Think back to the last time you went to an event, like a fair or a farmer’s market. Do you remember a large focal point? Perhaps it was a promotional event sign or a vendor’s larger-than-life tent. Most people would say yes, and it’s exactly why organisations do it: it sticks out and is memorable. Prowater wanted to take advantage of this phenomenon by commissioning 3 jumbo inflatable bottles to promote their whey protein, hydrolysed collagen, and antioxidant-rich health drinks at an upcoming trade show in Melbourne.
Here at Inflatable Anything, we take great pride in helping businesses further their brand recognition, especially when they are Australian owned and operated. Three cheers for stimulating our economy! Needless to say, we were very eager to get started on this project.
Creating a Training Schedule
This project called for a unit our company just happens to be very accustomed to constructing after so many years: a scaled up product replica. Generally, it’s very easy to make these kinds of bespoke and custom inflatables because you already have a direct reference for the design and the only thing you really have to worry about is making sure the measurements, as they are adjusted in this case for the jumbo inflatable bottles, stay proportionate to each other. After a brief discussion over the best materials to use to achieve the exact detailing and functionality they wanted, the client signed off on the design and we were all set to get this project under way!
Let Me See You Flex
When it came time to plan out exactly how to construct the units, we knew we had two options in standard material, both of which were perfectly well suited for these jumbo inflatable bottles. Initially we wanted to use polyvinyl chloride. It has the ability to be seam-welded and left inflated, and is therefore quite durable. The client really wanted these bottles to look realistic sans external blowers, hence our suggestion. However, they desired some qualities that could only be achieved using polyester material even more. Internal blowers it is then!
Specifically, they insisted that certain features of the real-life bottles be reflected as closely as possible, such as the ridged lids. The other quality the client required in these jumbo inflatable bottles that polyester could provide was its printing capability. Other materials can have sufficient-enough printing applied to them with no problem, but this polymer can tolerate a technique called dye sublimation.
In said process, high temperatures are used to open up the pores of the material to let the specialty inks really set into the panels. Essentially, the dyes are then permanently embedded into the substrate, rather than printed onto the surface. Because polyester generally takes colour better than others anyway, and because it was applied as a full surface print-applied all at once, not in layers-this gave the jumbo inflatable bottles a fresh, crisp, and vivid appearance. Safe to say it was definitely the best option when you need your brand to leave an impression!
Show Your Stats
The three “flavours”, or variations, in design were pineapple and coconut (yellow), kiwi and strawberry (red), and orange and citrus (obviously, orange), meaning the only real differences in the layouts for the digital printing were the overall colours and parts of the label. Each of these jumbo inflatable bottles were set to be 2.5 meters high and approximately 1 meter wide, and they were to weigh 10 kilograms. If they happened to tilt or wobble at all for some reason, the whole unit would surely come down! We don’t even want to think about what a huge liability that would be at a crowded trade show.
We decided that the best way to avoid such a catastrophe even happening would be to sew in a pouch for a solid piece of plywood in the base to hold them steady, as well as to act as the base for the battery-powered internal blowers.
Final Weigh In
There was a bit of back-and-forth internally as well as with the client, but all the kinks got worked out in the end. In fact, everything was finalised a month before the Melbourne trade show, which gave us more than enough time to construct, perform quality control, and ship out the jumbo inflatable bottles. It was definitely yet another success to add to the books here at Inflatable Anything!
Contact our experienced team today! From one business to another, we assure you we will not even think about stopping until we have fulfilled your every request.
