There are so many things that requires your attention if you are involved in an event, especially if it is outdoors. Banners, flags, gazebos and the like should not be part of it. Sadly, these practical matters often take the attention away from the real reason for the event and vital sales opportunities are lost.

There are many good reasons to involve your branding company in the activation process rather than handling it yourself.

Depending on the type of event you're hosting, your branding needs will differ. Typically, outdoor events or promos will use sharkfin banners, popup banners, gazebos and other items that can be:

• Easily setup
• Easily moved
• Packed up quickly

Perimeter branding is commonly used for sports fixtures, while fence wraps are used for any outdoors expos, trade shows or flea markets.

Much of the event branding materials are directional signage that show patrons where to park, where to walk, where to find the stage, or the facilities. The idea behind branding an event is to carry your branding across the whole event in order to attain maximum visibility and impact.

Setting Up Your Event Branding

It is always best to leave the setup to the professionals, so when you hire us, Basically Branding will set up your event branding on your behalf.

If you don't have the right tools and expertise, you may damage your branded goods. We have seen clients' staff who have no experience with marketing materials, tend to force items to breaking point, when all that was needed was to simply unclip it.

Basically Branding will sit down with you and discuss your branding needs. For instance, if you're hosting a golf day, we will discuss how many shark fin banners you want at each hole, and where you want all the other branding elements to be placed.

Our team will do a site visit before we start production on your branding to ensure that we know where it is and so that we are aware of any special circumstances. For example, if we create standard popup banners with a ground spike, without a prior site visit, we may arrive on the day of the event to find that the surface is hard or unsuitable for a ground spike. Last minute change to sandbags will delay your display installation and detract from the aesthetics and professionalism of your branding.

Another factor that we consider during the site visit, is maximum impact. Arriving at the event with 100 banners can be overwhelming. You don't just want to scatter them anywhere – there needs to be a plan that suits the venue, the event and your pocket.\

We will come to the venue early on the day of the event and set it all up for you. The team has the required expertise and the right tools to make the most of your branding setup, leaving you and your staff free to focus on the attendees and visitors at the event. This is a no-hassle option for you, our valued customer.

Caring for Your Branding Elements

Unfortunately, outdoor branding tends to take a beating from the elements. Wind, dust, harsh sunlight and rain can all damage the items over time. However, provided you take care of the structures, they should last a long time - even if the sun eventually fades the printed elements, which are then inexpensive to replace.

When setting up branding, you may assume that it is fine, as it is not raining and the wind is not blowing. However, a storm can happen at any time, blowing the banners around, tearing them and so forth. Not only could this destroy your branding investment, but could cause some serious damage and even injury, leaving you with insurance claims or worse...

The Basically Branding team is highly experienced at placing branding in such a way that it will create the highest impact, while being aware of obstacles. For instance, banners won't be placed where cars are likely to knock them over. When we deactivate the branding at the end of the event, we check for damage from wear and tear, or malicious damage.

Setting up the branding should ideally take place on the day of the event to prevent as much damage as possible. Damage or theft usually occurs at night, so we prefer to activate it in the early hours of the morning. Knowing the size of the event, we can send in the right team to take care of the activation. Deactivation should take place immediately after the event so that it is not exposed to the elements. When you get Basically Branding to do your branding setup and removal, you free up your staff to take care of all the other tasks that an event demands, such as sales efforts.

We would like to encourage you to implement the guidelines in this article straight away. If you are not sure how to get started or how it best applies to your business, please contact us and we will be happy to share some further thoughts with you.