Imagine you have travelled all the way to the southeast coast of China to attend a travel-centered event. You are already a bit off kilter by being so far away from home and being thrust into this brand new culture. Your car slows down in front of a gorgeous hotel, and you lay your eyes on it: a huge inflatable helium balloon.
The international event was hosted by a British travel agency at the Sheraton Grand Macao on the “Las Vegas of Asia” Cotai strip in Macau. Australia’s P&O Cruises knew they had to ensure their marketing strategy for the occasion was just as impressive.
We here at Inflatable Anything love meeting the challenge of enhancing any event into something exciting and memorable, and we really could not wait to try to match this inflatable helium balloon with the grandeur of the locale!
Mapping the Strip
The client wanted to have a brand activation of sorts. The plan was to create a 30 kilogram, plain white inflatable helium balloon with a branded banner secured to the end of it. Overall, it was simple enough. Though we had no previous experience creating this kind of unit, it basically followed the same formula we are accustomed to—a sealed off inflatable prop. The greatest obstacle we faced on this project was actually waiting on and replicating the artwork for the 5.2 metres high by 6 metres wide banner.
Big City Lights
Again, the balloon part of this inflatable was just a standard white, so the only artwork we had to worry about was printing the client’s branding onto the banner. After we received the file, we entered it into our computer-assisted designing software to superimpose the image to fit the dimensions of the banner.
We make it a point to only offer our very best solutions from start to finish on all of our projects, and when it comes to printing logos, both Pantone and four colour process inks do an excellent job at colour matching. However, only the latter can actually be used on a digital printer, which ultimately provides the best print since the method has the ability to lay down inks all at the same time. This results in an aesthetically pleasing and perfectly vivid image to represent your business
Inflatable Helium Balloon Rises to the Occasion
As mentioned, this larger-than-life, 6 metres high inflatable helium balloon very closely resembled a bespoke and custom product we have frequently made over the last 15 years. Out of the 2 best-solution materials we offer, polyvinyl chloride is the more durable option because the polymer is very similar to plastic.
The material can be manipulated with direct heat to weld together panels, adding even more oomph to the inflatable helium balloon’s durability. This mechanical strength allows PVC to hold the supplied air in place well enough that it does not require a constant blower to stay upright. The most upkeep the inflatable requires during an event is a quick top off of air, or in this case helium, every few hours if it starts to deflate a bit.
As far as this time consuming banner goes, the material that best holds a print is polyester. In this case it was especially important because it was the only part of the inflatable helium balloon with the cruise line’s branding on it. The polymer also, while a bit more flexible than polyvinyl chloride overall, retains its shape really well and can easily resist things like fading, puckering, or wrinkling.
I Want to Get Away!
Waiting on the artwork from the client definitely pushed us back a bit, which was mostly worrying in this case because not only did we have to produce the unit and send it through quality control and other protocols, but the deadline absolutely had to be met to ensure that the inflatable helium balloon would catch its international flight to Macau.
Luckily, the structure made it just in time for the trip, and when it got to the venue, we’d already arranged for assistance in installing the unit, using locally sourced helium we helped advise on so they would not have to pay for international shipping of that too. We tried our hardest, and we hope P&O Cruises appreciated just how much effort we put toward trying to relieve some of their stress.
We absolutely love a good challenge here at Inflatable Anything, and we can’t wait to see what ideas you have in store for us! Contact our team of experienced professionals today.
