Advertising the Laneway Festival - Assignment Example

Advertising the Laneway Festival Name Tutor Course Date Successful launch of the Laneway Festival in south East Asia will be greatly determined by the marketing strategies and policies adapted for the Festival. In a nutshell marketing involves planning and execution of pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas to satisfy a certain goal. In this case we need to develop a plan through promotion that we enable us achieve the main objective of promoting the Laneway Festival in Australia and Singapore as required. Marketing mix for the Laneway festivals Marketing mix refers to a set of tools used to influence sales. It involves the product, price, place and promotion. The basic marketing strategy necessary for the Laneway Festival will involve combining these four elements into a marketing plan to make it very effective. The four elements are also called the “the 4Ps concept” (Kotler, 2003). For effective promotion of the laneway Festival both in Australia and Singapore this concept has to be emphasized in the marketing strategy. Product A music festival is a service whose purpose is to entertain people. This would create a good impression and experience in the minds of the visitors. Putting this in mind, Laneway Festival should avail a very comfortable and good environment to make the visitors satisfied. This will be made possible by the performing bands at the festival. This means that the performing bands given the opportunity to perform at these festivals have to be the best. Price The price set for an event will determine whether a customer buys it or not. The Laneway festival should consider this factor when pricing their events. It is therefore important to set the price not too high so as to attract as many people as possible. The price should also not be set too low since organizing such an event is accompanied by high expenses. Of course we do not expect all these expenses to be covered by the entrance money since there is also the funding from the sponsors. Place Choice of the venue for the festival to take place is equally of importance. This will apply to both the places set in Australia and Singapore. Music festivals should be set in places where there are no problems in terms of a large number of visitors or with setting big music stages. Space is therefore a factor in this case. The event should also be in a place where there are no such events taking place in close surrounding. It can be advantageous to set the event in a central place that is connecting major cities for example a central highway. Therefore, people moving around this highway can simply be aware of the festival. All these factors have to be considered for the promotion of the Laneway festivals. Promotion Successful awareness for the south Asian Laneway festival and also the local events will be determined by the extent of promotion involved. Promotion involves the different ways used to attract people to visit the festival. For the sake of this paper I will discuss the different promotional methods used to attract people to the festival under marketing campaign strategies. Marketing communications have changed over recent years due to technological advancement (Kimmel, 2005) Campaign strategies for Laneway festival Meeting the stipulated campaign objectives of the Laneway Festival will involve a strong online presence, traditional forms of advertising and interacting with the community. The community is important since it will provide the required audience. Proper interaction and engagement with the audience will ensure successful awareness of the festival. We are going to use eye-catching designs that have the festival’s theme in a manner that will automatically attract the audience. The official website of the festival will act as a source for the festival’s information (festival’s schedule, bands in attendance, contact information). Social media will be used to spread news about the festival through online conversations and word- of –mouth. Facebook and Twitter are among the social media sites chosen for the task. Less focus will be put on traditional forms of advertising e.g. local publications, posters and postcards. Public relations are also important in encouraging community participation and getting sponsors for the festival (Belch George, 2003).Public relations would form the base for the campaign which would be carried out by the local press and event websites. Public relations efforts should begin early enough-several months before the event. Photos of the performances and crowds should be taken during the event for use in publicizing future events. Email marketing throughout the year should be encouraged and the visitor should sign up for email alerts. This would make the attendees want to come back t the concert Branding and advertising are also very important in creating awareness of the music festival both in Australia and Asia (David Kurtz, 2007). Early establishment of branding for the festival can be very advantageous. A logo, colors and a slogan need to be developed soon enough- branding for the next festival should already be developed while the current festival is still going on. The advertising strategy to be used for the Laneway Festival involves a multiple approach method in which many advertising tools will be used together. This will attract a lot of people thus promoting the festival. Advertising will involve the use of large, good-looking posters, radio stations, barter advertising and internet advertising particularly the festival’s official website. Since the objective is to build awareness in a fun way, creating advertisements showing people having fun at the festival is a pretty good idea. However I personally agree with one of the team members who proposed the use of a unique selling proposition. Price for the ticket is a very important factor for consumers therefore; a strategy should be developed to encourage consumers to buy the tickets. Since the target audience is 18-24 years, such a promotion should be addressed to younger people. A major part of them are students, or without a job which means the price of the ticket is important in determining whether the festival will be visited. Based on this strategy the final price for the ticket depends on when and where it’s been purchased. For those buying it at the gate when the festival starts at the festival’s place the price will be highest. The ticket can be bought in advance before the festival begins. The prices for advance tickets will be lower as compared to the festival day. Students will be allowed to buy the tickets at a much lower price than the standard price. However, the time for advance sale of the tickets is limited by a certain date. The sales are in such a way that at the end of every week or month the tickets are a bit more expensive. Consumers buying