CASE STUDY
How Optum captured 198 structured voice responses, 185 unique contacts, and decision-useful market language at a single conference floor — all without asking anyone to fill out a form.
Deployed through HALO Branded Solutions | SCOPE 2026 | February 2-4, 2026
voice responses captured
Unique email contacts
Business-domain responses
Priority sales-reay tierd
THE CLIENT
Optum is a health services and innovation company within UnitedHealth Group. At SCOPE 2026, one of the largest clinical trial conferences in the country, they exhibited as a brand sponsor with a booth on the conference floor. The activation was sold and deployed through HALO Branded Solutions, with a Senior Event Manager at United Health Group, and Strategic Growth Marketer at Optum, serving as lead client contacts.
THE CHALLENGE
Optum arrived at SCOPE 2026 with a problem that most conference exhibitors quietly share but rarely say out loud.
Their core business is built around health data, clinical research innovation, and patient access. The people walking their floor—clinical trial professionals, researchers, healthcare executives—were exactly the people they needed to hear from. But standard event mechanics were not going to produce anything useful. Badge scans tell you who stopped by. Giveaway traffic tells you who wanted a tote bag. Neither tells you what those people actually think, in their own words, about the problems your company exists to solve.
Optum needed three things at once: a way to pull qualified attendees into a genuine conversation, a structured method for capturing what those attendees said, and a data asset they could act on after the event. None of those things typically come from a trade show booth.
THE ACTIVATION
Working with HALO Branded Solutions, Optum deployed a fully white-labeled VoxMerch™ activation. No VoxMerch™ branding anywhere on the experience. Every element of the platform carried Optum’s identity.
The activation was built around six question prompts, each mapped directly to an Optum business initiative:
Attendees spoke their response aloud. Their voice became the input. The platform generated a one-of-a-kind piece of artwork based on the characteristics of their voice—printed, framed, and handed to them before they left the booth.
No form to fill out. No checkbox consent. No friction. A question, a voice, and something worth taking home.
After the event, VoxMerch™ delivered a full Data Insights report: a thematic analysis of all 198 responses, voice sentiment, engagement duration, participation rates by question, and the complete attendee contact list—captured voluntarily at peak engagement.
ON THE FLOOR
Attendees were engaged. They were answering real questions about things they cared about. They were getting something worth keeping.
“This is like the coolest thing ever. You talk, and then it creates a masterpiece based off the data in your voice. The coolest activation ever. Love it.”
“It’s always hard to get data from people because they don’t want to give it. They’re bombarded — please rate your service, give us your feedback. Unless they’re unhappy, most of the time they don’t want to provide feedback. This is a great way of getting people to answer questions that normally they’d be like, I don’t have time. They’re getting something they like out of something that’s unique, something personalized. And I think this was very smart.”
THE DATA
Across 198 responses, the numbers told a clear story:
Nearly 78% of all responses concentrated around three themes that mapped directly to Optum’s core commercial focus:
THE COMMERCIAL RESULT
Sarah Lakey, Strategic Growth Marketer at Optum, said it directly: this was the most beneficial execution they had ever done—because they got actual business out of it.
That is not a courtesy compliment. It is a specific claim about ROI.
The activation delivered three things that trade show booths almost never produce at the same time:
Not just 185 email addresses – 185 contacts segmented by the specific problem they told Optum they care about. Built for personalized outreach by theme, not a generic blast.
Directional signal about how the target audience frames the problems Optum is positioned to solve. Content strategy, sales enablement, and audience research – captured in 90 seconds per attendee.
A benchmark they can build on at every future event: 200-plus captured responses, 70- plus percent business-domain capture rate, 10-15% percent meeting requests in the data. They know what good looks like now.
The format that makes this possible—voluntary, exchange-based, embedded in the attendee experience—is why the data quality is so high. People told Optum what they think because they got something worth having in return. That is a value exchange, and it works at scale.
RESULTS AT A GLANCE
voice responses captured at a single event
unique business contacts collected voluntarily
business-domain email rate — qualified professionals
average words per response – enough to act on, not just archive
of contacts at qualified nurture tier or above
priority follow-up tier – sales-ready, no enrichment needed to start the call
resistance to data capture
client who called it the most beneficial execution she had ever done
FOR DISTRIBUTORS + AGENCIES
If you bring this to a client with a conference in their calendar, here is what you are actually selling:
A lead capture mechanism that attendees opt into willingly—because the experience is worth participating in.
A branded artifact—framed, printed, personalized—that leaves the booth with every participant and carries the client’s name long after the event ends.
A post-event data package that delivers market intelligence, not just a list of names.
A white-label activation that runs entirely under the client’s brand. No vendor logos. No platform attribution. Their event, their brand, their data.
The merch piece is real. The artwork is one of a kind. The data is structured and actionable. And the experience is the kind that gets talked about on the floor while it is still happening.