Laneway Festivals Marketing Campaign - Case Study Example

Professional response: Laneway Festivals Marketing Campaign Name: Lecturer: Course: Date: Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Professional response: Laneway Festivals Marketing Campaign 3 Introduction 3 Marketing campaign 3 Campaign Outlook 4 Marketing theory 5 Target audience 6 Target Market Analysis 7 Plan for the target market 7 Broad media recommendations 8 Marketing planning 8 Television and Radio 8 Online ads 9 Print 9 Onsite ads 9 Additional Marketing 10 Implementation 11 Conclusion 11 References 12 Professional response: Laneway Festivals Marketing Campaign Introduction The recent launching of Laneway Festivals in Singapore and its continued growth implies that the event has a potential to reach a wider international audience. This therefore implies that the festival requires a marketing strategy that fits a multi—national event. The campaign aims at building an awareness of Southeast Asian Laneway festival in addition to the local festival. The objective should not merely be to increase the sale of tickets in a manner that makes effective use of marketing funds and time. Rather, it should be aimed at satisfying the target market rather than to simply advertise the festival with the view of high sale of tickets as has been the norm. Through analysis of the historical records, potential concerts and market trends, the estimated sale of tickets is estimated at over $400,000 (Baroni 2014). The estimated cost of campaigns is estimated at $97,100. There is therefore need to device a marketing campaign that can satisfy the target market while at the same enable high ticket sales. Marketing campaign Since Laneway Festival is growing into a multinational event that will need to keep its target customers loyal to its brand, the marketing campaign should further aim at building relationships with the customer , the stakeholders, organizers, volunteers and suppliers (Ghodeswar 2008). In essence, achieving this objective for the music festivals relies largely on marketing despite of the limiting or diverse purpose of its origin. Hence, marketing will have to be an integral part of the organizing process and effective exposure of the festival. As outlined by the marketing theory, the underlying problems that face effective marketing of Laneway Festival can be determined and resolved. Consequently, the potential for growth of the brand is achievable. This report proposes that the marketing campaign should focus on differentiation. In this case, it should focus on publicizing the unique aspects of the festival, which make it special in the eyes of the Singaporean target market and other target markets (Fuller Hanlan & Wilde 2005). Campaign Outlook Southeast Asian Laneway festival needs an integrated advertising campaign that covers direct marketing, general advertising, public relations and sales promotion. The campaign should be able to feature some elements of the areas. Additionally, it should recognize the added value in a program that combines a range of strategic disciplines such as direct response, general advertising, public relations and sales promotion to be able to offer consistency, optimal communication and clarity (Grankvist, Kollberg & Persson 2004). The general advertising should be able to strengthen Southeast Asian Laneway festival and local festival brand equity. Furthermore, the approach of direct marketing that is to be used should be able to build relationships and dialogue as well as offer a means of boosting the number of people attending of the festival (Park 2010). The festival’s sales promotion approach should provide incentives for both traders and fun lovers to attend the festival. On the other hand, public relations should be able offer third party endorsements and strengthen the paid advertising messages. In any case, none of the four elements to be employed should be treated with greater importance than the other, as they all have significant functions to the effectiveness of the integrated campaign (Jones n.d.). The campaign should be targeted as the big idea that integrates all the four elements. This will optimize the likelihood that consumers will acquire the message as well as have the message strengthened and laid out without cognitive dissonance that can arise from inappropriate graphics elements or mixed messages (Baker 1998). The advertising campaign should start with the application of the creative theory, which hypothesizes that some degree of creativity should be involved in coming up with the best ideas for the campaign. Creation of the marketing idea should hence be a step-by-step process aimed at identifying the relevant features and arranging them in effective and new patterns. A creative formula that should be employed involves creative positioning and strategy (Park 2010). In regards to creative positing and strategy, the objectives and the strategies of the campaign are lucidly conveyed. With this regard, it should have a creative strategy statement as the minimum entry point to effective advertising. In all, it should have the target market, competitive benefits and the objectives. Marketing theory The marketing campaigns for Laneway Festivals have generally been based on the theory of marketing mix, or four “P’s”, which includes place, product, promotion and price. This means that it has been more of product-centric than customer-centric. However, given its strategy to reach multinational audience in Singapore and to maintain customer loyalty, the strategy should be changed. In this case, “people” should be added to the four “P’s” with the view of making it customer centric. While the four P’s of the mix are integral for traditional marketing, contemporary marketing emphasizes customer care and process (Leenders et al. 2007). Towards this end, Lauterborn’s four “C’s” should be applied in Laneway Festivals’ marketing campaign. The four C’s include customer costs, customer value, convenience and communication. The rationale for this shift in strategy is that, while