the tickets during the first month can be given three tickets for the price of two. People who are not taller than 135 cm and those on wheelchairs can access the festival completely for free. Tickets can be purchased at the official festival’s websites. Other retailers will also be allowed to sell the tickets. E – Tickets will also be availed in which the consumer can pay the price for the ticket and then print the bill. The bill will finally act as the ticket at the festival entrance. Competition Organizing an event like the Laneway music Festival is accompanied by a lot of competition from other similar festivals. One has to be aware of other festivals of similar nature taking place in the same area. The Bid Day Out festival offers considerable competition to the Laneway festival. One strategy that I would recommend for handling the aspect of competition is making adjustments to the face of the Laneway festival. This can be achieved through making relevant changes in the festival’s design (Cech, 2010). According to Cech, organizers and promoters of the Rock Shock found that the best way to eliminate the effect of their strong competitors was to change the festival’s design. The name and face of the Rock Shock festival was changed and made multi-genre. Such an approach can also be adopted for the Laneway festival in which the genre categories can be expanded to include music native to the Asian countries. Through changing the festival’s design, the team would be introducing new, innovative and even controversial branding images. Saliency of the Laneway Festival would therefore be revived in Asian countries. Relevant changes in the festival’s design would make people talk and raise thoughts about the festival. This would advantageous in terms of establishment of the festival in these areas as well as out competing other rivals. The target is to emotionally move the target audience closer to the festival event through fascinating logos, slogans and images (Morgan, 2001) The age of the target population should also be broadened not only to include the young people but also older generations. In essence, the festival should attract more people; practically everyone. The festival’s face should be changed to include people aged 18 to 55 years. This would allow a wide range of visitors to attend the festival thus eliminating potential competition. Marketing should indicate the advantages and the unique features of a certain event. These interesting features will make sure that less competition is faced from other events (Leonard, 2002) Budget After establishing the marketing strategies, it is necessary to know the amount of money needed to implement these strategies. The marketing plan should therefore, be set at levels that fall within the budget. Estimating the costs of a marketing plan involve estimating the media costs and production costs. A media planner can estimate the total costs to be incurred by the media even before the real marketing plan is laid down. Determining the amount of money to use for advertising has been a great challenge facing most marketing planners. Most advertisers allocate their budgets on the basis of national media selection (Sissors, 2010). According to Sissors, Television is the traditional mass medium that most people think of first. Broadcasting companies have the character of breaking into an interesting program, and introducing the advertisement. This ensures that the attention of the viewer is got. Since most people watch TV and Listen to radio most of the money allocated for advertisement would be channeled towards these two elements of media. A less amount would be given to the magazines and newspapers Media planning Once a marketing plan has been developed it is important to also determine an advertising strategy. This involves what is supposed to be communicated and how. It also includes the cost required for the advertisement hence an advertisement budget (Sharma, 2011). Most advertising is delivered to the consumer audience via mass media such as newspapers, magazines, TV and radio. Some marketers consider such traditional media forms as inefficient in advertising. However mass media especially top-rated TV programs and magazines are very popular and can be very effective in delivering advertising information (Sissors, 2010). It is therefore relevant that advertising the Laneway Festival be carried out using mass media as well. Mass media can be very useful in creating awareness about the music festival in Australia as well as in Asia. In the case of Laneway Festival the mass media of choice should not charge a fee exceeding the money allocated for the entire budget. Cost effectiveness will be important at this point. Based on this flighting advertisement would be considered necessary. Flighting refers to the method of skipping intervals in media advertising. the advertisers direct the media to present the advertisement for a certain period of time, skip some time, and then return to the presentation at some other time. These irregular periods of advertising alternating with periods of no advertisement are important especially when the advertising budget is limited (Mercer, 1996). Since some time is skipped without advertisement, the duration for the campaign could be stretched. Prolonging the period for the advertising campaign will ensure that many people become aware of the festival that could rather be expected. The main advantage of flighting is that there is little waste as the advertising concentrates on the best purchasing cycle period. It concentrates on the period when most people will see the advert hence there will be more participation of people. Bibliography Belch George, E. a. (2003). Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective. New York: McGrill-Hill. Cech, M. (2010). Marketing Communicatons at The Music Festival in Vyskov. Zlin: Tomas Bata University. David Kurtz, L. a. (2007). Principles of Marketing. Stamford. Kimmel, J. A. (2005). Marketing Communication: New Approaches, Technologies, and Styles. New York: Oxford University Press. Kotler, P. (2003). Marketing Insights form A to Z. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,. Leonard, H. H. (2002). Event Marketing. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,. Mercer, D. (1996). Marketing. Blackwell. Morgan, N. a. (2001). Advertising in tuorism and Leisure. Sharma, S. R. (2011). Advertising Stategy Adopted By Tyre Industry. VSRD International Journal of Business & Manegement Reaserch Vol. 1(6) , 383-396. Sissors, Z. J. (2010). ADVERTISING MEDIA PLANNING. McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.,. http://books.google.com/books?id=LceS1nSx0PoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=advertising+in+tourism&hl=en&ei=K9ehTe6QKsvs4gaC0q3zDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false Accessed 11 September 2011 Read More