HOW TO LEVERAGE THE OLYMPICS’ HYPE TO GROW YOUR BRAND
There’s something uniquely powerful about the hype that surrounds the Olympics. Regardless of our individual backgrounds, Americans from all walks of life tend to put their differences aside and yell at our TVs and phones, probably too loudly, that the gold was always deservedly ours. It’s a cultural phenomenon that is talked about on the news, discussed between friends and colleagues, and discussed in classrooms across the country.
That being said, it’s a fierce motivator for everyone to bring out their personal best and admire those that rise to the occasion under extreme circumstances. With that in mind, are you doing everything you can be doing to leverage some of this Olympic hype to get people talking about your brand? Check out Wizard Studios’ tips and tricks for aligning with the hype that surrounds the Olympics to make sure your next event brings in the gold!
Pop-Ups: More Than a Big Win
Pop-ups offer a fantastic solution to match the excitement and fast-paced nature of Olympics season. Typically created as smaller venues, pop-ups offer businesses the ability to create unique, one-off experiences that build brand awareness, create buzz, and encourage consumers to engage with a brand or product in an exciting and experiential way. Working in tandem with the Olympics, a brand has a major opportunity to fit right into the same window of time that the Olympics exist in and get your brand linked to it: win-win!
Traditionally speaking, a pop-up usually aligns with a product launch and can last as long as a day, a week, or a month, but the excitement comes from the feeling that something new and different has arrived, and you’d be missing out if you didn’t see what the buzz was about - especially with the short-term, hyper-excited engagement surrounding the Olympic games! Could you align your new launch with one of the events, or the opening ceremony? Could you link your brand to one of the athlete’s stories or personal lives?
Also, in light of COVID, it’s also the perfect time for pop-ups because event planners in retail, restaurants, and other industries wounded by the pandemic have the flexibility and opportunity to reinvent certain aspects of their business without putting their entire business at risk. Try out something that connects your brand to cooperation, to pursuit of a goal, to achieving your dreams, to taking a risk - anything! Talk about another win-win!
In-Person Activation: The Gold Standard of Engagement
Brand activations can take many forms, but nothing quite encourages engagement like creative and custom fabrications with an in-person activation! Wizard Studios has years of experience navigating venues of all shapes and sizes to up an event’s engagement and ensuring audiences know what your brand is all about while also keeping the Olympic spirit alive!
From street corners and large venues to any size socially-distant storefront, our fabrication pros have the ability to design and create a custom experiential environment within any space to enhance both the features and benefits of your product and brand. Especially in a socially distant world, brand activations need to be sensitive to consumers’ safety and individual needs, and numerous custom fabrications could be an easy solution that will bring your brand the gold!
Miniature Olympics for Both In-Person and Virtual Attendees
Ask any event professional, and they will likely all agree that networking is a huge part of any event’s success - even if it’s linked to the Olympics! Games, activities, and team-building activities, even in a hybrid or virtual world, are great ways to build a fun bit of competition in your event while also building a sense of positivity around your brand!
We should clarify here that not every Olympic event-turned-hybrid is quite as striking to watch as the Olympics themselves, but they certainly offer a good time together! Consider smaller activities such as races that can engage both in-person and virtual attendees. In-person participants can collaborate with remote attendees while all access the same custom app from their own devices. Teams could race between “hotspots,” completing small games (races, jumps, cooperation games) to unlock tasks and win the gold!
Celebrate the Game & Humanize Your Brand
It may be a bit of a leap to get your brand connected to the high intensity sports of the Olympics, but that doesn’t mean you can’t capitalize on this important moment in a different way.
Brands have grown in their creativity in the ways they connect their content with the humanity of the Olympics. During the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Procter & Gamble ran an ad that told the story of star athletes as children, focusing on how important their mothers were to their growth and future achievement. The ad was a huge success, celebrated their brand while also celebrating the Olympics, and effectively showcased how a brand can connect with the humanity of athletes. If you’re creating an event, think about all of the ways that your event or its theme can build a bridge between storytelling and what the Olympics is all about.
As vaccinations continue to gain traction and more elements of “normal” come back to the general public, the future of events looks bright. Throw in the Olympics and a renewed optimism in human connection, the world of events has an opportunity to leverage an important moment of cooperation and spirit! If you’re interested in transforming your next gathering into an Olympic gathering for in-person and virtual attendees, contact Wizard Studios today!