How Promotional Calendars can Tell the Story of Your Brand #CleverPromoGifts

Promotional calendars are known to be the perfect medium for campaigns that involve storytelling. With their natural way of displaying a different aspect of a brand on each individual page they can easily be adjusted to show a progression of a story.

We were inspired by media agency TWBC Marcom in Cochin India to explain how you can use advertising calendars to tell your brand story.

What did they do?

TWBC Marcom got involved in a campaign to raise awareness about water conservation. As they wanted to create an emotional message that will bring the issue to heart, they used storytelling as their chosen technique.

The agency designed promotional calendars with a simple but powerful visual design that changed throughout the year.

January features a tank full of water - representing the ocean. The fish inside look like they have plenty of room to thrive. They are complemented by colourful ocean floor and bright blue water. As the pages are flicked over through the year, this idyllic marine landscape changes in a poignant way. Water gradually disappears month by month, resulting in the inevitable impact on the fish within the tank. They have less and less space and they are struggling. By December, nothing but a dried-up seabed remains.

The calendar showed water levels gradually going down until the sea had dried up completely

The calendars were accompanied by a message that emphasised water's essential part in sustaining life on Earth. They were distributed in India to encourage people to reduce water use during their Diwali celebrations and beyond.

Why use storytelling?

The fish tank used in the example above is symbolic. The way it changes triggers consideration for protecting water resources in all our seas and oceans. Displaying the progression of the situation over time is a classic example of storytelling.

We are naturally drawn to stories from a young age. A cleverly construed sequence of events can evoke and build emotions. This makes it more powerful than other marketing techniques as it connects brands with our basic instincts and gives them personality. A good story makes it easier for people to relate to a topic and makes it easy to understand.

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How to develop a promotional calendar design for your brand?

Storytelling is usually seen as the domain of PR - using blogs and articles. An advertising calendar can be as successful.

Promotional calendars give the opportunity to create a cohesive message that builds up as the months pass and sheets are flicked over one by one. You can produce a story that ties in with what your company or organisation does to build an emotional connection with your custmer base.

You can choose a wall or a desk calendar to tell your brand story.

Developing a customised promotional calendar that will convey your own message is easy.

First, pick the style and size that best ties in with your client base and their needs. Promotional calendars are usually pre-designed with all necessary dates information in a universal font that creates a plain background that will not distract from your message.

Secondly, pick the range of pictures to include. Companies can pick standard collections including destination and nature pictures. To make your story stand out, you can provide your own.

Just as with the fish tank example, use imagery to make customers relate to your brand. Here are some examples of what you could include in your wall calendar:

1. Use each month to show pictures of your local area and add notes about how you are part of this community.
2. Show key elements of your company timeline each month with a related image. Make sure your customers are featured in these.
3. Display images of your customer as they use your product through the year while going about their life.
4. Show the changes in your customer's environment over time that are caused by your product (positive change) or by lack of it (negative change).

If your main sales period is over Christmas, with a storytelling wall calendar you can make sure your customers have an emotional connection with your brand by December.

Finally, in addition to selecting or providing your monthly images, send over your logo and any other imagery or text that you want included in every page. Our graphics design team can combine all elements to be included within your template to make sure the overall composition looks attractive and on brand. It's worth noting that you always have the chance to amend artwok before approving it for print.

If you have an idea for a similarly powerful promotional calendar design, take a look at the advertising calendars on our website. All can be customised with your details.

Get in touch if you'd like to discuss how we can make your promotional calendar idea happen.