Let Printed Vinyl Hoarding Graphics Tell Your Story

Renovation and refurbishment is an industry on the rise as the high street adapts to changing consumer demands. Where once retailers sought to pack out their stores with as much stock as possible, the modern retail experience demands spacious, design conscious experiences that provide everything internet shopping lacks.

With every refurbishment comes a chance to tell a story – for your business and the brand you’re working with; all while building excitement for the project and maybe even landing you your next contract.

What are vinyl hoarding graphics?

Generally fixed to UPVC hoarding, vinyl hoarding graphics are large scale printed materials used to beautify brand around a construction site or building refurbishment. While there are many materials that can be used for this function, the versatility and relative durability of vinyl makes it an excellent material for the purpose.

Branding and storytelling

We discuss some of the other uses of printed hoardings elsewhere on the blog, but here we want to concentrate on branding and storytelling. 

Quite often, large scale vinyl printed hoardings are used either to depict a ‘finished product’ (generally a computer generated image of the completed project) or simply as a kind of billboard across which businesses plaster their logo – but these approaches overlook the potential of such large spaces to tell a story about your business and your project.

There are a couple of reasons for missing such an opportunity – either there is a lack of design capacity within the business, meaning that creating such large scale designs is impossible without additional outlay, or there is a specific branding request from the client (see the Stella McCartney hoarding in the blog linked above). 

While the latter may be insurmountable (though, with negotiation, most brands are happy to donate at least a portion of a hoarding design to the company they have chosen to work with), cost of design work is, more often than not, outweighed by the opportunity such advertisement presents.

What we mean by branding and storytelling

Put simply, branding is the way you communicate the identity of your business and its unique position in the market and brand storytelling is a way of employing your branding to create an emotional connection with an audience.

How this relates to printed vinyl hoarding

Your hoarding can do so much more than provide a glimpse into the future of the product or provide a logo and contact number. The size of even the smallest printed hoarding provides an opportunity to speak to an audience that may not otherwise encounter your brand. For that reason, you want to help them get to know you better.

• Other projects: – one commonly overlooked type of imagery is previous projects. While you may want passers-by to know that the current project is in good hands with CG concept art, there are few ways to demonstrate your expertise that are better than past projects – projects that passers-by may already be familiar with. So while we would never discourage the use of concept art, it can also help to build trust and affinity with your business by showing the exceptional results of your past work.
• Your story and heritage: – whether it’s done as a timeline, or in text, vinyl hoardings present an amazing opportunity to tell the story of your business: when was it founded; why was it founded; what sectors are your specialities; what awards has your work won? All of these can be presented in attention grabbing ways that flex your brand’s creative muscles and help cement your name in the minds of potential customers.
• Creating a narrative: – by combining both the past projects and story elements, it’s possible to craft a narrative that passers-by can take in as they walk past a project. Be proud of the work you’ve done and the business you’re building and use both elements to create a story which quickly communicates the excellence of your work and the trustworthiness of your brand.

Why this is important

As we mentioned at the start of this blog, the highstreet is in the midst of a huge change. The covid pandemic changed the way many people view in-person shopping, but it also reinforced the shift of many large brands to a primarily online focus – and in doing so demonstrated the dangers of relying on large retail chains to fill highstreet units.

Combined with efforts by local councils to encourage the filling of empty units and with campaigns to reclaim the highstreet, the way our town and city centres function is on the brink of large scale change – a prediction shared by John Timpson who, in a 2021 article by WIRED is quoted as saying:

A large number of town centres, if they don’t do something about it, will have a real problem. Town centres need to have a community hub, with shops alongside medical centres, entertainment venues, restaurants and cafes – all sorts of things that people will go to.

While this change has been slowed by the UKs economic difficulties, it can nevertheless be seen by the boom in ‘pop-up stores’ and a shift to ‘experiential retail’ from brands looking to engage with a customer base that is increasingly looking to engage with the brands they love in new ways.

To cut a long story short – we are looking at an impending boom in refurbishment on the highstreet as local councils look to breathe new life into town and city centres that have been in near constant decline for the best part of three decades. That means that there will be a lot of work to win – and you want to be at the front of mind when it comes. 

There are few ways to achieve this better than by making sure that your current and future projects are telling the right story. After all, those passers-by may well include the very people looking for a partner as they revolutionise town and city centres across the UK.

Lavastar’s Vinyl Hoarding Graphics

Lavastar was founded in 2015 and has become a relied-upon provider of vinyl hoarding graphics for businesses throughout the UK. We offer a comprehensive, end-to-end service, and have built in-house teams of skilled designers, manufacturers, and installers. 

Our commitment to customers extends beyond the usual – we strive to partner with our customers to help capture your brand identity. From concept to print to seamless installation, we make sure that your vinyl hoarding graphics are more than just a pretty picture. We’re a team you can trust.

For more information about our vinyl hoarding graphics, reach out to our team at 01252 850818 or info@lavastar.co.uk.