Street Team Marketing in Queensland and NSWWhen Paint Rolls Into Town, the Town Knows It

Walk-around Paint characters, each with a minder

Paint's new look is all about illustrated characters: chunky, cheeky figures that give a human face to a night of painting, singing and carrying on. The plan is to lift them off the poster and onto the footpath as walk-around costumes made for street teams.

Characters do what no banner can: they make people feel something before a word is spoken. Nobody stays grumpy while a cartoon the size of a doorway waves at them. Phones come out, friends get hauled over by the elbow, and by dinner half the town has a story about the giant painter outside the bakery.

Every character works with a dedicated minder, and that rule doesn't bend for any budget. A costume narrows vision, muffles sound and gets hot fast, so the minder is the character's eyes, ears and voice: guiding through crowds, steering around kerbs, prams and mobility aids, keeping photo queues friendly and calling breaks. The character stays silent and expressive. The minder does the talking, hands over the card and mentions your brand in the exact words you approved.

Characters belong to Paint, so on a standard campaign your brand travels with them rather than on them: on the minder's kit, the cards, the photo backdrop and the walkers' screens. A character co-branded with your business for a whole year is a bigger conversation that lives with our category and founding partners.

LED backpack billboard walkers

Planned for CONNECT alongside the characters, an LED backpack billboard is a slim, bright screen worn on a walker's back, playing a short loop as they move. It's the walking billboard grown up: instead of waiting for foot traffic, it goes where the foot traffic already is.

Walkers slip into places a fixed sign can't: the laneway behind the market, the cinema queue, the foreshore on a Saturday arvo, the pub strip as the sun drops. That last one matters, because the evening of a Paint night is when people decide where to go, and a glowing screen at dusk is hard to miss.

A screen read over someone's shoulder gets a glance, so loops stay short: the night's artwork, the town, the date, your brand and a QR code big enough to scan from a few steps back. You approve every frame. Walkers keep moving, hug the edges of a path and step aside for anyone who needs the room. The concert-style screens going into Paint's rooms are a separate thing, covered under event partnerships; the backpacks are strictly for the street.

Pop-up mini canvases at markets and shopping centres

This is Paint in miniature, and it's the format that turns curiosity into commitment. A pop-up table, a stack of mini canvases, a few brushes, a handful of colours. Passers-by pull up a stool for a few minutes and add their touch to a tiny pre-sketched design, often a pocket-sized preview of the artwork the town will paint at the night itself.

It works because it's a taste, not a talk. Someone who has just spent a few happy minutes on a tiny sunset already knows what a Paint night feels like, and she walks away holding something she made, with your brand on the back and a card saying where the full-size version happens tomorrow.

Your brand can sit on the table wrap, the canvas backing, the little paper bag or the card tucked inside. If the night carries sponsored artwork, the street version previews it, so the brand detail people dab on at the market on Friday is the one they paint in full on Saturday night.

Pop-ups need a host: a market stall, a centre's promotional space or an approved spot outside a friendly local business. The table is styled and staffed so it reads clearly as a sneak peek of a night built for grown-ups, not a free craft corner.

Character photo ops

Give people a reason to take a photo and they'll happily share the fun with their friends. A character photo op is a simple, bright spot to pose with a Paint character: a backdrop carrying the town's name and the date of the night, your brand placed as a natural part of the scene, and a small sign inviting people to share.

Local beats generic. A backdrop that names the town gets shared far more than a logo wall, because people love proof they were somewhere specific. Photo ops come with firm consent rules, set out in the preparation section below.

Town-specific QR cards

The humble card is still the workhorse of any street team, so we make ours worth keeping: sturdy stock, Paint's illustrated style, printed for one town only. A card that names the town, the venue and the date feels like an invitation from a neighbour. A card that could be from anywhere ends up in the first bin.

Every card carries your brand, a clear "brought to you by" line so nobody is in doubt about who paid, and a QR code that leads somewhere useful: your offer, your landing page, or a page about the night that features you. Where it points is your call. If your offer collects sign-ups, they come straight to you through your own form; Paint never hands over anyone's details. The full mechanics of offers, codes and opt-ins live on the product sampling page. What's different on the street is that cards are coded by spot, not just by town, which the attribution section explains.

The golden canvas hunt

This is the one that sets the group chats alight. Before the night, a small number of golden canvas cards are hidden around town. Find one and you can claim a seat at the night. Clues drop on Paint's social channels across the day before and the day of. People start looking. They tag their friends. They argue about whether the clue means the post office or the newsagent. Shops that host a card can expect a parade of hunters through the door.

The prize is always a seat, never money off a ticket. A golden canvas is a gift, not a markdown. The seats are real seats at the standard ticket price, funded as part of your campaign, and your brand is the name the lucky finders thank.

A hunt only works if it's fair and safe, so every golden canvas hunt runs under written terms published before the first clue goes live. The terms set out who can take part (adults only), how and where to claim, the claim deadline, one claim per person, what happens to any card nobody finds, and that no purchase is needed. Cards are only ever hidden inside businesses that have given written permission. Never in gardens, parks, bushland, roadsides, beaches or anywhere a hunter could get hurt or bother a neighbour.

Each hunt is checked against the trade promotion rules in its state before launch, and any permit needed is in hand before anything is announced. Paint's wider approach to chance, skill and permits sits with event partnerships. For a hunt, the rule is simple: no terms, no clues.

Street sampling, non-alcohol only

If your product suits a quick try on the footpath, the street team can put it in hands. Hand cream at the market table. An icy soft drink on a sticky afternoon. A bite-sized snack outside the centre. Lip balm clipped to the QR card. Street sampling is non-alcohol, always, in every town and every campaign, with no "just a splash" exceptions.

Brands with alcohol in the range still have a place on the street. The crew promotes the night and the brand's presence at it, to adults only, with no product and no drink-focused material handed over. Anything poured happens inside the night under the venue's licence, and the event partnerships page explains how.