In this day and age, everyone is a brand—or can be! Event branding is more critical than ever to securing a loyal audience and increasing engagement year after year. While everyone has heard the term and understands its importance, many are confused about what “event branding” really is and how they can create a successful one.
When you think of branding, you might think of a logo or company “tagline.” However, event branding goes well beyond these markers and touches on almost every detail of the experience, from email wording to the color choices in your decor. Event branding is the glue that holds everything together; it creates a cohesive identity that attendees can connect to.
There’s no need to panic! We’ve compiled a how-to guide for event branding, including the best questions, tips, and strategies for creating a compelling brand that attracts attendees and secures their loyalty for years.
What is event branding?
Event branding is your event’s identity; it’s the roadmap that guides your creative decisions to ensure they align with your values. It creates a cohesive identity that attendees can connect to and strong associations between your event and its values or goals. This sounds a bit “woo-woo,” but it’s just a way to extend and encompass your event marketing.
When done correctly, a strong event brand provides credibility, improves reputational awareness, and creates a shorthand for communicating with attendees. By aligning themselves with your brand, attendees can communicate their values to others in their industry. To understand the practical side of event branding, let’s break it down into two major components: digital and physical (or in-person).
Digital
These assets include emails, event websites, online registration forms, social media, event apps, and anything else that will consist of and expand your event branding in the digital space. This area offers the greatest opportunity for event branding at scale and for continued engagement after the event experience ends.
Physical (or in-person)
These elements include decor, venue choice, event destination, banners, signage, badges, stage design, A/V design, immersive experiences, etc. They offer a tactile experience of your brand, engaging attendees on a multi-sensory level to create a stronger bond.
A stellar example of event branding in action is Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, which embodies its company’s core values through a focus on creative sessions, elegant and often minimalist design, innovative technology, and culturally relevant entertainment. Attendees got to experience Apple’s identity and values through the event itself.
Simply put, event branding combines the core elements of planning—venue design, agenda organization, and event marketing—to create a cohesive identity that attendees can experience and connect with, driving engagement and loyalty.
Create a strong foundation
Just like a beautiful building, successful event branding requires a strong foundation. You build this by asking yourself strategic questions and gathering data. The better you understand your audience and your company’s goals, the more precise and impactful your event branding will be. The seed of your event branding should be your target audience, their interests and needs, and the messages or values you want to communicate.
Target audience questions
- Age, location, industry, job position(s), personal/career goals, etc.
- Which brands are they already engaging with, and what are their values?
- What challenges do they face in their work and personal life?
- What are their values and motivators?
The next step is to consider your value proposition. How will your event or event brand help them solve their challenges and empower them to live out their values? Combining your audience persona and value proposition creates the foundation for event branding. From this point, you’ll have to consider how best to tell this story and create powerful associations with your audience using imagery, storytelling, audio, marketing, etc.
A potent, all-encompassing theme for your event is a fun way to elevate your branding and facilitate powerful event storytelling. These themes can embody specific values you want to communicate to your audience or target specific challenges or goals. A theme around team building or “overcoming obstacles” immediately tells your audience what this event will be about and how it will help them fulfill their needs.
While event branding differs from creating a personal brand—as influencers do—that doesn’t mean your branding can’t have personality. This is an important note, as it prevents your branding efforts from being overly corporate. Your event branding should reflect the style and personality of the audience it intends to attract, so get creative with lingo and visuals to bring your event identity to life!
Use compelling visuals
If a picture holds a thousand words, imagine what the right visuals could do for your event branding. Humans are visual beings. We create strong associations with specific colors and shapes, triggering certain stories or meanings when we see them. You can leverage this neurological preference to develop strong bonds between your audience and brand.
Use color theory to infuse everything from registration forms to signage with your brand personality. Set specific colors and stick to those across all event elements to reinforce the messaging and create a cohesive story. The right colors can foster an energizing or reflective attitude, depending on your theme and brand “character.” Once again, Apple is a master at this, using soft and silvery grays, lush greenery, and brightly lit spaces to emphasize its blending of technology and creativity.
Consider whether a modern or classical look reflects your brand personality better, then choose an appropriate venue. All infographics, signage, banners, videos, and lighting choices reinforce your brand identity and should align with your goals and values. They should all share the same style and color palette to increase the impact of branding.
Typography is another element of event branding, though it’s easy to forget. Your text style supports your brand’s “tone of voice” and personality. By keeping it consistent across all text-based media, you’ll improve branding cohesion and impress attendees with your minute attention to detail.
