5 examples of public awareness campaigns with photo cutout boards

July 18, 2018July 19, 2018 admin

Getting people into awareness campaigns – literally!

It’s been a hot year so far for public awareness campaigns by causes, nonprofits and social enterprises.

Many of these campaigns have used our face in the hole boards to educate their audiences and help keep their campaign messages top of mind. The boards help to create a focus for people to interact with as well as a photo opportunity, and with the campaign’s message and hashtag splashed all over the board, well … photos get shared, and that amplifies the message across social.

Here are five examples of the public awareness campaign boards we have supplied recently.

1. #FFSLDN

For Fish’s Sake London is a campaign by environmental charity Hubbub. The message is clear: don’t drop litter in London where it can end up in the Thames, because it really gives aquatic life there a hard time. These boards have been used down by the river to promote awareness.

2. #Beesneeds

This was just last week. #BeesNeeds is a campaign by DEFRA and the Bumblebee Conservation Trust to promote awareness of bees and other pollinators. London’s Carnaby Street was renamed Carnabee Street for a week and our board was part of the campaign.

3. Affinity Water

Okay, this one was last November, but we’ve included it because we liked it! Here’s a slightly grainy shot from Twitter – but you can see people having fun with the board! The campaign message? Save water.

4. Keep Britain Tidy

This one needs no introduction. These boards are used extensively in campaigns around the UK. The message: be a litter hero. Be like Trash Girl.

5. Green Flag Wales

On a related note, here’s our board for Green Flag Wales, aiming to change perceptions about green spaces. The board is pictured with some of the campaign team.

Are you involved in a charity or social enterprise? Would you like to raise awareness of your cause with a photo cutout board? Call us today on 08450 570321 or email office@connectedshopping.com to talk about getting a board made.

Summer boards are flying out of our workshop!

June 29, 2018 admin

Summer is a time when people are outdoors more and the streets fill up. Photo Cutouts boards attract attention and bring customers in, or provide a focus for engagement once customers are already in the store or event. They’re brilliant for trade shows as well. Summer is our busiest time, and our minions have been going bananas this June making face in the hole boards. Our workshop is stacked to the rafters with colourful boards promoting a variety of brands, institutions and events.

We can’t tell you about them all yet because they are not yet out there in the wild, but here are some that are being used and no longer under embargo. Also check out last week’s post featuring a very successful board that forms the centrepiece of a David Walliams-themed event in Welsh schools.

Isle of Arran Ice Cream

Pretty much the ideal Summer board. The public can pose as a Friesian cow and post the photo with a campaign hashtag – presumably free samples are involved!

Mindfulgifts.co.uk

One of our standard designs, a Punch & Judy board, branded with the company’s email address, logo and website address. Perfect for the Summer and guaranteed fun! Naughty naughty naughty!

Chocolat Chocolat

This Cambridge chocolate shop is promoting its business with a Photo Cutout board depicting a rather messy kitchen. The perfect advertising accessory for a small business!

Durham University

Summer is the season for university open days. The latest uni to use a Photo Cutouts board for its June promo day is Durham.

Firstwonderbox.co.uk

First Wonder Box make boxes of discovery for active young minds – perfect to keep them busy during the long Summer holidays. This board helps the company promote their brand whilst having fun. Note the lower face hole for children.

So that’s just a few Summer boards we’ve made. What kind of board would help your business or cause for the rest of the Summer? Our turnaround time is 2 weeks or less so there’s still time to order your own!

www.photocutouts.co.uk

office@connectedshopping.com

08450 570321

David Walliams board brings fun to Welsh children

June 21, 2018June 22, 2018 admin

Our friends over at Magic Light Productions are running a David Walliams-themed tour of schools in Denbighshire, North-East Wales that is driving kids wild with excitement. Their T’riffic Takeover days are a brilliant idea: fill the school with actors dressed as characters from Walliams’ fictional world for a day. For example, here’s Mrs Trafe, the dinner lady from Billionaire Boy who cooks the most revolting food ever, like deep fried Blu-Tack, badger and onion pie and jacket potatoes with sock cheese.

A Photo Cutouts board is the centrepiece for photo opportunities during the T’riffic Takeovers. We did a mashup of characters from David Walliams books and added hashtags and the Magic Light Productions insignia. Here’s some nice feedback about the board from Twitter.

The board was also appreciated by Denbighshire County Council’s Schools Enrichment programme, who are involved in the Walliams takeovers.

It was nice of Magic Light Productions and Denbighshire County Council to give a nod to Photo Cutouts for the board. We’re human and we like being appreciated! But the main thing is that the T’riffic Takeovers are a roaring success, so here are some more photos that speak for themselves.

Walliams T'riffic Takeovers — The board provided a focus for staff and pupils to get into character

Walliams book board — The board was also involved in a daily ‘I Wonder Where?’ teaser that gave a clue as to where the T’riffic Takeovers roadshow would be the next day

Photo Cutouts boards are seeing increasing use in theatrical productions like Magic Light Productions’ Walliams schools roadshow. They can also be used in marketing promotions, awards ceremonies, as a photo opportunity at events, wedding photography props, at seasonal festivities like Halloween, Christmas and Easter, for product launches, book signings, TV shows, and more.

