Parade Preparedness: Promotional Products for Parades

14 Hot Tips for Custom Branded Swag for Parades

It seems like it is almost always that time of year again, time to prepare for the parade! Here on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, our next one is the Kelly’s St. Patrick’s Day parade on March 18, 2018. As a business or organization planning to participate in the parade, there are several things to do to prepare. Having a great looking float complete with banners, music, and passionate people is very important and most groups spend most of their time concerned with this part of the preparation. While your float will leave a temporary visual and you can score some goodwill points with your community by throwing out candy, your group can really wow folks and leave a lasting impression through careful selection of what is given out, namely something with your organization’s name on it! You can really leave your mark by handing out custom branded promotional products that are memorable, useful, and it doesn’t have to be much more expensive than the usual candy. Below are some tips for choosing the right branded swag and promotional products for your parade as well as some general ideas to consider.

1) PACE YOURSELF aka DO THE MATH

You don’t want to be reduced to handing out the last couple slices of pizza you bought for yourself (though popular) or targeting what you hope to be coffee drinkers with single serving creamers at the end of the parade (both of which I’m guilty of in the past). So, you’ve got to pace yourself. Try to find out your parade’s length and the approximate number of attendees. You can use a 2.5 mile per hour estimate for your parade speed if you don’t know how long it usually takes.

By doing some simple arithmetic, you can determine what you might need.

Let’s use Kelly’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade as an example:

Length: 1.1 miles or 5808 feet
Attendees: ~8000
Travel Speed: 2.5 mph or 3.7 fps
Parade Route Time: 26.4 minutes or 1584 seconds (this is not the same as total parade time, just the length of time for one float to pass by – important difference!)

If you were hoping to target 10% of the people at the parade, you would need 800 items and need to throw one out every 2 seconds.

To compute: % of attendees targeted X total attendees / parade route time (seconds)

If you have multiple people giving out things, multiply the throw rate by the number of people. So, three throwers targeting 10% of the attendees would mean each float-goer would throw one item every six seconds. Throw faster than that and you will run out earlier, slower and you will have stuff left over!

2) DON’T THINK YOU NEED TO THROW ENOUGH FOR EVERYBODY

You don’t need to throw a promotional product to everyone at the parade. People are in groups and if you throw something unique, they will show it off to the people around them, getting your group even more great exposure without additional cost. Also, you can whip them into a frenzy of desire for your awesome giveaways, but only if there is a limited supply.

3) STAY IN YOUR BUDGET AND GET A ROI

It is easy to spend $500 buying enough candy to help advertise for the candy company at the parade. Don’t do that just because that’s what everyone else does. Stand out! Once you’ve got an idea of how much swag you think you might need and you know your budget, you can figure out what your group can afford to do and decide what might give you the best return on your investment! We enjoy creating custom plans and generating ideas for businesses, so contact us to work with you on creating an engaging branding campaign for your event.

4) MAKE SURE YOUR GROUP’S LOOK IS COHESIVE

Wear branded apparel like shirts, hats, sunglasses, shoelaces, socks and use banners to get your message across!

5) PICK A PRODUCT THAT HAS TO DO WITH YOUR ORGANIZATION

Think about your colors, your mascot, the needs of your customers or community, the type of business you operate. Choose something relevant to your work and that you want people to have!

6) PICK SOMETHING THAT HAS TO DO WITH THE EVENT

Stick with the theme and the colors of the event to get instant use out of the product. Think shamrocks, Irish flags, pots of gold, horseshoes, green hats for St. Patrick’s Day.

7) PICK SOMETHING THAT WOULD BE APPRECIATED AT THE PARADE

Is it going to be hot? How about something that cools you down like a cooling neck wrap, beverage coozie, visor, or fan? Is it going to be cold? How about earmuffs, mittens, or hand warmers? Raining? Ponchos or Umbrellas. Dry and windy? Lip Balm! Bright? Sunglasses! If it goes into use immediately, there are a bunch of people there to see it right away and advertise for YOU at the parade.

8) PICK SOMETHING THAT GETS PEOPLE’S ATTENTION

Think bright colors, loud, highly visible, large or unusual!

9) PICK SOMETHING THAT HAS UTILITY

And that people don’t already have or need more of. Think tools, first aid, flashlights, key rings, hygiene products, etc.

10) PICK SOMETHING THAT WILL BE SEEN REPEATEDLY

Don’t spend hundreds of dollars on something that will be quickly digested, thrown away, or left on the ground. Pick a product that the person will look at over and over, like mouse pads, bags, calendars, pens, office accessories, and apparel.

11)PICK SOMETHING THAT YOU CAN USE AGAIN FOR SOMETHING ELSE

Do you go to trade shows, have your own events, regularly give your customer’s gifts or the like? Buying in larger quantities will save you money in the long run!

12) ENLIST FRIENDS IN THE PARADE TO THROW OUT YOUR STUFF

At the parade, most of the people on the floats are going to be throwing out generic, unbranded items. If you have more than you need, get other folks to throw your product for you! They will more than likely to be happy just to have more stuff to throw. With everything flying around, parade-goers rarely know who threw them something, which is why it is so much better for it to have your logo and contact info on it.

13) MAKE SURE YOUR INFORMATION IS INTRIGUING AND THEY CAN FIND OUT MORE ABOUT YOU

Make sure that there is enough info on your product to spark interest and enable contact. You need your logo, what you do in very few words and website or phone #. Don’t overwhelm with text, but get them curious!

14) ASK FOR HELP

There’s no one-size fits all product out there that is right for everyone, which is why there are MILLIONS of products to choose from. Use resources like the brand managers and promotional consultants at Identify Yourself to come up with a solution to your parade needs! We want you to come out of the parade thinking that you had a blast and improved the health of your business at the same time.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

I’ve listed a few budget-conscious items below to get your creative juices flowing (all 75 cents net or less at 800 piece quantity):

Don’t forget to register for the Kelly’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade right here!