If you’re looking for an experience in the promotional products industry, Brand Fuel (asi/145025) is a great place to start. It’s not just because the distributor, led by Co-Presidents Danny Rosin and Robert Fiveash, has earned a reputation for creativity, zany stunts and an overall sense of mirth. Brand Fuel has actually created defined brand experiences that customers can buy and use in their own marketing efforts. “This is all sort of uncharted territory,” Rosin says.

The company has found some success selling the experiences, but that isn’t the entire point. Rosin says it’s also part of the distributor’s “go-to market strategy” and “differentiator” that has earned the distributor buzz and even awards (including a Promotional Campaign award from Counselor in 2016). It’s the most visible example of Brand Fuel’s deep belief in the power of experiential marketing.

“That’s how you convene people – you have some sort of fun experience,” says Rosin. “It builds community and ultimately starts the relationship with a prospective buyer. And eventually, you can start to sell them and talk about their needs.”

In the past few years, Brand Fuel has created a number of experiences – ideas that the distributor’s staff has workshopped at conferences and events before offering them for sale. All of them are geared for fun and designed to create meaningful brand experiences. Here, Rosin shares the inspiration behind four of the company’s most prominent creations.

Paint for Swag

Description: Participants reach into a bowl and pick a random brand-related prompt, consisting of one word or a phrase. Next, they pick up a paintbrush and create abstract art that demonstrates their interpretation of the brand phrase. Team members take turns in this collaborative exercise on one giant canvas, which (along with aprons and painting kits) can be taken back to the office for discussion and pride. Brand Fuel sees it as a team-building exercise that will capture the interests of corporate HR departments.

Inspiration: “We were trying to figure out a way to connect art, design and creativity in some way through an experience,” Rosin says. “We were talking about the places where you can go with your friends and paint. And we started thinking, how do we replicate that for our clients? The idea was to try and get people away from their desk and devices and do creative things.”

Swag Lottery Machine

Description: Step right up to the “Surprising Wondrous Audacious Giveaway" Lottery Machine! Users insert a “Swag Ticket” with their name and email address and pull a lever – and a vinyl record with a strategically placed Brand Fuel sticker magically appears. (It’s really a person inside doling out the goods.) The sticker offers a reward code for digital music, movies, charitable donations and more. Brand Fuel unveiled the Lottery Machine at its booth for a marketing conference, proving to be the hit of the show and garnering massive visibility on social media.

Inspiration: “Marketers don’t like being marketed to, so we had to do something so special, off the wall, quirky, fun and surprising, that it would get them to say ‘These guys are truly different’ and have them stop by our booth,” Rosin says. “The idea was to make something memorably analog in a digital world. Someone is actually in a box with two arms coming out at you. Just the look on people’s faces was worth the price of admission.”

Test of Bravery

Description: Visitors who go to the “Test of Bravery” are greeted with three curtained areas: Brave, Braver and Braviest. Pick a window, put your hand inside and be prepared for an unexpected sensation. Items range from temporary tattoos to slap bracelets to branded shot glasses (filled with ranch dressing soda). Afterwards, visitors walk away with a cool gift.

Inspiration: “We basically reversed the idea of the Swag Lottery Machine,” Rosin says. “So instead of our arms coming out of the thing, we thought, ‘What if our clients put their arms into a box?’ Like Halloween when you reach in and feel some gooey stuff. And the bigger piece we all agreed on as a team was that we want our clients to first and foremost trust us – trust us with their brands, trust us to advise them. One of our catchphrases is ‘Be Brave – be brave with your brand.’ You see the same trade show booth over and over again. You’ve got to be different. And that means being a bit brave.”

Kindness Container

Description: Brand Fuel souped-up a cash blowing machine and redubbed it the “Kindness Container.” Participants step in and have an allotted amount of time to grab as much fluttering cash as possible. Once they’re done, Brand Fuel replaces the crumpled cash with fresh bills along with a sticky note that reads: “I agree to use this money to sprinkle kindness in the world,” and a hashtag for people to share what they did with the money. Participants received buttons that read “I’m a sprinkler of kindness” as well as “Kindness Container” mason jars for people to store change or use as drinkware.

Inspiration: Rosin says: “It was our 20th anniversary, so what do we do? And then we thought, what about giving back in some way to say thank you for the people who’ve been buying from us for all that time? We talked about giving money to causes in the community and connecting that to the brand. Then the idea was, what if we create a Giving Tree like in the Shel Silverstein book? It comes out over our booth with five dollar bills clipped to the branches. And then as we fleshed it out a little more, somebody suggested a cash blowing machine.”