Find out how to order your own custom face in hole board at photocutouts.co.uk

office@connectedshopping.com

08450 570321

Environment charities using our boards

June 5, 2018June 5, 2018 admin

Today is the 5th of June and it’s World Environment Day, the United Nations’ flagship day for promoting worldwide awareness and action for the environment. There’s probably something going on near you related to #WorldEnvironmentDay, whether it’s a beach cleanup, a tree planting day or a group of people getting together to lobby your MP for change. Today is the day to get involved and make an impact. If you’re at work and can’t ‘get out there’ and do anything, actually the workplace is a great place to start. How much disposable plastic does your business get through, for example, and how much does it really need to? Do something to close the gap. The motto here is ‘If you can’t reuse it, refuse it.’ Share a photo of your effort on social media to inspire others. There’s even an app to help you organise a cleanup called Litterati – see what they did there? There are plenty of other ideas and resources over at the World Environment Day website.

Here are some of the face in the hole boards Photo Cutouts have made recently to help promote environmental campaigns. Most of them are simple, straightforward awareness-raising props that ask people to pick up litter and not leave it lying around where it can hurt wildlife and make our surroundings look depressing.

Keep Britain Tidy

This well-known charity needs no introduction. They chose Photo Cutouts to make a set of three boards to promote their campaigns in early 2018. Here’s the design for one of them:

Keep Britain Tidy also commissioned some Blue Flag boards to promote clean beaches. Blue Flag is managed by Keep Britain Tidy on behalf of the Foundation for Environmental Education. Here’s one of the Blue Flag boards in action:

World Animal Protection

Ghost fishing is what happens when fishing gear from trawlers and other fishing operations gets lost or abandoned at sea. It creates havoc for sea life. We’ve all seen images of sea creatures tangled in nets – well, that’s ghost fishing. World Animal Protection campaigns against it as part of the #SeaChange movement.

Hubbub

Environmental charity Hubbub have used Photo Cutouts for several of their awareness-raining campaigns.

For Fish’s Sake London is a campaign by Hubbub. It raises awareness about littering, particularly in and around London, where plastic and other pollutants end up in the Thames and have adverse effects on fish. We made some boards for this campaign which aim to educate the public about littering.

And here’s a board for another of Hubbub’s campaigns. This one is about saving water.

We’re proud to be helping these charities to promote their messages using our face in the hole boards! And remember: don’t drop litter!

Need a board for your campaign or business? Give us a tinkle on 08450 570321.

Photocutouts.co.uk

Email Photo Cutouts

Theme of the week: Healthcare

May 24, 2018 admin

There’s a theme developing this week …

We serve all industries that need face in the hole boards and marketing props for their events. But some weeks, there seems to be a theme. This week it’s healthcare. Three of the boards we’ve sent out this week have been healthcare-related: two major cancer charities and NHS Wales! There’s probably no rhyme or reason to it (like the time we got three requests for boards featuring horses in the same month), and all we can say is we’re happy to be providing the service and helping these great organisations promote their message.

Macmillan Volunteer Conference

Macmillan Cancer Support relies on a network of volunteers to provide support to those with cancer, and once a year the charity holds a Volunteer Conference for networking, volunteer awards, volunteer support and development opportunities. This year’s conference was on the 17th & 18th of May in Blackpool, and Photo Cutouts delivered some traditional face in the hole boards for a bit of extra fun for the delegates.

The boards obviously did their job!

NHS Wales

This is a general purpose board for NHS Wales that they are going to use at a variety of events and locations. It’s a folding board, which means it can be carried about easily and even transported in a small car to wherever it is needed. Perfect for a mobile awareness message!

Cancer Research

Cancer research are doing a roadshow in Scotland, and one of the props they’ll be using is a pair boards that let the public step into the shoes of a cancer-busting super scientist. Lord knows we need these people, so promoting their efforts is one thing we have absolutely no problem helping with.

We’ll blog about it again next time there is a series of orders for boards from a particular sector or industry or cause. For now, whether you are a healthcare organisation or something completely different, if you have an event coming up and would like something extra to drive engagement and promote your message, get in touch with Photo Cutouts on:

08450 570321

Visit our custom promotional boards page

Selfie boards: for when less is more

May 18, 2018 admin

Let’s go walkabout with selfie boards!

As always at Photo Cutouts, we’ve been listening to our customers and coming up with creative solutions that suit their events. For three of our recent customers – AmEx, Vaillant and NowPressPlay, a large static face in the hole board wasn’t quite what they needed due to their events’ formats and the other promotional materials they were using. What they asked for was a smaller board that people can hold and pose for photos with as they walk around the event, and can easily be passed from one person to another. This led to Selfie Boards, which are proving popular with other event organiser customers as well.

