What Brand Activation Agencies Do: Key Roles and Services

Connection Perfection

Whether buying a product or a service, in person or online, today’s consumers expect more than a simple cash-for-goods transaction. After all, the marketplace is flooded with similar if not identical businesses, all competing for the same consumers’ attention and loyalty. Connection is what matters when it comes to differentiating your brand from the competition and building customer loyalty — and brand activation agencies specialize in sparking those connections.

By identifying the right approach, offerings, and locations for your event, a brand activation agency can help create the experience that connects your brand with its target audience in a memorable, meaningful way. Here are some of the specifics of what a full-service brand activation agency does for its clients — services to look for when selecting the right agency for your brand.

What to Look for in a Brand Activation Agency

Project Management

Most people think of brand activation agencies as project managers, detail-oriented planners and negotiators who manage the logistical aspects of bringing someone else’s creative vision to life. And that’s definitely part of the picture — but only one small corner of it.

A brand activation agency is an assemblage of seasoned, knowledgeable creatives, technicians, and strategists who are equipped to handle every aspect of conceptualizing, planning, drafting, crafting, and executing an event. Ideally, a brand activation agency will work with your brand from the very beginning of the process, helping develop themes and creative concepts for the event, building research-based strategies for connecting with your target audience, and managing the myriad relationships with vendors and locations that make your brand activation happen.

Location Logistics

Brand activation agencies are experts at navigating the complex and ever-changing maze of regulations, requirements, and licensing involved in experiential marketing events. The goal: to make staging the event as hassle-free as possible for your brand, saving you and your team time and energy. Experienced brand activation agencies have been planning events long enough to have working relationships with municipalities and venues across the U.S., so brands can trust that the agency is negotiating fees and obtaining permits on their behalf. For you and your team, this means no unpleasant surprises when setting up or running the event.

Market Research

Identifying and finding your target audience can be tricky. Brand activation agencies are experts at making use of both market research and publicly available information, researching the demographics and psychographics of your customers and narrowing down locations that offer the best access to those consumers.

Photo & Video Asset Development

A brand activation agency will help capture digital assets like still photos, behind-the-scenes video, event footage, and product photography for posting on social channels, creating long- and short-form video, showcasing on your website or blog, or showing your project internally.

Data Capture

Data collection is critical to understanding consumer behavior as well as determining what resonates most with your target audience. A brand activation agency will collect data on consumers through all phases of their customer journey to determine what works for your brand and what doesn’t. This might include behavior tracking to understand how consumers move through your retail stores or activation space; analyzing customer reviews to identify what makes you stand out for customers as well as customer pain points worth addressing; and monitoring online behavior to understand how consumers are using your website and what they are finding or not finding to guide their purchasing decisions. During and after the event, a brand activation agency can help you determine what worked and what didn’t, so you can leverage post-event momentum and identify success factors for your next event.

Experiential Vehicles & Event Footprint

Flexibility, mobility, and relatively low cost make branded vehicles a popular choice for brand activations. From choosing the right vehicle for the brand activation — whether that’s a food truck, glass truck, RV, airstream, horse trailers, cart, or anything else on wheels — to wrapping it in custom-branded vinyl to delivering it to the location, a brand activation agency helps the brand take its show on the road. Brand activation agencies typically handle all production, including custom-cut signage, 3D printing, and other special effects.

Comprising the area surrounding the food truck, trailer, or other experiential vehicle, a brand activation’s footprint is what creates a welcoming, intriguing, irresistible environment. It’s also what draws attention and pulls in passers-by. A brand activation agency helps create a whole scene with frames, banners, props, and other creative elements designed to drive attention.

Oversized Props & Other Custom Fabrications

Want to stand out in an area crowded with other attractions competing for consumers’ attention? Whether at a festival, on a boardwalk, in a high-traffic retail hub or near other attractions, an oversized prop or custom-fabricated environment can be the key to standing out. Working from your brand’s visual elements, products, and other on-brand inspiration you provide, an experienced brand activation agency can strategize the best options for your brand, then manage design and fabrication to produce high-quality props.

Culinary Expertise

Food-focused brand activations like mobile sampling tours obviously need the expertise and resources of culinary professionals, but so do events that aren’t food-centered — free food, after all, being a strong draw for consumers in any environment. A brand activation agency typically has contacts in food industries, both local and regional, that can help, with services combining custom menu creation, food logistics, and onsite research like taste tests and comparisons.

Team Staffing

Your own team will be a great asset to your activation, but particularly with mobile events, local help may be required, in the form of brand ambassadors, chefs, drivers, and street teams. Brand activation agencies understand staffing requirements for experiential marketing and have the contacts and resources to source and hire qualified, enthusiastic personnel to pull off the activation.

Packaging & Swag

The companies that produce branded swag offer a bewildering array of options, as seen in the variety of items handed out at sporting events, festivals, and other events. Choosing items that will align with the event’s theme and your brand’s identity can be challenging. An experienced brand activation agency will have a good sense of what items will connect with your brand’s target audience, and the best vendors to produce those items.

Why Your Brand Needs an Activation Agency

Theoretically, it might be possible to plan, design, and execute a brand activation yourself — after all, who knows your brand and your customers better than you? But knowing your brand inside and out and telling your brand’s story in a way that truly connects with your target audience are two very different things. Creating a successful brand activation requires not only a keen understanding of your brand but also experience telling brand stories in a way that takes consumers from casual observer to fully engaged customer. Shifting the logistical and practical burdens of planning and execution to a knowledgeable, experienced brand activation agency means you and your team will have more time for the business of growing your brand and writing the next chapters of your brand’s story.

Promobile Marketing is a dynamic experiential marketing agency based in New York City. For over a decade, Promobile Marketing has collaborated with a range of brands—from budding startups to major CPG brands—on immersive marketing campaigns. Get in touch to discuss your next project.