Outdoor event branding is back with a vengeance.
The last few summers have been tricky for brands of all shapes and sizes across all verticals the world over.
It’s not hard to understand why; the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, subsequent lockdowns and many other associated factors took a real toll on international economies, global supply chains and more.
Fast-forward to now and, though coronavirus is still with us, its emergency status has recently been downgraded by the World Health Organisation. The UK’s last lockdown ended nearly two years ago, and commercial confidence is slowly returning to small businesses and large.
Most importantly, we’re set to enjoy a bumper summer of sunshine, meaning – at long last – it looks increasingly likely that events will mainly be restriction-free.
That also means there will be a lot of opportunities for businesses to reach out to new audiences and let them know they exist with targeted, creative outdoor event branding.
Outdoor event branding is quite a broad brushstroke, too, in that there is potential for creative branding to be used across a huge variety of physical and digital mediums and placed in and around a range of spaces for maximum coverage.
When done right, and when complemented by a wider marketing strategy, the possibilities for creative outdoor event branding to generate high-quality leads on the ground is enormous.
Because good branding is about more than just nice pictures and offers. Branding does indeed need those things, but to be truly effective and help turn people into valued customers, you need to go much deeper with your messaging – and medium and placement are a big part of that.
Again, outdoor events are extremely wide-ranging. They can encapsulate anything and everything, from large-scale sports events to smaller, amateur local ones; events such as park runs and races; outdoor music concerts; fundraisers and other charity events; events along rally and cycle trails, and much more besides.
But outdoor event branding doesn’t make much sense, budget-wise, if you just invest in a fence banner with your logo on it.
You can do that if you wish, obviously, but you’re likely to get much better results and stronger leads if research is done beforehand. What are the demographics of the area the event is being held at, for instance, and is the event likely to attract your target audience?
We mentioned cycle trails earlier. It may not be the best idea to invest in outdoor branding for a nail salon at a muddy track with powerful dirt bikes racing by splashing mud everywhere, for example.
Once that research is done and there’s confidence there that a lot of the people you wish to attract are likely to attend the event, then it comes down to what’s the most powerful message to target them with, which outdoor medium is the best to get it across and the best way to capture those leads.