With no feet required to keep them standing upright, selfie boards are very light while giving a similar impression to a full-size board in photos. 100cm x 80cm is the standard size for a selfie board and this can be portrait (usually 1 face hole) or landscape (there can be 2 face holes). To help maintain the face-in-the-hole illusion, we put a pair of handles on the back so that the board can be held without the holder’s hands showing at the sides (otherwise it looks like the cover of Vanity Fair or similar Photoshop disaster.) Despite all our care and attention, though, what people actually do with our boards is beyond our control, as you can see here: 😉

Promotional selfie boards — Well, we tried

But as long as selfie boards help to get the brand message across and people have fun with them, that’s the main thing. Just don’t show the photos to our designer, Jim. He’d have kittens.

Here’s a selfie board we made for American Express to promote their Global Business Traveller programme. The 100 x 80cm format makes it easy to hold up and pass around.

And finally, we’ve heard of bunny boilers, but this is a boiler bunny! Vaillant, the boiler company, have a bunny mascot called Johann, and here he is not quite filling the human-sized face hole on the board we made for them. As we said, what people (and bunnies) do with our boards is beyond our control!

Johann is over the moon with the new #AdvanceMag. out this week and available online here: https://t.co/XROWX3SwIY pic.twitter.com/IPweqNUXfZ

— Vaillant UK (@vaillantuk) January 23, 2018

PhotoCutouts.co.uk

08450 570321

office@connectedshopping.com

New Photo Cutouts game: Beat The Goalie!

May 10, 2018 admin

Meet our new penalty shootout game

With the World Cup coming up soon, this new board from Photo Cutouts might be just the thing for football-themed garden parties and outdoor match screenings this Summer. We expect the nation’s gardens and pubs to ring with cries of ‘Hold my beer and watch this!’ as everyone tests their football skills against the Photo Cutouts goalie. He will ‘save’ your shot unless you can place it perfectly. Curl it into the corner or go through his legs, it’s your call. But give it your best shot!

Football goalie board — He’s a pretty good goalie – are you accurate enough?

Beat The Goalie is a 2.4m x 2m board made of weatherproof PVC mounted on sturdy metal legs. It comes with a foam football that’s got enough weight to make controlled shots but won’t damage the board, things behind it, or fellow guests. It can be delivered along with an astro grass area to simulate a pitch and make it look more like a football match. The board takes about 10 minutes to put together upon delivery. It comes in 4 sections that we ship to you flat-packed and comes with the small number of bolts necessary to put it together.

If requested we can brand Beat The Goalie with messages, hashtags, logos and other insignia to personalise it or to promote a brand, product or cause. It adds some fun action to events, parties, weddings, and corporate functions. This is not a custom board so there’s no design work to go through with you – as an off-the-peg product, we can get one out to you quicker. Ideally we’d need a couple of weeks’ notice before your event, especially if you wish to add some branding or personalisation.

So add some football fun to your Summer event with Beat The Goalie! Here’s a bit more about him.

08450 570321

office@connectedshopping.com

Here’s how to get people into your product

May 3, 2018May 10, 2018 admin

Product marketing — Photo Cutouts: getting people into your brand

If you have a product to launch or promote, then naturally you want people to ‘get into’ your product. But what does ‘get into’ mean, exactly? Understand its purpose? Appreciate its unique selling points? Become convinced that it’s the best on the market? Be overjoyed about how it solves a problem for them? Recommend it to others? Become loyal users of it?

Well, all of these, of course. But what we meant is quite simply to encourage people to, well, physically get into your product by putting their faces in a board with your product on it! The concept couldn’t be simpler, and you know what? It works. That is why photocutouts.co.uk has gone from an obscure maker of seaside Punch-and-Judy boards to Britain’s leading producer of face-in-hole marketing props, serving brands both big and small. Here are a few of the big brands who have used our boards for marketing:

The BBC
Unilever
Huawei
Autoglass
The Royal Air Force
Seabrook Crisps
The National Trust
Capital FM
World Animal Protection
American Express
Cancer Research
Anglian Water
King’s College London
Cussons Carex

Product boards from photocutouts.co.uk are the perfect marketing accessory at trade shows, conferences and exhibitions. One example this week is Wavegrip, a company who make hygienic, recyclable packaging for cans. They went all the way to Nashville, Tennessee to promote their products to the Craft Brewers’ Conference, and prepared well in advance by asking us to make them a promotional face in the hole board to take along with them. Here they are sharing board photos on social media.

They were able to take the board along with them because it folds in two and is easy to carry and set up. Imagine taking the board in the photo on a plane – what a kerfuffle that would be! Well, we thought of that, so our conference boards have the option of coming as a folding two-piece that you can carry under your arm. Wavegrip are going to use their folding board at their next event as well (an expo in Germany), and the next one after that. For a small outlay they now have an excellent marketing tool that screams about their products and that people have fun interacting with and taking photos of (which they are likely to then share on social media, further promoting the brand).

We also make promotional cutouts without face holes to dot around exhibition spaces and use on stands – we can make any shape, size and design required and put whatever branding or message you ask for on them. A fun way of promoting your brand!

Got a product, brand or cause to promote? Call us to talk about how we can get people into it!