When tasked with promoting a service, product or business most of us will go through the same mental checklist of things that need to be done: branding, website, social media. Then we move on to things like email marketing and printed collateral.
The problem is, when it comes to tangible marketing it’s easy to get caught in the trap of creating standard sized prints: A5 brochures, A0 posters and the like.
We get caught up in it because it’s familiar and it’s safe.
A0 IS HUGE
Sort of.
A0 is quite large if you’re looking to put it on the wall in your home office but if you’re trying to turn heads in the street then it’s time for the big leagues.
Large format print is what makes that impact. It’s something that you can’t quite put your finger on and your audience won’t be able to either.
Large format printing exudes confidence. Not just confidence in your business but confidence in your messaging. Absolute confidence is found through simplicity. When a solution is overly complicated and inelegant, it could never be truly effective.
At this point you might be thinking that creating enormous prints isn’t simple. An enormous canvas creates an enormous amount of space to fill with content. What you have to remember is that size is always relative.
DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT
Large format print is great and if you’re selling a specific product it’s highly effective.
Most people can remember a billboard for an M&S campaign or a movie release.
But if you want to bring a business or a service – be it new or a relaunch – to life then sometimes you need a bit of theatre. Something different.
When Jurassic World opened in cinemas the PR team had raptors in Waterloo station because…why not?
Admittedly everyone has a budget and the average UK business can’t compete with Universal - and nor should they - but it’s about recognising the impact of a stunt and the benefit it can have to your business.
CUT TO THE CORE
The best stunts, like the Jurassic World Waterloo takeover, focus on two things:
What are you selling?
What are you trying to achieve.
In the case of the movie it was easy – bums on seats and national, if not international coverage.
And it worked. Jurassic World made $1.67 billion worldwide and a sequel is on the way.
Again, we’re not suggesting paying for a flash mob but why not start to think as the great outdoors as your canvas, not just a sheet of paper.
The technology at our disposal means we can create large objects, so creating your logo 3 metres tall and depositing it in the middle of a commercial sector or a town centre is entirely doable. Providing you can get the council’s permission.
Or decals that wind along the street telling a story.
Outdoor advertising should not stop with the vertical spaces on roadsides.
Providing the stunt effectively communicates who you are, what you do and why you do it, then there really should be nothing holding you back.
IT’S A MATTER OF FREEDOM
Advertising outside isn’t just a simple case of ‘the bigger the better’ anymore – it’s the freedom to work with no boundaries.
Amongst a completely saturated landscape of businesses vying for attention, so much more is required from you to get your message in front of the right people. What you need to do is step into the shoes of your customer.
Understand them from the inside out. Identify their challenges, identify where they are and find out where they’re going and how they interact with your business.
Then figure out what will wow them.
What will draw a crowd.
What will get them talking.
IT TAKES MORE THAN A STUNT
Print purists love the concept of the perceived value that print offers. It’s tangible. It has genuine weight and presence to it. The use of these materials, coupled with the size of your media and the context of your messaging is powerful – but should only be one part of a much larger outreach campaign.
Pulling stunts turns heads, but there needs to be something behind the velvet curtain that can offer the service the grandeur of the stunt promises.
Companies have gone bust off the back of broken promises and stunts gone wrong.
It takes a stunt to turn heads, it takes value to stop them turning back.
