How any business can be part of downtown events by going mobile

Chambers, Main Streets and Tourism pros: share this idea with your non-downtown business?partners

When you hold events downtown, the businesses that aren’t located downtown sometimes feel left out. There’s one bank not in downtown, that figured out a great way to participate in the First Thursday fun in downtown Colfax, Washington.

They could have done what other groups are doing and set up a booth on the sidewalk and handed out their advertising items and talked to people. They were smart, though, and didn’t do a booth. They went mobile.

The bank has an insulated cooler. They filled it with ice cream bars, popsicles and frozen treats. Then they put it on a wagon and pulled it around the event, handing out cool goodness.

You could use a plain cooler and a hand-lettered sign for your first trial run. If it works, you could copy their design. Umpqua Bank wrapped the cooler with their logo and those irresistible words, “Free ice cream!”

Was it cost-effective advertising for their business? I can’t say, but I can tell you it was highly effective community building.

About the photo

Rather than sitting at a booth all evening, Haley, Jamie and Karlie from Umpqua Bank walked around and made people happy during the First Thursday event in downtown Colfax, Washington. Photo by Becky McCray.

Header photo alt text: Three smiling young women are handing out popsicles. They’re posed next to a cooler on a wagon. The cooler is colorfully decorated with a bank logo and the words free ice cream.

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