Looking Towards BIBA 2026: Forging A Distinct Identity
- Molly Phillips
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
The British Insurance Brokers Association (BIBA) conference 2026 is almost upon us!
A staple in the IMAGE calendar, it’s another one of those annual events which teaches us a lot about consistency, showing up for your audience, and carving out your little corner of a busy industry.
So, before we pack our bags and head to BIBA, let’s take a moment to reflect on what we're learning this time, and what we’re looking forward to.
Understanding Insurance Audiences
All consumer audiences are built on trust. But in insurance, this matters more than most.
With insurance, there is no single, physical product to sell.
Instead, you are selling a relationship that will help businesses and individuals in the long haul.
They have to trust that you will help them; that there will be a pay-off.
Your exhibition stand, and the way that you use it as a backdrop to interactions with insurance audiences, will help establish that trust.
For example, leaning into your brand’s heritage as a feature of your design can demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about. Creating moments of real connection with stand visitors is also important.
It all comes down to being consistent and then showing that consistency, year-on-year. It all comes down to your brand’s identity, and how you visualise it.
Brand Identity at Events
Good marketing is the process of carving out an identity for your brand. Establishing why your brand is different to the other ones, and all the places it came from.
That’s how people learn to recognise your brand and recall it when they next want the service that your brand offers.
For events like BIBA, brand recognition comes down to a few things:
Colours, shapes, and slogans – the things that make your brand recognisable. Iconic colours, shapes and slogans carve out your vibes, defining your corner of BIBA. This helps people find you year-on-year and, beyond the event, when they look you up online.
So, as we support our clients to set up at BIBA 2026, you’ll see familiar colours and shapes creeping into our social media channels.
Aviva’s blue, yellow and purple, for example, are currently taking form across our workshop, ready to come together across their expansive plot. Last year’s exhibition stand for Aviva made the most of their central spot, splashing the vast space with those iconic colours which give their stand consistency. At the same time, we worked with them to transform the plot's layout to suit 2025's aims: connection and conversation.
Above their plot was: ‘Here for you’, in big, blue letters. A trust-building sentiment and simple-yet-effective brand message.
Which brings us neatly onto our next point...
Messaging – bring a consistent message to each BIBA you attend. A message that’s splashed all over your digital marketing too.
The consistency in message (and in appearance) is what helps you build that sense of trust, because it creates a touchstone across your events, and carves out your corner of the insurance industry.
It's also an opportunity to hone your brand messaging. Tell the world what it is that
you offer, and why that's different to every other stand. What makes you unique? Or,
what defines your work? How can you sum that up in a single sentence?
Points of connection – these are what first make people notice you. They are then what makes you memorable, after the event.
It’s also where the fun of events marketing comes into its own—an opportunity to really make the most of the medium. Time to get creative, in order to stand out!
Like your branding, these points of connection can (and should) be uniquely you.
There’s no one way of connecting with an audience, as MSIG proved in 2025, when they bought Daisy the Cow along to BIBA.
Daisy was part and parcel of the stand's unique appeal, where visitors competed with a 'milk-the-cow'-themed game.
It was a unique way of introducing their agricultural insurance services, providing that memorable touchpoint for visitors. Ironically for a cow, it also humanised their exhibition stand, by creating that sense of creativity and fun, which shows a lot of thought has gone into the BIBA experience.
What’s Next?
As you’ve gathered, we’re tucked away in our workshop for the next couple of weeks, putting the finishing touches on exhibition stands for our friends in the insurance industry.
Each of these exhibition stands brings something new to BIBA 2026; that, we can promise.
We can promise that because we’ve seen it over and over again at BIBAs over the years.
So, we’ve been getting reflective over at Image we want to whet your appetites.
On our social media accounts over the next week or so, we’ll be revisiting last year’s BIBA, and sharing what we’ve learned—and what you can take away—from building stands for the must-attend insurance event of the year.
If you're in the mood for some insights, you'll find it helpful to check out our Instagram and our LinkedIn.
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