Festivals X brand communication
Birds are chirping, shorts are coming out – the festival season will soon be upon us. However, festivals are not only attractive for party-loving millennials, but also for brands wanting to reach a wide range of people.
Festival-goers are open-minded and happy to spend their money – making them easy prey for brands
The advantage of festivals for brands: there is a suitable festival for almost every target audience. Attractive competitions and “free” services, such as hairstyling, DIY clothing embellishments and festival gadgets, keep festival visitors happy. The aim is for the brand, and its services, to remain positively etched in their minds. Festivals also provide an ideal advertising platform thanks to their site lay-out. As the festival walkways are usually mapped out, it is almost impossible to avoid your stand. Almost everyone attending a music festival will often forget to take something. Brands plugging these gaps often rescue the entire weekend. If, for example, in addition to sun cream or charging points, you also provide seating, you can acquire new customers. If you have a large budget, you can sponsor an entire stage and have your name plastered all over it. This is good for unconscious branding and your logo will feature in lots of photos. A sponsored lounge is an even better alternative, where you have complete control over the atmosphere, story, music – everything in fact.
FO… what?
FOMO is the fear of missing out on something, usually triggered by elaborately staged Instagram photos. Probably the most aesthetic festival, Coachella, with its veritable flood of Instagram posts, makes you feel like you are the only person not to have been there year after year. By creating a photo opportunity that is visually appealing, a brand can quickly attract a large target audience. There is nothing wrong with a traditional photo wall, but holistically created worlds, such as a living room, converted bus or enchanted garden, find particular resonance among Instagram users. Whenever we talk of Instagram, influencers are always close by. As a brand, you can generate huge range by inviting influencers to a festival as brand ambassadors, getting them to pose with your products and repeatedly mentioning your brand using hashtags specially created for the festival. You can post the resulting images on Instagram after the festival, thereby generating organic clicks even weeks after the event.
Ultimately, festivals are about affecting people emotionally and increasing their loyalty, surrounded by sensory abundance. That is why it is important for your stand, lounge and gadgets to set you apart from the competition, both visually and contextually, while remaining true to yourself, allowing your brand to be remembered, even six months later. Who knows, maybe next year, people will buy their festival ticket to revisit the brand and not the acts…
Published 23.05.2019 © Brandsoul AG
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