However on The National Wedding Show they have a link on their navigation bar for competitions.
Promo!
After searching high and low over Ben Howard's website, Twitter and Facebook I couldn't find any offers or ticket give-away's :(
However on The National Wedding Show they have a link on their navigation bar for competitions.
However on The National Wedding Show they have a link on their navigation bar for competitions.
Schramm's model
Sponsorship
'Sponsorship is a mutually beneficial arrangement that consists of the provision of resources of funds, goods and/or services ... in return for a set of rights that can be used in communications activity, for the achievements of objectives for commercial gain.’- Masterman, Guy (2007)
Why should you sponsor an event?
By sponsoring an event you're giving yourself a competitive advantage over other companies as you're raising awareness of your company in relation to a relevant event. You can build an image of yourself in the industry and perhaps a good reputation if you were at a prestigious or important event. You can also develop and maintain a relationship with an event so that you can get repeat customer to them or more coverage.
Its also important that your sponsor suits your event so that the target audiences match and the sponsor is relevant to your event.
Sponsor of Ben Howard's UK tour - I've trawled the internet to find out whether Ben Howard has a sponsor on his tour and it seems he doesn't. All I can find is that he is 'supported' by Communion music.
The National Wedding Show - From the website I have found what appears to be the sponsors down the right hand side of the of the page.
xoxo
Why should you sponsor an event?
By sponsoring an event you're giving yourself a competitive advantage over other companies as you're raising awareness of your company in relation to a relevant event. You can build an image of yourself in the industry and perhaps a good reputation if you were at a prestigious or important event. You can also develop and maintain a relationship with an event so that you can get repeat customer to them or more coverage.
Its also important that your sponsor suits your event so that the target audiences match and the sponsor is relevant to your event.
Sponsor of Ben Howard's UK tour - I've trawled the internet to find out whether Ben Howard has a sponsor on his tour and it seems he doesn't. All I can find is that he is 'supported' by Communion music.
The National Wedding Show - From the website I have found what appears to be the sponsors down the right hand side of the of the page.
xoxo
Strong and Weak Theory
The Basis of Strong theory is that advertisements can persuade anyone to buy a product they have never purchased before, the theory suggests advertisements can change peoples views, beliefs, behaviour and attitudes of the target audience. Jones (1991) suggested that the strong theory can change people buying habits in the long-term.
Weak theory on the other hand Ehrenberg (1974) suggested that advertising is not effective in making people purchase a new product but just enhances the customers belief in a product they already buy, increasing brand loyalty.
The National Wedding Show is an example of the Strong theory as most people only get married once in their life therefore the advertisements would be persuading them to buy a product they had never had before. Whereas with Ben Howard illustrates how weak theory works as people are mainly going to attend his shows on the basis of already liking his music. It would be rare for somebody to purchase a gig ticket if they had never heard of him other than seeing him on an advert.
xoxo
The Social Media Revolution
'We don't have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it' - Erik Qualman author of Socialnomics
The increase of usage of social media in the past few years has caused a massive affect on the way things are advertised for example in 2010 Coca-Cola cut its spending on advertising by 6.6% but increased its spending on social media. (full article). A massive 77% of UK consumers use information from blogs to influence their purchases compared to only 14%using adverts. We're in the middle of a social media revolution and I feel things are only going to escalate. (Interesting video)
Use of social media
The National Wedding Show
On The National Wedding Show website there is no information about following on them on Facebook and when you 'Like' their page the only information you seem to get is about celebrity weddings and a running commentary about what's going on at the event, they don't seem to be interested in advertising the event, In my opinion they should have used Facebook to try and sell more tickets to the event rather than report on celebrity weddings.
This is vastly different to Ben Howard's Facebook page where every post is 'him' promoting his album or trying to persuade people to buy tickets. He also announces which festivals he will be playing over the summer and reporting on the atmosphere of the gigs he's just played. I think status updates like these are quite helpful as it advertises to people in a more informal way as the statuses are not constantly bombarding your news feed.
Twitter
Twitter marketing jumped from 3% of companies in 2008 to 49% in 2009, that being the most recent statistic I could find but it has most definitely increased since then. In 2010 25 Billion tweets were sent so it seems right that advertising must move to twitter as well. Although the only downside to twitter advertising is 43% of people unfollow companies because of too many push marketing strategies.
Ben Howard's twitter reflects his Facebook as all the tweets are about his upcoming shows but also tracking his progress on tour.
