Planning guide · Brand activations
How to brief a supplier for a branded attraction.
A briefing checklist for marketing teams and agencies considering a physical attraction as part of a campaign — what to have ready, what to ask, and what to settle before anything is confirmed.
This guide sets out questions to put to a prospective supplier — including us. Nothing in it is a statement of what Spotted Frog provides, and the branding options and production process behind branded attractions are still being settled with clients rather than promised here.
Before the brief
Objective and audience come first.
A branded attraction is a campaign asset with a very long lead time compared with a screen or a poster. That makes it worth being unusually clear about what it is for before anyone starts describing formats.
The objective
What you want people to do, feel or remember — and how you would know afterwards whether it worked. A supplier who understands the objective can tell you when an attraction is the wrong answer.
The audience
Who you are trying to reach, and where they already are during the period you are planning for. An attraction has to be worth the audience’s time, not just the brand’s.
The brand and the background
Who you are, what the campaign is for, and anything a supplier should understand about the brand before anyone starts talking about formats.
Write the objective in one line and put it at the top of the brief. Every later question — which attraction, how much branding, how many sites, what it should cost — becomes easier to answer, and easier to say no to.
The practical frame
Sites, dates and campaign duration.
Four things shape what is actually possible. A supplier can usually tell you within one conversation whether your frame is workable — provided all four are in front of them.
Locations and number of sites
One place or a tour, the kind of venues involved, and whether those venues are already secured. The answer changes what a practical format looks like.
Dates and run length
When it needs to be live, how long each stop runs, and any fixed dates that cannot move. Say which dates are firm and which are flexible.
Campaign duration and rhythm
Whether the same attraction repeats across every stop or changes along the way, and how much time sits between sites for movement and resets.
Budget envelope
A range rather than a figure, if you can share one, and what your own team or agency will cover. It lets a supplier rule things out early instead of proposing them.
If dates are not settled, say so rather than guessing. “Somewhere in the second quarter, dates to be agreed” is a useful brief — and a supplier who can plan around it will tell you what they need to hold in the meantime.
Matching the attraction
Choosing an attraction that fits the brief.
The group behind a branded attraction is often several specialist brands rather than one catalogue. That is useful — a brief can be answered by the brand whose product genuinely fits — but it means the checking is worth doing properly.
Work from the objective, not the photograph
Start from what the campaign has to achieve, then look for an attraction that suits it. Reacting to pictures first tends to produce a format with a brief attached to it.
Check what each product actually is today
Where attractions sit with specialist brands, each brand’s own website is the place to confirm what its products are now — size, format, how they are operated.
Ask whether more than one brand would be involved
A campaign may need a combination rather than a single attraction. If it does, ask early who coordinates between the suppliers and who holds the overall plan.
Ask whether the attraction can carry a brand at all
Not every experience suits branding, and the amount that works varies. Ask what could be branded, how far that can reasonably go, and what the result would look like before you commit.
Ask to be told if it is not a fit
A supplier worth briefing will say when none of their attractions suits the objective. Treat that answer as a good sign rather than a lost opportunity.
Two products have been identified so far as settings a brand could sit inside — Pop Up Beach and the Globe Hire giant walk-in snow globe. Their own websites show them as they are today; neither photograph is a branded client campaign.
Where briefs usually stall
Brand assets, artwork, approvals and sign-off.
Branding a physical attraction is a production job with a legal and brand-safety edge to it. These are the questions that save the most time when asked at the start.
- What artwork, brand guidelines and locked assets already exist, and what would still need creating?
- How far can branding reasonably go on this attraction, and what would it be applied to?
- Who produces the branded elements, from what artwork, and to what specification?
- What visual mock-up or proof will you see before anything is made, and at what stage?
- Who signs off each stage on your side, and how long does approval take?
- What happens if a change is needed after approval — and who pays for the rethink?
- Who owns the finished branded elements afterwards, and can they be stored, moved or reused at another site?
- Are there brand usage rules that affect how the attraction can be photographed or filmed?
The operational list
Space, access, power, installation, staffing, operation and removal.
Put these to a prospective supplier site by site. Each stop in a tour can answer them differently, and the one you have not asked about is usually the one that costs money.
