Brands use all sorts of advertising strategies to hook their audiences and get their products in front of them. But in this age of short attention spans, many of those strategies just don’t do the trick anymore.

Customers today are looking for something that would engage them. Something that would connect with them and offer real solutions to their problems. And brand activation checks all those boxes. 

But what brand activation ideas can actually help you build loyalty and keep your audience engaged? This is the question that we will answer together, but until then, let’s talk about what brand activation is.

Grab your snack 🍪 your cup of coffee ☕ and get ready to dive in!

Table of Contents

What is brand activation? 

Brand activation is a marketing strategy designed to create meaningful interactions between a brand and its target audience through engaging events or campaigns that drive consumer action. 

The takeaway from brand activation is to raise brand awareness, drive conversions, and build an emotional connection with customers.

If you want your customers to take action, you’ve got to spark that with things like hosting live events, launching social media campaigns, offering limited-time promotions. Put simply, any activity that strengthens your relationship with them. 

How can brand activation maximize engagement in your events?

Now, you’re probably thinking things like what brand activation has to do with events. Hang tight, and we’ll help you have that ‘Aha!’ moment👌

Time to get into the meat of the topic and paint a clearer picture of the impact of brand activation in boosting event engagement. 

Creates lasting memories

The impression attendees take away from an event often has much to do with the interactive activities we experience and if nothing exciting happens. It ends up being just another average event. 

That’s where brand activation comes in to help your attendees form lasting memories associated with your brand through activities like workshops, product demos, live performances. 

So, are these brand activation ideas always at the top of the priority list in event planning? 

Absolutely not. Can they make or break your event engagement? Absolutely.

Encourages participation

Don’t wait for things to come up naturally — they never do, but when you activate your brand through fun activities, AI chatbots, contests, and meet-and-greets, you’re, in a way, getting your audience excited to join in that event!

And with more participants comes better brand connection and with better brand connection, more won deals, and increased revenue. All thanks to brand activation. 

Cuts down marketing costs

Can brand activation boost revenue? Absolutely! But revenue alone doesn’t tell the whole story because this strategy is often more cost-effective than traditional advertising, and it’s more like an organic way to promote your brand to your target audience during your hosted event. 

Not only does brand activation deliver better results in the long run, but it also helps you cut down on the insane costs usually associated with marketing campaigns. 

Leverages technology

Brand activation is an invest-to-win game that requires a blend of creativity and technology. So why not go further and build your own interactive event app or digital engagement platform? A custom app not only entertains but also facilitates attendees’ interactions, tracks their engagement, and offers you more data to work with. 

Now you might be thinking, “Okay, that’s great, but what if I don’t have the resources to build it in-house?” Well, you can outsource it to a software development company like Relevant.software, that will help you create and release your bespoke app, without you doing any of the heavy lifting.

Differentiates Your Event

Using brand activation to make your event stand out is a terrific idea, just think about it: we’re living in a time where consumers are constantly bombarded with choices. You host an event that adds real value to your attendees (and proves you don’t just talk the talk) through hands-on workshops, storytelling, and activities that speak to your audience. 

Your events will become the talk of the town the next day because you went the extra mile and showcased your brand in a way that feels authentic and relatable. After all, what are events really about? Engaging customers and building brand loyalty, right?

10 brand activation ideas and examples

Now that you know how brand activation can impact your event engagement by making events more interactive, personal, and memorable for attendees, it’s time to explore some real-life examples and ideas to know the process of doing this a bit better.

Let’s get into some hands-on work!

Distribute branded giveaways

Nobody likes tests and exams, true. But contests and giveaways aren’t your everyday basics.

Organize fun branded giveaways and contests related to your industry to boost participation, create buzz, and share the experience on your socials. You can hand out prizes like stickers, keychains, t-shirts, cups—basically anything that gets your brand out there!

Need some ideas to get you started? Ahrefs crushed it with their creative giveaways by blending fun and personalization. Attendees would pick a card, answer a few questions, and if they’re lucky, they’d win an Ahrefs sticker, book, or manual based on their result. Simple, engaging, and super effective!

Ahrefs SEO Workshop setup with branded materials and swag for brand activation.

Include a recreational activity

How do you show off your brand culture on social media during events? Through recreational activities, of course!

These activities are powerful enough to attract the attention of people who identify with your brand values and give them a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes vibe of your team’s work environment.

Airtable, the famous project management software, got very creative with their recent social event, where they hosted a recreational luncheon to celebrate Black History Month. This activity perfectly reflects Airtable’s core values—talk about soft power in action!

Airtable BBQ gathering featuring team bonding and brand activation.

Leverage Social Walls

Your work doesn’t end with the event; now it’s time to make some noise on social media. What better way to do that than with Walls.io? Post some user-generated content of the event on your social media wall, photos from your pop-up shops, influencers featuring your brand, shoutouts from brand partners, testimonials from attendees. Anything event-related will do! 

Oh, and don’t forget to push those event hashtags. 

Intel HPC—who doesn’t know Intel? The giant technology company behind the microprocessors that power our computers. It’s pretty obvious that they host multiple events each year to showcase their latest product features, new launches, computers, etc.  

Social wall showcasing diverse posts at an event, emphasizing brand activation for various brands.

