Outdoor Marketing Tips for the Summer – Sweep your Audience off their Feet by Using Props

Giant pimm's glass on The tattershall castle on the river thames.

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Summer is the time for barbecues, beach trips, festivals, and all sorts of outdoor events. Therefore, this is a prime season for most brands to showcase their products or services to a wide audience outdoors. It’s the perfect time to show off your creativity and accentuate your brand message. Promoting your brand in the proximity of sightseeing landmarks or at summer events can be particularly useful for your brand to attain leads.

In our day and age, it is more important than ever to make your campaign stand out from the crowd. After all, with everyone advertising their products on social media, blogs, websites, and more, it is getting harder to compete on the digital platforms. To help give your brand a boost, you should not overlook the power of traditional outdoor marketing.

So how can you make the most out of your outdoor marketing campaign using props? Let’s dive in!

What is outdoor marketing?

Outdoor marketing refers to advertising through outdoor media, such as billboards, vehicles, or outdoor signs. It also includes a brand’s promotional activities and experiential marketing events which are taking place outdoors. These can either be small taster kiosks or huge sponsored events; the aim is always to grab the attention of potential customers and establish an emotional connection with them.

Outdoor marketing example: Vodafone fiberglass drone sleight

Why use props for your outdoor marketing campaign?

The idea behind using promotional props is that they create intrigue by getting people's attention. Well-designed promotional and marketing props can be used as a conversation starter about the brand.

How to use promotional props effectively?

Here are the three key considerations to utilise props effectively in your outdoor marketing campaign.

1. Make your campaign viral-worthy

Word of mouth is the most powerful way of increasing brand awareness and consideration. When planning your outdoor campaign, try to emphasise experimental activities and appealing visuals that can be shared on social media. This is a great way to increase reach and engagement with your target audience.

Halloween pumpkin giant prop

There are many ways giant promotional props can help you with this. The first thing you need to decide is what it is that you want people to remember about your brand and how you want your audience to interact with it. If they have fun, so will you!

For example, if your goal is to stand out among other competitors at an event, then giant sculptures of your product could do just that. Our experienced prop makers have created various retail display props from giant cereal boxes and chia pots through stunning sports cars. These giant props provide a great photo opportunity and can help your brand go viral by people sharing their photos on social media.

Sports car prop

In addition, certain shapes work well for different purposes; for example, if you're trying to encourage more visitors from social media sites, placing oversized Twitter or Facebook logos around might be enough of an incentive for visitors who take pictures of them from all angles and share them on their networks.

2. Choose your location wisely

If you aim to attract new customers, at first, think about who your target audience is and where you can find them. Secondly, the location needs to resonate with your product and brand message. As an example, we at Spur Creative have created a spectacular giant Pimm's glass prop to be used for a post-pandemic Pimm's promotion for their new drink, Sundowner. Pimm’s has found the perfect location for its outdoor marketing campaign. The display was situated on the deck of the Tattershall Castle boat on the River Thames. This is, of course, a perfect location due to the high number of tourists in the area. But also, because the Tattershall Castle boat is a floating pub, which resonates perfectly with the advertised product.

Pimm's promotion on the Tattershall Castle boat

3. Be bold - make a lasting impression

Undeniably, the most effective way of making a lasting impression is using spectacular decoration elements, including promotional props. Props can grab the attention instantly and can be the dominant visual element of any outdoor promotional event, exhibition, party or festival. They can be used to make just about any theme come alive.

One of our works for our client Hot Pickle is an excellent example of this. They asked us to make three giant animal heads for a promotion for Magnum ice cream. Magnum’s mascot animal heads were suspended above the busy Regent Street in London, during Magnum’s Design your own Magnum Pop-up week. The stunning sculptures were not only in line with the brand message, but they instantly grabbed the viewers’ attention and made a lasting impression. Not surprisingly, the campaign was a huge success.

Magnum ice cream promotion in Regent Street

If you take on board the above tips for the effective use of marketing props, you can make a great addition to your marketing activities.