Space
The footprint, height and weight the attraction needs, what else uses that space, and how it should sit in the flow of visitors.
Access
How it arrives and leaves — delivery route, lift or door sizes, and whether set-up and dismantling can happen outside opening hours.
Power
What power is available where, how far it is from the space, who supplies and tests connections, and what your own costs are.
Installation
How long set-up takes, what floor protection, ground preparation or fixings are needed, and who carries out the work.
Staffing
How many people are needed, what they actually do, how they are recruited and supervised, and what they wear.
Operation
How it runs hour by hour: queues, capacity, rotation, what happens in bad weather at outdoor stops, and who is on site to deal with problems.
Removal
Dismantling times, making the space good again, and where anything branded goes between sites or at the end.
Ask for a site visit or a walk-through of each location before anything is confirmed. The difference between a floor plan and the actual pillar, power point and delivery lift is where most operational surprises live.
The part nobody enjoys
Safety, permissions, insurance and procurement.
These are the items that quietly decide whether a campaign can actually happen on your dates. Clarify them with the supplier before a proposal is treated as agreed.
Safety documentation
Who writes the risk assessment and method statements, who reviews them, and how far ahead of the first date they need to be in front of your team.
Insurance
What levels of cover are held, what certificates your centre, venue or client will expect to see, and who needs to be named.
Permissions and licences
Whose approval the activity needs at each site — centre management, landlord, managing agent, or a local authority for anything on the public highway — and who applies.
Procurement
Whether the supplier is on the lists your organisation or client uses, how it responds to tenders or frameworks, and what purchase-order and payment terms apply.
Supervision of children
If children will use the attraction, what supervision expectations apply, who holds them, and how they are communicated to your own staff on the day.
Responsibility in practice
Who is accountable while the attraction is open, who the on-site contact is, and what the escalation route is if something fails mid-run.
If your organisation or client has a procurement process, start it the same week you start briefing. A supplier who is not yet on an approved list may need time to be added, and that time comes out of the same calendar as your launch date.
Getting the value out
Photography, reporting and campaign evaluation.
A physical attraction is worth briefing on two counts: it is the campaign, and it is content for the rest of it. Both need agreeing while there is still time to plan for them.
Decide what you need before it is built
Stills, movement, close-ups of the branding, wide shots of people using it — these are different briefs for the person on site, and they are harder to ask for afterwards.
Check what can be photographed
Ask what the attraction looks like when it is being set up, when it is in use, and what cannot be shown. Confirm usage rights and any approval needed before the images go out.
Agree what the supplier can report on
Ask what information they can reasonably gather while running the attraction, and what they would need from you in order to do it.
Bring your own measures
Footfall, tenant or venue feedback, social mentions, competition entries and customer comments are usually already in your routine. Note the dates so they can be read in context.
Set a baseline and a review date
Compare against a similar period without the attraction, and put the review in the diary before the first date — a report nobody reads is a report nobody asked for.
Decide who owns the camera on the day. If nobody is briefed to shoot, the attraction runs, people enjoy it, and the campaign ends with three blurred phone photographs and no way to show any of it.
The checklist
Ten lines to have ready before you send a brief.
Copy this into your own document and fill it in. A supplier who receives all ten can usually come back with a view rather than a list of further questions.
- 1The objective in one line, and how you will judge it
- 2The audience, and where they already are at that time
- 3Locations and number of sites, and whether they are secured
- 4Dates, run length per stop, and which dates are fixed
- 5Budget envelope, and what your own team will cover
- 6Brand assets that exist, and who signs them off
- 7Approval stages on your side, and the dates they land
- 8Safety, permission and procurement requirements you already know apply
- 9The photography and reporting you need, and by when
- 10Who decides, and by when — so the brief does not stall at sign-off
The last line matters more than it looks. Branded attractions involve a client, an agency, a venue and a supplier, each with their own approvals — and a brief that cannot find a decision-maker will lose the date long before anyone raises an objection.
Use the checklist the other way too. When a supplier’s answer comes back, note which of the ten lines they engaged with and which they skipped — it tells you a good deal about how the rest of the project will run.
Keep going
Where to take this next.
Got a brief, or just the outline of one?
Send the objective, the audience, the sites and the dates, and we will come back on whether there is something worth developing.