You’ll get the most mileage out of your brand logo, as this is what attendees are likely to remember the most—all we have to do is say “Apple” or “Coca-Cola,” and you know immediately what their logos look like. That’s the kind of power a logo has! Design yours to reflect the values and personality of your event, keeping in mind how your audience will respond to it. This is where your audience persona comes in handy.
Develop your brand story
Creating a memorable event story will help your brand stand out and add meaning to your brand visuals. This is how you create powerful shorthand that allows attendees to connect with our brand and use it to express their values and goals. As science has shown, nothing is as powerful as storytelling in driving attendee behavior.
Pillars of Brand Storytelling
- What is your brand’s origin story?
- What is your vision for the future, and how to achieve it?
- What challenges have you faced and overcome?
- Which symbols represent this narrative efficiently?
Using these pillars, you can craft a compelling brand narrative that translates your values, goals, and history into an emotional experience that attendees bond with. The emotional force of storytelling makes your brand identity more memorable and allows attendees to align it with their personal stories and values, using your brand as shorthand. Remember how Apple’s “Think Different” campaign aligned the brand with creatives and change makers.
Like your logo, a brand tagline encapsulates your brand story, making it easier and faster to digest. It’s your story in a single sentence. This tagline communicates your event’s core purpose and personality, differentiating it from the competition. It also makes your event more memorable, as a single tagline is easier to recall than a speech about your brand story.
Emails, keynotes, and social media posts can all communicate and reinforce your brand story, making a more profound and lasting impression. Include your tagline on all relevant documents, from registration forms to banners and event venue maps.
Event branding strategies
Okay, now that you’ve built your foundation and created a strong brand story, let’s talk strategy. You can enhance and reinforce your event branding in many ways to drive engagement and create community. These, like event branding itself, can be broken down into digital and physical strategies. While these aren’t the only strategies available, they’re a great place to start for those new to event branding.
Digital
Your website sets the tone for your event branding, introducing it to most attendees as that is (usually) the first place they will encounter your branding. Ensure that colors, imagery, typography, and storytelling align with your values and audience persona.
Social media is the next place attendees will encounter your branding and provides the best opportunity for engagement before and beyond your event experience. Add polls, Q&As, and other interactive content to engage attendees in your event branding. Share your story in videos and photos, behind-the-scenes peaks, examples of previous successes, team introductions, and other content. Encourage your audience to engage with each other and to share their experience at your event with custom event hashtags.
Invite influencers to your event experience to amplify your audience reach and align your brand with theirs to create a stronger impression. Make a list of event influencers who share your values or industry and reach out with tickets or opportunities to contribute as experts in the field. You’ll expand your network and combine your community with theirs, enhancing your brand reputation.
Physical (or in-person)
Your brand should be evident everywhere within your space, from signage to venue maps and stage design. To subtly reinforce your event branding and narrative, you can incorporate unique table centerpieces. One creative idea is to include “suggested question” cards in each centerpiece to inspire rich conversations among attendees. This combines decor with a “get to know me” game that builds community.
Your event swag offers another opportunity to reinforce event branding. Include items that attendees are likely to use and may need in the future, such as charger cords, water bottles, mugs, or shirts and hoodies they can use to express their brand associations. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, ensure all colors and typography are consistent.
Create unique branded backdrops where attendees can take photos and videos to share on Instagram and impress their friends and followers. They allow attendees to feel like stars while encouraging them to share your branding, expanding your reach. You can also include branded photo booths, a nostalgic and immersive element that attendees love!
Event badges provide an excellent opportunity for event branding. On-site badge printing allows you to create custom designs featuring your chosen colors and logo, further enhancing your attendee’s connection. They’ll constantly come in contact with your branding as they scan their badge’s QR codes, navigate your event, and mingle.
Fall in love with event branding
Event branding doesn’t have to be a mystery! Once you break down its key components, you’ll see that it’s just an extension of event marketing. You could say that event branding is the colorful umbrella under which all marketing strategies fit. By mastering this element of event planning, you’ll create more cohesive experiences and foster deeper connections with your audience.
As a final note, we want to emphasize that there’s no one way to do event branding. Be willing to experiment, try things out, and find what works for you. As with all other marketing strategies, the most effective approach is the one that works for YOU. Once you find your rhythm, you’ll create unforgettable events and build lasting communities around shared values.
Now, go out there and build a brand your audience will LOVE!
