Case Study
Yuna
Bringing the future of AI-powered mental health to 20,000 HR professionals at SHRM 2025
Pure Exhibits designed and built Yuna's first-ever trade show booth — a custom 30×30 island at Booth #3219 during the SHRM Annual Conference & Expo 2025 (SHRM25) at the San Diego Convention Center. As the first fully AI-powered mental health solution to exhibit at a major global HR event, Yuna needed a presence that felt as approachable and calming as the coaching it delivers.
The Challenge
Making an Invisible Product Feel Unmistakably Real
SHRM is the world's largest gathering of HR professionals — four days, 20,000+ attendees, 375+ sessions, and every major benefits provider competing for attention at the San Diego Convention Center. For Yuna, the challenge was unprecedented: how do you introduce the world's first fully AI-powered mental health coaching platform to an audience that has never seen anything like it — and do it at your very first trade show booth?
The brief went beyond standard brand awareness. Yuna needed to communicate a fundamentally new category — 24/7 AI mental health coaching with no live therapists, no appointments, and no stigma — to benefits leaders who are accustomed to evaluating traditional EAPs and telehealth solutions. The booth had to embody Yuna's core promise: that real support can arrive in 0.8 seconds, not days. The answer: design an environment as calming and approachable as the experience Yuna itself delivers.
"This is Yuna's very first booth at SHRM. This is a 24,000 person HR show and we're really excited to exhibit. Never before in history has there been an anytime 24/7 access — just pull out your phone, push a button — access to mental health support."
— Grant Winns, Founder & CEO, Yuna Health
The Creative Journey
From Digital Coaching to a Living, Breathing Space
The Wellness Concept
Anchoring the entire booth design in the feeling of calm, accessible wellness — the very experience Yuna's AI coaching provides. Natural wood slats, living greenery, soft lighting, and open sightlines created a space that felt more like a modern wellness studio than a convention booth. For HR leaders evaluating benefits solutions, the environment itself became the first proof point: mental health support should feel warm, inviting, and stigma-free.
Biophilic Architecture
Designing two grand arched entrances with natural wood-slat accents as the booth's signature architectural feature. The archways created a threshold — stepping through felt like entering a different space entirely. Behind them, a living moss and greenery wall served as the booth's organic centerpiece, housing an embedded demo screen. The biophilic elements communicated Yuna's philosophy: technology should feel human, not clinical.
Brand Storytelling
Weaving Yuna's messaging architecture throughout the booth across multiple touchpoints. Tall lifestyle graphic pylons featured messaging like "Therapy isn't broken, access is" alongside lifestyle imagery of people using their phones. The text wall presented the value proposition through three inset service panels — "Try A New Kind of Mental Health Support," "24/7 Instant Access," and "Real Support. On Demand." — walking visitors through the product story sequentially.
Activation Experiences
Creating distinct engagement zones within the 30×30 footprint: a reception counter with glowing Yuna logo for quick introductions, the moss wall demo station for live AI coaching sessions via headphones, a white lounge area with chairs and green stools for deeper conversations, and the graphic pylon zones for self-guided brand discovery — each zone flowing naturally while guiding visitors from curiosity to conversation to demonstration.
Design Elements
Six Signature Features
Grand Arched Entrances
The booth's most commanding feature — two sweeping archways with natural wood-slat accents framing the entrances on opposing sides. The front arch displayed "You're Building the Culture. We're Powering the Care." in bold white lettering against Yuna's signature green, while the reverse featured lifestyle graphics. The arches created a gateway effect, drawing attendees off the aisle and into an environment that felt curated and intentional — a deliberate departure from open-walled convention booths.
Circular LED Halo Sign
A striking circular hanging sign suspended above the booth's center, featuring a softly glowing LED halo ring framing the tagline "The smart benefit for mental health." The round form and warm glow stood out against the angular signage dominating the SHRM expo floor, creating a beacon visible from multiple aisles. The circular shape reinforced Yuna's approachable, non-corporate identity — a subtle nod to wholeness and continuous care.
Living Moss & Greenery Wall
A lush vertical surface of preserved moss and living greenery serving as the booth's organic centerpiece — a textured, breathing backdrop that softened the convention center's hard surfaces. An embedded demo screen allowed attendees to experience Yuna's AI coaching firsthand, while a "The Future of Mental Health Support" information panel provided context. The living wall embodied Yuna's philosophy that care should feel natural, not clinical.
Backlit Reception Counter
A sleek reception desk anchoring the booth's primary engagement zone, featuring a vertically slatted green-textured front panel with a softly glowing Yuna logo at its center. The counter sat directly in front of the living moss wall, creating a layered composition of brand, nature, and technology. Green bar stools invited attendees to sit and demo the platform, transforming the reception from a check-in point into an active demonstration station where visitors could experience AI coaching in real time.
Lifestyle Graphic Pylons
Tall, freestanding graphic towers positioned at the booth's aisle-facing edges, each featuring lifestyle imagery of a person using their phone alongside Yuna's key messaging — "Therapy isn't broken, access is." The pylons served a dual purpose: they created visual height to compete with neighboring booths, and they communicated Yuna's core value proposition to passersby before they even stepped inside. The phone imagery reinforced the product's accessibility — support literally in your pocket.
Messaging Architecture Wall
A detailed text wall presenting Yuna's complete value proposition through a carefully sequenced layout. Three inset service panels — "Try A New Kind of Mental Health Support," "24/7 Instant Access," and "Real Support. On Demand." — walked visitors through the product story from curiosity to understanding. The wall combined bold headlines with supporting detail, giving analytically-minded HR leaders the specifics they needed to evaluate Yuna alongside traditional benefits offerings.
Gallery
The Booth in Detail
Booth Walkthrough
Experience the Booth
A full walkthrough of Yuna's 30×30 custom island booth at SHRM 2025 in San Diego — showcasing the grand arched entrances, circular LED halo sign, living moss wall, backlit reception counter, lifestyle graphic pylons, messaging architecture wall, and wellness-inspired design throughout.
Impact & Results
By the Numbers
The Smart Benefit — Made Tangible
SHRM 2025 was Yuna's moment to prove that an entirely AI-powered mental health platform could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with established benefits providers — and win attention on merit. At an event where HR leaders evaluate hundreds of vendors, the booth needed to do more than attract foot traffic; it needed to communicate a fundamentally new category of employee care in the time it takes to walk past.
The wellness-forward design accomplished exactly that. The grand archways created an irresistible threshold — attendees stepped through and immediately understood they were entering something different. The living moss wall became the booth's gravitational center, drawing visitors into demo experiences where they could try Yuna's AI coaching firsthand through headphones. For many, it was the first time they'd experienced instant, judgment-free mental health support — and the reaction was consistently one of surprise and recognition.
The messaging architecture proved equally effective. By sequencing the story from "Therapy isn't broken, access is" on the exterior pylons to the detailed service panels inside, the booth guided HR leaders from curiosity to comprehension without a single sales pitch. As Grant Winns put it: "Yuna isn't therapy, it's a lifeline when traditional support isn't available. It meets people where they are, whether that's 2:14 a.m. or in the middle of a spiral, offering real-time, judgment-free support." The booth brought that promise to life — and made it impossible to walk past.