The increase of usage of social media in the past few years has caused a massive affect on the way things are advertised for example in 2010 Coca-Cola cut its spending on advertising by 6.6% but increased its spending on social media. (full article). A massive 77% of UK consumers use information from blogs to influence their purchases compared to only 14%using adverts. We're in the middle of a social media revolution and I feel things are only going to escalate. (Interesting video)
Use of social media
The National Wedding Show
On The National Wedding Show website there is no information about following on them on Facebook and when you 'Like' their page the only information you seem to get is about celebrity weddings and a running commentary about what's going on at the event, they don't seem to be interested in advertising the event, In my opinion they should have used Facebook to try and sell more tickets to the event rather than report on celebrity weddings.
Twitter marketing jumped from 3% of companies in 2008 to 49% in 2009, that being the most recent statistic I could find but it has most definitely increased since then. In 2010 25 Billion tweets were sent so it seems right that advertising must move to twitter as well. Although the only downside to twitter advertising is 43% of people unfollow companies because of too many push marketing strategies.
Ben Howard's twitter reflects his Facebook as all the tweets are about his upcoming shows but also tracking his progress on tour.
The National Wedding Show
The National Wedding Show also reflects their Facebook as the tweets are mainly about celebrity weddings and links to wedding blogs. The National Wedding Show has 5072 followers whereas Ben Howard has 53337. This probably reflects the audience as a more younger audience will be on twitter whereas the older audience of The National Wedding Show might not be using twitter.
xoxo
186 Google alerts later.....
We'll get onto those Google alerts!
Firstly, emails.
I signed up to both The National Wedding Show and Ben Howard's mailing list.
After signing up to Ben Howard's Mailing list in January I have received 4 emails in total, one thanking me for signing up, another one which was practically identical to the first just telling me that 'Ben' added me to his mailing list (I wish!). I received one mid February telling me to buy his album and then one at the end of February trying to persuade me to go on his American tour. I thought I would receive more emails as when you sign up you are made to believe that you're going to be emailed Ben's every move.
Having said that I only received one email from The National Wedding Show and that was a registration email, I thought I would receive more emails with offers or incentives for me to attend the show. However this could be due to the fact that social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace are taking over the internet and the way we communicate. In July 2009 250 million people were on Facebook, as an old statistic that number would have increased significantly but that's another story, or perhaps just another post.
Also on the subject of emails I emailed The National Wedding Shows marketing team twice with no response :( and I emailed the only email I could find on Ben Howard's website with no response too :(
When I signed up for Ben Howard's mailing list I also had to give my address because I would get sent things through the post, I haven't been sent any advertising through the post thus far :(
However according to the KMRSoftware only 27.9% of people make a purchase due to direct mail, so maybe that's why The National Wedding Show don't even take your address because they feel it would be a waste of time and money for them.
Oh Google alerts!!
As suggested I signed up to Google alerts (basically enter key words 'Ben Howard' and 'National Wedding Show' and receive emails when they are mentioned or are a hot topic on the internet) F
or the first few days I really enjoyed getting the alerts and looking at all the articles, however after receiving 186 alerts on my phone at all hours of the night and day I have to say I will be relieved when I can finally turn them off!
Most of the Ben Howard notifications were just for announced festivals over the summer and because festivals are the hot topic at the moment (with tickets just being put on sale) a lot of the articles were the same or people blogging about him and the festival. I didn't seem to get as many notifications from The National Wedding Show but the ones I did get were all from wedding blog name dropping The National Wedding Show as the place to be for brides to be. There was a lot more advertising going on for The National Wedding Show than Ben Howard's tour, only a handful of the alerts mentioned the tour whereas every alert for The Wedding Show was trying to persuade you to attend and buy tickets.
xoxo
Firstly, emails.
I signed up to both The National Wedding Show and Ben Howard's mailing list.
After signing up to Ben Howard's Mailing list in January I have received 4 emails in total, one thanking me for signing up, another one which was practically identical to the first just telling me that 'Ben' added me to his mailing list (I wish!). I received one mid February telling me to buy his album and then one at the end of February trying to persuade me to go on his American tour. I thought I would receive more emails as when you sign up you are made to believe that you're going to be emailed Ben's every move.