As soon as guests click on the social wall icon, they’ll be directed to a feed that shows their latest tech news, upcoming conferences, and everything in between. It’s a great way to keep your attendees engaged even after the event ends! 

Walls.io helps you keep an audience engages

Partner with other brands

Just like with influencer partnerships, you can partner with a brand from a different industry that targets a similar audience. This partnership will change your brand activation game, and it’s not hard to see why! 

With brand partnership, the equation is pretty simple: you’re doubling your event’s reach with just half the effort because you’re effectively sharing the workload with your partner, and you’re still getting even more and more reach because you’re tapping into their brand’s network. 

We know, we know, this might sound a bit complicated, so let’s break it down with the example of RedBull and GoPro, two different brands but with very common values of adventure and extreme sports.

Red Bull and GoPro strategic alliance visual for outdoor brand activation.

Red Bull sponsors extreme sports events, with GoPro providing cameras and equipment, the end result of all this? Cross-promotion! GoPro users often feature Red Bull events in their content and vice versa 🤝

Red Bull and GoPro partnership visual of extreme sports branding, highlighting a brand activation.

Include gamification elements

Guess what else we’ve got on our list? Event gamification!

Gamified experiences at events are a big piece of the puzzle that probably gets talked about less than it should because the impact of games on your audience can be mind-blowing 🤯 they can increase event engagement by 48% (and the Pavegen will back us up on this). 

ActiveCampaign, the giant SaaS email and CRM company, really nailed it with their interactive flying ball game 🏐 in the last ATOMICON event. Where participants stand inside a transparent chamber and try to catch as many flying balls as they can for prizes or points. 

ActiveCampaign event setup with interactive ball game for brand activation engagement.

Launch your new product

Brand activation at events is a two-way street—you offer value through relevant and fun activities, and in return, attendees engage and connect with your brand. It’s also the perfect time to roll out new product launches or highlight fresh features of your existing ones.

Take Zendesk, for example. At their annual customer experience event, “Relate,” they make the most of it by introducing new features and product launches to professionals from various industries.

Zendesk Relate conference visuals at TAO Beach, showing brand activation for event attendees.

Team up with like-minded influencers

While the ideas we’ve shared so far are perfect for boosting your event engagement, you can do better. Why not team up with influencers who share your vision and brand values? But it’s usually not that simple.

Of course, you won’t just randomly pick any influencer, as they need to meet certain criteria, like having an audience with interests that match your product and, most importantly, being relevant to your brand. By relevance, we mean something like what Notion (which needs no introduction at this point) did by partnering with one of the most prominent productivity experts and founder of the Building a Second Brain methodology.

Notion meetup with Tiago Forte in San Francisco, promoting brand activation through community engagement.

Notion invited Tiago to their SF event, where he hosted meet-and-greet sessions that brought their communities together. The idea here for Notion was simple: reach a new top-of-funnel audience and generate even more interest in Notion’s services.

Host pop-up shops

Pop-up shops clearly deserve a spot on our list. Create a personalized pop-up that goes beyond just showcasing your service. Make it a social hub where people can enjoy food, grab some stickers, and get discount coupons (Maybe all three!).

Once your attendees get a good experience in this in-person space, they’ll naturally do the word-of-mouth magic recommendation. This is especially important for businesses that offer fully online services!

Continuing with our Notion examples, they recently hosted a pop-up coffee shop in New York City, and this brand activation idea literally blew up in the productivity scene on LinkedIn and X.

Notion’s pop-up coffee cart in NYC, creating a street-level brand activation experience.

Integrate Virtual Reality (VR) 

Does this list of brand activation ideas get any better than that? And the answer is, yes, it does! 

Now, what your audience wants from you is an event experience that’s not just immersive but also super trendy. So why not let them test your products and services with cutting-edge Virtual Reality headsets? 

For our readers who might not know Bauma, it’s one of the largest exhibitions in the world dedicated to the construction industry that takes place every three years in Munich, Germany. 

Virtual reality experience at Bauma 2019, showcasing REKNOW's brand activation with VR technology.

REKNOW, one of the exhibitors, adopted the innovative idea of using VR to present their products to representatives from top companies. You can do absolutely the same with your audience! 🧠

Create attention-grabbing booths

Why not turn your booth into an interactive entertainment station? accessories, graphics, fonts, and colors that match your brand’s style. This it’s not just about aesthetics – a visually appealing booth can also convey your brand’s personality and values. 

Are you playful and fun, or more serious and professional? Your booth setup says it all.

Distribute branded souvenirs and get your audience to create content with them using the event hashtag and skyrocket brand awareness on social media through the user generated content (UGC), just like Figma did at their recent “Figma for Edu” event!

Figma's colorful merchandise display at an education event, highlighting brand activation through engaging visuals.

Final words

Brand activation in events will take your brand awareness to a whole new level, so no matter how big or small your company is (because size doesn’t matter here), you can engage with your audience and boost your sales. And it’s not as tough as you think. Walls.io is one tool that can help you create social walls in seconds. Give it a go!

Now you have our ten brand activation ideas— Go engage your audience and share with us what you implement!

And if you want to learn even more about social walls, just Head to our knowledge hub 🚀

Thank you for sticking around till the end!

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