2020’s TOP 10 SUMMER SAMPLING LOCATIONS (CV19 SPECIAL EDITION!)
Joel Kaufman
Effective brand experiences that enable new customers to SEE, TRY + BUY your products
If you could do with some 'rays of sunshine' in your life, amidst 2020’s event cancellations and home isolation, here are this years’ TOP TEN SUMMER SAMPLING LOCATIONS to show where you can still dream of taking your brand on tour to reach new audiences, as soon as the Corona Virus restrictions are lifted!
10. FUN RUNS
Like many large events scheduled for Q2, this year’s London Marathon is now postponed to October. When the sanctions are lifted, that and every other competitive athletic event will be mobbed with participants keen to see how the time they spent away from their offices has converted to new personal best race records.
You can pick events to suit your audience: 5k fun runs for entry level, 10k and tough-mudders for fitness enthusiasts or full marathons for the really dedicated. If you want to bank on some big scale events that deliver on reach and budget, The Great North Run, The Great Manchester Run and London Rough Runner events are all ideally suited.
Our Photo Archive Example: Kellogg’s Special K Protein cereals and snack bars created an interactive sampling experience where race participants celebrated their victory with a fun photo moment experience, which was amplified across both their own and the brand’s social media channels.
9. SEASIDE AIRSHOWS
With international travel still making some people nervous, the UK’s biggest and best seaside airshows that are scheduled during August and September are still on track to amaze and delight the hundreds of thousands of families who attend each of them.
Reaching upwards of 200,000 event goers from miles around during normal years, these events will offer even greater value for their already affordable event space. They are perfect for experiential activities such as sampling, fun family games, social media and direct sales too.
Your 2020 wish list can still include the annual airshow highlights of Bournemouth, Clacton and Southport for fast jets, with Bristol offering the largest scale of the Hot Air Balloon Fiestas too.
Our Photo Archive Example: Yorkshire Tea toured a converted traditional British ice cream van which served thousands of cups of properly brewed tea, alongside some fun mug and tea biscuit shaped mascots across a range of airshows and events to engage British families.
8. THEME PARKS
After months of closure, once the UK theme parks re-open you can safely predict huge audiences of up to 30,000 thrill seekers every day during summer. The selection of parks can be aligned to suit both your core demographic and budget to extend the coverage on peak days during the peak season.
The main parks all offer busy event spaces at their main exit points, enabling your brand to reach people before they make their journey home. This provides an ideal time for focused engagement away from the screams of the rides and also the opportunity for presenting something the recipients can focus on and enjoy when back in their cars.
The biggest national reach parks include Alton Towers, Chessington, Drayton Manor and Blackpool Pleasure Beach. There are also plenty of parks for engaging audiences with younger families like Peppa Pig World, CBeebies Land and Lego Land too.
Our Photo Archive Example: Primula Cheese attracted thousands of children and their families to join the Nibbles Kids’ Club across to theme parks, with a fun and engaging catering experience to show off a range of family friendly recipe ideas, alongside children’s face painting, cheese shaped climbing frames and cute Mr & Mrs Nibbles mice mascots!
7. MUSIC FESTIVALS
With so many huge music festivals like Glastonbury cancelled in 2020, the remaining summer events are going to be absolutely huge! All of those pent-up music lovers desperate for a release will see August and September’s festivals busier than ever before.
There are options for festivals to suit all budgets and target audiences too: For those who have an immersive brand experience, you can hire space inside the festivals. For those on more limited budgets, sampling in front of their main entrances and exits possible without site fees; which reaches the exact same event goers at a time when you don’t have to compete for attention with the brands performing on the main stage!
For young professionals in London, South West Four on Clapham Common has got to be high on the list. For a slightly older reach, Septembers’ Proms in the Park is going to be a rousing triumph of patriotic music to invigorate the nation!
Our Photo Archive Example: Sparkling Ice created a VW camper van (AKA Sparky) for a tour of music festivals across the UK and Ireland, sampling whole bottles of their chilled drinks to thirsty and appreciative event goers on their way into each event.
6. RETAILER HEAD OFFICES
In what has been the most turbulent of times, the retail landscape has been shaken far from where it previously was. To bring your brand to life above being a digit on a spread sheet and secure your brand’s position on shelf you can take you brand experience directly to the retailers’ buying teams and VIPs who decide which brands stay and which go.
All of the major retailer head offices permit large scale sampling event days. Your pop-up brand experience can be set up in front of their key buildings where the buyers can be found (like Pear and Checkout buildings at Tesco HQ) or inside of their main entrance atriums (like Sainsburys at 33 Holborn).
Put on a tasty spread to show off your listed range alongside your latest NPD too. Fun games add the opportunity for emotional engagement and memorable banter in what is otherwise a dry corporate environment. Add in data capture for wider lead development and social media for public broadcasting across their corporate platforms too.
Our Photo Archive Example: Leading French bakery brand Brioche Pasquier brought in a vintage style bakery van and sampling experience to their key retail stockist Tesco to offer a delicious range of brunch and lunches, alongside a fun social media selfie area which helped them share their attendance widely to Tesco’s corporate audiences on LinkedIn.
5. FOOD & DRINK FESTIVALS
If you want to show off your culinary credentials, food festivals offer an ideal opportunity to engage with like minded foodies. They are ideal to demonstrate your recipes, cook up and sample tempting tasters, enlist followers for social media and sell direct to the public too.
While some of 2020’s early summer events have been postponed, there’s still so many great events to pick from. You can align your selection to suit both your budget and for reaching your audience profile.
