Event Branding 101: Key Visual & Experiential Elements for Corporate Events

Corporate events provide your business or brand with a unique opportunity to showcase your values, achievements, and your best attributes, whether that be your staff, your products, or your industry contributions – or better still, all of the above!

Whilst it’s definitely beneficial to keep a jam-packed corporate events calendar to keep both your team and your target demographics engaged, it’s important to keep in mind that corporate events are about more than just a day out of the office.

The best corporate events create experiences for their attendees, using visual and experiential elements to curate an event environment that feels unique to your brand and its ethos. Today, our expert event planners here at Canvas House, are actually going to share our own secret formula for fine tuning event branding and ensuring that your corporate event acts as a unique brand experience.

What are Visual and Experiential Elements?

In the context of corporate parties, visual elements relate to all party decor used to present your event space, whereas experiential elements relate to activities and other interactive design additions within your event space.

Visual Branding Elements

Visual branding elements are used to create a visual identity for your event that aligns with your business branding. In short, an eventgoer should be able to walk into your event space and immediately be able to identify your brand.

In much the same way that you would pick a theme for a birthday party, the visual theme for your corporate events should always positively represent your business branding. For example, if you’re hosting a work Christmas party, you can install visual elements like custom holiday wreaths with your branding front and centre, or hang branded baubles on a tree decked out in your company’s colours.

Similarly, if you’re planning a corporate dinner, you can get custom place settings boasting the names of your attendees as well as your company logo. Not only will branded visual elements double up as great keepsakes for your eventgoers, but they’ll also help ensure your corporate event feels cohesive and thoughtfully curated, which in turn reflects well on your brand.

Need a little inspo? Here are some other examples of visual branding elements to incorporate into your next corporate event:

• Decor in brand colours
• Furnishings (i.e. tables, chairs, staging, etc.) in brand colours
• Branded napkins/serviettes
• Logos and branding on event materials (i.e. programmes, itineraries, nametags)
• Branded merchandise in event gift bags

Experiential Branding Elements

Experiential branding elements are a staple of interactive corporate events like product launches and conferences. By providing experiences and activities that are tailored to your brand or perhaps even unique to your products or services, experiential branding elements help ensure that your company events feel like an exclusive experience that ultimately, creates positive associations for your business.

Here are just a few of the more popular types of experiential branding elements we see at corporate events at Canvas House:

• Photobooths and branded photo walls
• Guestbooks and crafts stations
• Demo stations (i.e. for technological product demos at product launches)
• Food and beverage stations with signature cocktails
• Dance floors, networking spaces, etc.

Why is Visual Branding Important for Corporate Events?

Investing in visual branding for corporate events provides dynamic benefits, but there are three main ways you can see a robust return on your investment in branded decor and merchandise:

1. Turning Attendees into Brand Ambassadors

By providing a branded experience, your eventgoers essentially turn into brand ambassadors, with every social post or reel being organic advertising for your business.

2. Reinforces Company Branding and Values

Curating an event space which matches the ethos and tone of your brand is arguably the fastest way of getting consumers to engage with and understand your brand values.

3. Signalling Consistency and Professionalism

Branded corporate events make your business look and feel established, and like a fixture within your wider industry or market landscape. With a strong presence backed by positive engagement, professional corporate events solidify your brand as a major player to your competitors.

Key Elements to Make Your Event Stand Out Visually

Alongside sharing a few quick examples of visual branding elements, our event planners have outlined their top industry tips and tricks for making sure your event stands out visually – even with a minimal spend on custom branded merchandise.

Cohesive Visual Branding

Your event should maintain cohesive and consistent visual branding, from your email invitations to your social media branding, and event keepsakes. Think about the flow of your eventgoer’s experience with your brand, from their first booking their tickets or receiving their invitation, to arriving on the day of your event, to receiving re-engagement or thank you notices afterwards.

Clear Directional Event Signage

Speaking of the flow of your event space, ensuring your event environment is easy to navigate can naturally also help to keep your guests engaged and keep their experiences positive. If you have a mixture of experiential elements in your event space that are best navigated by following a flow of traffic, then be sure to install clear (branded) directional event signage, plus a signage guide for your attendees.

Pro tip: you may even opt to include a little flowchart or map layout of your event in your event programme if your event space and included activities and experiences are numerous. With a clear-cut guide to follow, eventgoers will be less likely to miss out on activities on the day.

Photo-Ready Branded Staging

You want your eventgoers to share snaps and videos from your event on social media. This is why it’s not uncommon to see photo walls and even red carpets at corporate events and gala dinners. If your attendees are coming dressed to the nines after all, you’ll definitely want to use your event as an excuse to take some polished snaps for your company gallery, for LinkedIn, and for press materials, if needed.

And if you’re hosting a hybrid event with virtual attendees, be sure to provide them with an event hashtag as well!

Interactive Event Activities

Just as all-day seminar attendees have come to expect the day is broken up by a corporate lunch, so too have eventgoers come to expect a certain level of experiential engagement from when attending a corporate event.

Again, try to incorporate some of the below elements into your corporate event space to help keep your eventgoers engaged and entertained.

• Photobooths
• Game stations
• Panel discussions
• Workshops and stalls
• Branded food/drink stations

Pro tip: make sure you allocate time in your event planning timeline to organise and finalise guest speakers, panelists, and workshop facilitators. Getting the right names in your event itinerary can also help with marketing your corporate event, if you’re selling tickets.

Post-Event Goodies and Wrap-up Messaging

Finally, the fun doesn’t stop when the day comes to a close. With some branded goodie bags, notebooks full of seminar notes, and other keepsakes, your corporate event should leave your attendees with much to reflect on. Plus, if you’re planning to re-engage with future events, you’ll want to keep your mailing list eager for all that’s to come!

Invest in these post-event goodies and re-engagement strategies to help build compounding interest in your corporate events calendar:

• Personalised gifts
• Brand merchandising
• Follow-up emails
• Invitations to future events

Have a Project in Mind? Brainstorm Your Event Branding with Canvas House Today!

Event branding isn’t an exact science, and the best approach for your corporate event planning will be dictated by the tone and ethos behind your brand, as well as the business goals related to your corporate event.

If you have any further questions about corporate event planning and how to create branded event environments and experiences, then don’t hesitate to get in touch with our experts at Canvas House.