Having said that I only received one email from The National Wedding Show and that was a registration email, I thought I would receive more emails with offers or incentives for me to attend the show. However this could be due to the fact that social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace are taking over the internet and the way we communicate. In July 2009 250 million people were on Facebook, as an old statistic that number would have increased significantly but that's another story, or perhaps just another post.
Also on the subject of emails I emailed The National Wedding Shows marketing team twice with no response :( and I emailed the only email I could find on Ben Howard's website with no response too :(
When I signed up for Ben Howard's mailing list I also had to give my address because I would get sent things through the post, I haven't been sent any advertising through the post thus far :(
However according to the KMRSoftware only 27.9% of people make a purchase due to direct mail, so maybe that's why The National Wedding Show don't even take your address because they feel it would be a waste of time and money for them.
Oh Google alerts!!As suggested I signed up to Google alerts (basically enter key words 'Ben Howard' and 'National Wedding Show' and receive emails when they are mentioned or are a hot topic on the internet) F
or the first few days I really enjoyed getting the alerts and looking at all the articles, however after receiving 186 alerts on my phone at all hours of the night and day I have to say I will be relieved when I can finally turn them off!
Most of the Ben Howard notifications were just for announced festivals over the summer and because festivals are the hot topic at the moment (with tickets just being put on sale) a lot of the articles were the same or people blogging about him and the festival. I didn't seem to get as many notifications from The National Wedding Show but the ones I did get were all from wedding blog name dropping The National Wedding Show as the place to be for brides to be. There was a lot more advertising going on for The National Wedding Show than Ben Howard's tour, only a handful of the alerts mentioned the tour whereas every alert for The Wedding Show was trying to persuade you to attend and buy tickets.
xoxo
How could I forget Google..
I forgot to include Google search results in my last post about websites :O
When I typed The National Wedding Show into Google I was greeted by 11,700,00 results :/ Great!
The entire first page all were relevant links to The National Wedding Show, the websites included ticket sales and individual exhibitor websites stating they were attending The National Wedding Show.
I received a similar result when I searched Ben Howard, all the first page was relevant links to his pages (Myspace, Facebook, Twitter etc) Links to his videos and one website for purchasing tickets from. However if you search 'Ben Howard UK Tour' the first link is a pink pay-by-click advert from Ticketmaster.
xoxo
When I typed The National Wedding Show into Google I was greeted by 11,700,00 results :/ Great!The entire first page all were relevant links to The National Wedding Show, the websites included ticket sales and individual exhibitor websites stating they were attending The National Wedding Show.
I received a similar result when I searched Ben Howard, all the first page was relevant links to his pages (Myspace, Facebook, Twitter etc) Links to his videos and one website for purchasing tickets from. However if you search 'Ben Howard UK Tour' the first link is a pink pay-by-click advert from Ticketmaster.
xoxo
The Websites
Seen as though my last few posts were quite text heavy you'll be happy to know this one has a few pictures.
I decided to compare the websites to see how accessible they were, whether any of the links led to dead ends and whether you could find all the information needed.
We'll start with Ben Howard's website.
When you log onto Ben Howard's website (http://www.benhowardmusic.co.uk/) you're greeted with a simple web page that has an equally as simple navigation bar at the top, I found no dead links, if you click on store it takes you to an external site where you can buy merchandise from which is quite useful as it means you can stay on the original website and shop on-line for his merchandise. I feel this website is really easy to use and navigate.
The National Wedding Show
The National Wedding Show's website is very easy to navigate, the navigation bar also has separate sections within it which makes it easy to find what you want. However the home page does have a lot of 'stuff' going on so it can get quite confusing, it's filled with adverts for magazines, hotels and wedding blogs, all of which are necessary for a bride but perhaps they don't necessarily need to be on the home page.
It's difficult to compare both websites as one is not specifically for the event (Ben Howard's) whereas The National Wedding Show's website is all about making you buy the tickets. When you click on 'Buy Tickets' both websites link you to an external ticket seller, pretty standard for any website.
