Creating a memorable brand activation that attendees want to share on their social media and with friends requires more than a logo on every chair, latte or sign.
Asking attendees to share on social media or in text message chains phoning it in too. As the planner you want to provide that irresistible urge for them to do it naturally.
Today’s attendees favor authentic experiences over traditional advertising, which feels like a forced sale rather than a solution.
Our team at VIBE spends months working with clients toward the big day so that when the lights come on, the experience that brings attendees together feels effortless.
While no two brand activations are alike, the fundamentals of creating shareable experiences are the same. Here are five lessons VIBE has learned in our two decades of bringing event touchpoints to life.
1. Clarify the Why Behind the Activation Before You Start Designing
As an event organizer, you are serving your client. The event represents how they want their brand to be perceived and engaged with.
Before all else, you have to set up a deep-dive meeting with the brand and hear what they want to accomplish. It could be increased sales, brand awareness, or customer loyalty.
Once the mission is discovered and clearly outlined, you outline the event design strategy that will accomplish those goals through experiential elements that tap into the five senses: touch, taste, smell, see, and hear.
Remember, you are the event architect and need a strong foundation to build a memorable activation.
2. Orchestrate the Event Like the Stages of a Song
Event planners need to think of themselves as stage designers for a theatrical performance. The activation should act like a song, says VIBE founder Valerie Bihet.
“You have the verse, you have the chorus, you have the bridge,” she explains. “And you need to give people that moment of surprise. You need to make it feel real.”
Here’s how:
- Start by creating a bold, photogenic focal point
- Add an interactive twist
- Use lighting creatively
- Offer a take-home memento that doubles as a prop, like sunglasses or custom fortune cookies
- Add a curtain-drop or surprise guest; a visual FOMO moment that will trigger shares.
3. Integrate the Brand in an Interactive Way for Attendees
Slapping a company logo everywhere isn’t going to do much for engagement. You have to appeal to the senses.
For instance, last month VIBE created a rose-inspired dinner for a luxury cosmetics brand’s sales meeting in New Orleans. Guests couldn’t help but stop and take a photo of the pops of color everywhere beginning with a lined rose entryway that set the tone for the night.
Another example, we served fragrant-infused cocktails for a perfume company’s event in keeping with the inherent sense of smell of the product.
At an event for La Mer, we created decorations that looked like life-sized bottles of its product that made it look like the perfume was exploding out like a fountain.
You can achieve similar success with this experiential mindset. Remember the event, and those activations, are the living, breathing version of the brand.
4. Consider Challenges or Games for An Experiential Element
Gamification is a smart tactic to promote interactivity and sharing.
VIBE has held street races, had attendees build model cars and race them, decorate guitars for a music battle, and set up a soccer-themed station to kick balls into holes like at a fair.
Whether it’s a personal challenge, a team game, or a tactile element, interactivity naturally leads attendees to want to document the moment to share on their social media or with friends.
That level of engagement is far more powerful for a brand than standing up on stage before a keynote speaker.
5. Incorporate Tech in a Meaningful Way
“Tech should enhance, not dominate, the experience,” says Bihet with the reminder that all events are about the human-human connection with each other and the brand.
Even when using a VR headset, make sure the activation is about the person controlling it. For a perfume company, we built a virtual surfboard experience so attendees felt like they were on the water, a central theme to the scent itself. Surfing served as a way to bring the dynamic freshness and energy of the fragrance to life.
Other fun ways to add tech are to build an LED wall or add a drone show that fits in with the brand’s motif. These elements extend the event’s digital life because they create that sense of awe and engagement that stick in a person’s mind and again encourage natural documentation of the experience and sharing via social.
The key is to strike a balance so your event doesn’t feel artificial and keep attendees on their phones the whole time. You want them in the moment and only taking quick breaks to share all the fun.
Sharing means caring at an event. Authenticity and scale matter. Be creative with design beats
so the experience feels authentic and those Instagrammable moments are a natural response.