Some recommended food festivals that deliver both on budget and audience reach include Foodies Food Festivals, Great British Food Festivals and Tom Kerridges’ new Pub in the Park; all of which have rescheduled their events from August 2020 onwards.
Our Photo Archive Example: Barrel brewed ginger beer brand Bundaberg created a barrel shaped bar for sip sampling their range, with a sales counter for selling multi packs– and a fun target throwing game to win a full whole single bottle to drink now.
4. FOOD & DRINK INDUSTRY TRADE SHOWS
With London’s Excel Exhibition Centre now turned into the UK’s largest ever field hospital to cope with Covid casualties, many exhibitions have either been reschedule or relocated. Once the restrictions are listed, both brands and retailers will be fighting harder than ever for new listings and to reconnect with their trade contacts!
Don’t just turn up and hope you get some new listings. You need to pro-actively go in to each event with a refined game plan that includes an event specific show deal, a tempting data capture strategy and a support team divided into specific job roles to ensure you leave the show with new listings and hot leads, rather than just a hole in your budget.
The biggest date for many in the calendar is the NEC’s National Convenience Show which was pushed back from March to September 2020 – so is now going to be bigger than ever. Many of the other largest events like The Lunch Show, The Restaurant Show, etc are already scheduled for Sept and Oct so are still progressing as planned.
Our Photo Archive Example: Typhoo Tea created an adjustable sized exhibition area to attended a mix of trade shows and consumer events to show off their full range of teas, for hot sampling, data capture, direct sales and trade contact engagement.
3. TRAIN & TUBE STATIONS
For many people lucky enough to have their immediate families living with them at home during isolation, they know just how challenging working from home can be! Say what you will about the benefits of logging on remotely, but once the restrictions are lifted, the stations in every major city will quickly become as busy as they ever were, once professionals quickly revert back to their more productive places of work.
During summer, there is the added element of heat – so sampling anything refreshing either inside or in front of the stations is incredibly popular. Just remember to keep your interaction brief, as while the audience reach is huge, the average dwell time at stations is short.
London is clearly the biggest area to focus on with a vast range of train and tube stations; but if budgets allow, you can and should reach other major cities across the UK too. If you sample in front of stations outside of London like Manchester or Leeds, etc – don’t forget you’ll need to line up regional permits from that city in advance.
Our Photo Archive Example: Fulfil Nutrition tasty vitamin and protein bars used a converted Chevy Step Truck (AKA Big Phil) for taste sampling and interactive brand experiences reaching hundreds of thousands of young professionals directly in front of London’s tube and train stations to drive sales into WHS Travel, Boots, Tesco Express, Sainsburys Local, M&S and other station stockists.
2. SUPERMARKETS
Between panic buying, hording and restaurants closing – the sector that has actually had peak record sales during the Corona Crisis is grocery. Food shoppers are buying more than ever before; but with wages hit by many industries in slow down, budget brands will now be the default choice for many.
For the first time in recent memory, private label and premium brands who once held a comfortable market position will have to fight harder for sales and continued shelf space than ever before. If customers do not fully understand the benefit of why two roughly similar products are different in price, then the cheaper option will become their default.
Well organised sampling that is conducted directly in front of your grocery stockists is the strongest and most effective activity to deliver measurable sales growth for your brand. Effective options beyond the basic ‘Mable with a table’ are available at ALL chains, including Tesco, Sainsburys, Asda, Morrisons, Waitrose and Booths. Envision a creatively branded pop up experience that greets all shoppers on arrival, enthusiastically communicates your USPs, present your tasters and drives immediate and long term sustained sales growth from every store attended.
Our Photo Archive Example: Rustlers Burgers used experiential supermarket sampling to sell 315 burgers per store, per day on average, across a nationwide tour of 180 Tesco Extras and Tesco Superstores. The supermarket sampling roadshow was judged to be “The Most Effective Retail Sales Experience” at the 2018 Field Marketing and Brand experience Awards.
1. HIGH STREET RETAILERS
While many city centre or suburban high street retail areas currently look like an eerie scene from a zombie movie, by summertime they will be packed full of office workers, young professionals, fitness enthusiasts, families with children and all sectors of the great British public.
High street convenience retail stockists like Waitrose, Co-op, Tesco Metro and Tesco Express, Sainsburys Local, Holland & Barrett, Boots and many others like them are all ideally suited to benefit from sampling on the busy high streets that these stores are located on.
For those on a tight budget, roaming sampling provides the ability to use portable sampling carts, trikes and sampling display trays to present and sample without the need for premium site fees or cost prohibitive event kit. For brands with static event areas, every city and suburb has a busy high street that is ideally suited to host your experiential event area.
Our Photo Archive Example: New innovation brand True Nopal Catcus Water, used a portable sampling cart to present, sample and sell its new healthy drinks by sampling in front of 50 high street Waitrose stores, uplifting sales in those stockists by as much as 383 units in one store in a single day. The convenience retailer focussed campaign was judged to be ‘The Most Effective Retail Sales Experience’ in the 2019 Field Marketing and Brand Experience Awards.
SO WHERE SHOULD I TAKE MY BRAND IN 2020?
If you are inspired or just intrigued to find out more about where you can take your brand in 2020, get in touch for some interesting ideas, effective options and new campaign plans:
E: [email protected]
W: www.linkcommunication.co.uk
About the author: Joel Kaufman is Managing Director and veteran founder of multi award-winning experiential agency, Link Communication.
Photo Credits: All photos shown in the above examples are from Link Communication's own campaigns, where they have designed, built, planned, toured, staffed and effectively activated every aspect of each campaign.