The obvious differences between the adverts is that The National Wedding Show is created mainly for women, it uses pinks, white and pale blues, colours that are usually associated with femininity. The background is also very soft and swirly, it is clear the website has been designed for a majority women audience. In great contrast is Ben Howard'd website which mainly uses grey and black, Usually I would think this would cause a more masculine feel to the website but I feel the soft grey creates an almost unisex feel to the website, it doesn't look girly but also doesn't feel to manly. (Not the technical terms :p )
I managed to sign up to both of the events, I got an automatic confirmation email through from Ben Howard's website straight away. I found that the Wedding Show wasn't so simple, It took 3 attempts for me to successfully sign up as it kept automatically redirecting me to the homepage, eventually I received a confirmation email. (I'll talk about emails I've received in a later post, also not forgetting the dreaded Google alerts)
I'd say that The National Wedding Show's website was better for advertising the event as it constantly had a side bar with a link to buy tickets and the VIP ticket offer so whatever page you were on, you couldn't escape it. Whereas Ben Howard's page is more promotion him and his music, then you have to know he's on tour to bother looking at the 'Live' link on the navigation bar to get dates and tickets.
I do however have one final rant about The National Wedding Show website, the fact that every time you click on the homepage a loud video starts playing automatically and you have to try and scroll down the page to find it and stop it, but then again maybe its just me that finds it annoying.
xoxo
I decided to compare the websites to see how accessible they were, whether any of the links led to dead ends and whether you could find all the information needed.
We'll start with Ben Howard's website.
The National Wedding Show
The National Wedding Show's website is very easy to navigate, the navigation bar also has separate sections within it which makes it easy to find what you want. However the home page does have a lot of 'stuff' going on so it can get quite confusing, it's filled with adverts for magazines, hotels and wedding blogs, all of which are necessary for a bride but perhaps they don't necessarily need to be on the home page.
It's difficult to compare both websites as one is not specifically for the event (Ben Howard's) whereas The National Wedding Show's website is all about making you buy the tickets. When you click on 'Buy Tickets' both websites link you to an external ticket seller, pretty standard for any website.
The obvious differences between the adverts is that The National Wedding Show is created mainly for women, it uses pinks, white and pale blues, colours that are usually associated with femininity. The background is also very soft and swirly, it is clear the website has been designed for a majority women audience. In great contrast is Ben Howard'd website which mainly uses grey and black, Usually I would think this would cause a more masculine feel to the website but I feel the soft grey creates an almost unisex feel to the website, it doesn't look girly but also doesn't feel to manly. (Not the technical terms :p )
I managed to sign up to both of the events, I got an automatic confirmation email through from Ben Howard's website straight away. I found that the Wedding Show wasn't so simple, It took 3 attempts for me to successfully sign up as it kept automatically redirecting me to the homepage, eventually I received a confirmation email. (I'll talk about emails I've received in a later post, also not forgetting the dreaded Google alerts)
I'd say that The National Wedding Show's website was better for advertising the event as it constantly had a side bar with a link to buy tickets and the VIP ticket offer so whatever page you were on, you couldn't escape it. Whereas Ben Howard's page is more promotion him and his music, then you have to know he's on tour to bother looking at the 'Live' link on the navigation bar to get dates and tickets.
I do however have one final rant about The National Wedding Show website, the fact that every time you click on the homepage a loud video starts playing automatically and you have to try and scroll down the page to find it and stop it, but then again maybe its just me that finds it annoying.
xoxo
Was I right about target audiences?
It is important to know your target audience so you can understand the market you are advertising to. To advertise successfully you must become familiar with their habits, expenditure, annual income, likes and dislikes.
The National Wedding Show
As the average wedding costs £20,000 getting to know your market can prove very lucrative for the exhibitioners at The National Wedding Show.
On The National Wedding Show website I found the following information about their clients. (The information was in the exhibitors section of the website)
- The average household income of visitors is £58,000
- 89% of visitors are in the ABC1 socio-economic band, our audience has the ability, as well as the desire, to splash out!
- The average spend of visitors as a direct results of the show is £1,427
- 97% of visitors come with the bride
- 27% of visitors come with the groom
- Half of all visitors bring the mother of the bride
- 40% of visitors come with their bridesmaids
- You have access to not only the bride but the bridesmaids, mother of the bride, groom and a whole host of the wedding party
- The average group size is 2.6
- 4 out of 5 visitors dont visit any other Wedding Show
- 77% of visitors are getting married within the next 7-18 months you are gaining acces to couples in the early stages of their planning when lots of decisions are still to be made - 69% of visitors say they are in the early stages of their planning
Ben Howard
Unsurprisingly Ben Howard's website doesn't include easy access information about his target audience. I've had a look at some Mintel reports to help work out a more accurate view of his target audience.
