been out there for a while now: have you tried Stephen’s tips and have they outperformed the sex appeal approach? Again, if you’re a vendor, let us know your experience. For the serial attendees out there, do you find yourself being attracted to Stephen’s more highbrow strategies in practice, or do you still follow the eye-candy?

Looking forward to hearing feedback.

[Editor’s Note: All photos, courtesy of Gizmodo’s #CES2010 Booth Babe coverage. –mrh]