Looking at folk music in general Mintel states that this genre is more of a male dominated are with 68% of folk listeners being male and 56% of folk music listeners being over 50. However saying this as Ben Howard's music said to only have folk influences these statistics can not be directly applied however if we have a look at live music events statistics from Mintel (seen as though we are looking at his live shows) we can see that the growth in live music attendees is down to artists targeting the younger audiences through the use of social media, making ticket buying easier and through the increase of awareness of the events.
So far there hasn't really been any similarities between the two events, however I expect that both of the events will use similar techniques in targeting the audiences especially due to the increase of social media in the past few years, we'll just have to see if that is the case in a later blog.
xoxo
What are my events about?!?!
Well my last post introduced which events I was going to do, this blog will hopefully give you a more in depth look at the events I chose. I think both my events are completely different from one another in the type of event they are, hopefully as the blog posts commence I will find out how similar they are in the marketing aspect of them.
The National Wedding Show
The National Wedding Show is a 3 day event taking place on the 24th-26th February at London Olympia, the Wedding show is the UK's biggest Wedding show (also taking place at Birmingham's NEC Arena in March) featuring over 250 different exhibitors supplying everything you need for your big day. Also boasting that it has the largest collection of Wedding dresses under one roof in the UK.
According to the website the event attracts 50,000 visitors a year, If I were to guess at the target market I would put most of these visitors as females aged 25-40 and bringing along their Maid of Honour and their Mum, However that may be me being stereotypical and imagining the exhibition to be reminiscent of Disney princess films, I shall research the target market of the Wedding show in a later blog.
Ben Howard
I chose to follow Ben Howard's tour simply because I'm a fan of his music. He has just finished the UK leg of his tour and is currently in America. I was concentrating on the London dates (23rd,24th February, Shepherds Bush). Ben's music has been described as 'folky' and has only recently (in the past year) become a 'mainstream' artist being played on Radio1 and being featured on music channels on the television. For these reasons I feel that his target audience will consist of many die-hard fans that have followed him from day 1 mixed in with the younger audience (14-24) who perhaps listen to radio 1 or watch the music channels, I could be entirely wrong about this prediction we'll just have to see in the next post.
xoxo
The National Wedding Show
The National Wedding Show is a 3 day event taking place on the 24th-26th February at London Olympia, the Wedding show is the UK's biggest Wedding show (also taking place at Birmingham's NEC Arena in March) featuring over 250 different exhibitors supplying everything you need for your big day. Also boasting that it has the largest collection of Wedding dresses under one roof in the UK.
According to the website the event attracts 50,000 visitors a year, If I were to guess at the target market I would put most of these visitors as females aged 25-40 and bringing along their Maid of Honour and their Mum, However that may be me being stereotypical and imagining the exhibition to be reminiscent of Disney princess films, I shall research the target market of the Wedding show in a later blog.
Ben Howard
I chose to follow Ben Howard's tour simply because I'm a fan of his music. He has just finished the UK leg of his tour and is currently in America. I was concentrating on the London dates (23rd,24th February, Shepherds Bush). Ben's music has been described as 'folky' and has only recently (in the past year) become a 'mainstream' artist being played on Radio1 and being featured on music channels on the television. For these reasons I feel that his target audience will consist of many die-hard fans that have followed him from day 1 mixed in with the younger audience (14-24) who perhaps listen to radio 1 or watch the music channels, I could be entirely wrong about this prediction we'll just have to see in the next post.
xoxo
My event choices
Hi
For my EV402 coursework on Event and Exhibition marketing comparisons I have chosen 2 events, the first being The National Wedding Show at London Olympia (24th-26th February) and I'm also following Ben Howards tour which starts on the 25th of January but I'm concentrating on the London dates which take place on the 23rd and 24th of February at Shepherds Bush arena.
The National Wedding Show - http://www.nationalweddingshow.co.uk/
Ben Howards tour - http://www.benhowardmusic.co.uk/live/
Happy Reading xoxo
For my EV402 coursework on Event and Exhibition marketing comparisons I have chosen 2 events, the first being The National Wedding Show at London Olympia (24th-26th February) and I'm also following Ben Howards tour which starts on the 25th of January but I'm concentrating on the London dates which take place on the 23rd and 24th of February at Shepherds Bush arena.
The National Wedding Show - http://www.nationalweddingshow.co.uk/
Ben Howards tour - http://www.benhowardmusic.co.uk/live/
Happy Reading xoxo
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