four P’s are focused on representing the seller’s mind, the four C’s shift more towards representing the buyer’s mind, which implies that Laneway Festivals should initiate its marketing research and campaigns based on the perspective of its target audience (Leenders et al. 2007). Target audience The size of Laneway Festival has increased over time and currently targets international audience rather than a small Australian community. Its genre of music appeals to a range of audience mainly consisting of highly educated upper class audience to middle-class audience (Park 2010). Based on analysis of the Laneway’s past crowd, the music festival has generally attracted a discriminating crowd of music lovers who are about 55% female and who are generally well-educated. The music festival should however appeal to a wider audience attracting music lovers of all ages (Park 2010). The festival will have to incorporate cutting edge music with a theme that appeals to worldly, hip and sophisticated gathering. The average attendee age should be between the ages of 19 and 30 years old because of its nature as a dance festival. However, it should also target on older youth by incorporating additional genres that appeal to wider youth of between the ages of 19 and 35 years to realize better attendance and more ticket sales (Assael & Marvin 1976). Target Market Analysis In regards to the target group of Laneways, organizers have the option of choosing one or two paths. The first path includes focusing the festival on one specific genre or subgenre and seeking to achieve the best in the selected area to be the top in that niche in Singapore (Park 2010). Alternatively, the organizers should establish a broad festival capable of appealing to a larger crowd since the larger the targeted group, the greater the chances of more attendees visiting the event. In any case, niche festivals may also go deeper into particular subgenre while broad festivals will have to extent their focus on a range of facets of the festival. In all, the scope of audience is of significant managerial significance and makes a key variable for coming up with a conceptual model (Baker 1998). Despite the fact that younger audience is needed to widen the sphere of the market, it is critical that mature adults make up the larger bulk of the audience. Hence, the marketing campaign should be focused more mature adults as human longevity continually increases ((Leenders et al. 2007). Plan for the target market The target market comprises psychographics, demographics, segmentation strategy and features. For the campaign, the target market should contain the targeted segment as well as the particular prospects. On the other hand, competitive benefit comprises what the product or service delivers meaningful and all-inclusive message to the target market. In practice, this section should also incorporate support for the benefits (Leenders et al. 2007). In regards to objectives, the objective should ideally focus on persuading, informing and reminding the targeted audience of the festival. In direct marketing, the focus is often on attraction of leads. The sales promotion objective should focus on optimizing short-term incentives. On the other hand, the objectives of public relations should be aimed at promoting non-paid publicity (Civic Technologies 2009). Broad media recommendations The marketing campaign calls for marketing tools to be implemented effectively. The four major campaign tools include public relations, personal selling, advertising and sales promotion. They should however be implemented with the view that in marketing in a contemporary era, advertising message should not be given unilaterally (Bakers 2005). Rather, the message should be given and feedback received simultaneously. With this respect, the marketing tools such as using a range of devices such as press releases, emails, strategic websites, social media, blogs and newsletters. Marketing planning Strategic marketing planning should align with the planning of the festival. Marketing planning involves having marketing strategies that are put into a plan. Television and Radio Television and radio should be the main forms of advertising, as a high percentage of the target audience use at least one of the two. Publicizing the event is a critical success to effective attendance and loyalty to the festival as it will raise the profile of the festival in regards to the performers, visitors, potential sponsors and performers (NITB 2010). Laneway should be focused on advertising on local radio and television in Australia as well as in Singapore that are mainly used by the target audience. Receiving significant coverage through these two mainstream media will reach a large number of the target audience at the same time. Since the campaign is intended to run for a short time, the format will be most effective in relaying the message to the target market. The radio and television advertising should major on messages that portray the unique aspects of the festival in Singapore. Both should run for at most 50 seconds. The estimated cost for television and radio is $55,600 (table 1). Online ads The internet should also be used maximally with the aim of promoting Laneway in Singapore and to locals in Australia. Increasing the number of page views through promoting the website’s ranking in Google search results through SEO marketing can increase the site’s visibility, increasing the number of viewers to the site in Australia and Singapore (NITB 2010). Strategic websites with the largest views or traffic should be targeted with the view of displaying Laneways pay ad banners that link to Laneway’s website. Additionally, Laneways can target advertising messages to thousands of its followers on social media platforms such as Twitter, Google Plus and Facebook. Laneways can also use the internet to sell tickets (NITB 2010). The estimated cost for online ads is $11,500. Print Laneway’s logo and name should also appear on major print media in Singapore, such as newspaper, to advertise the festival. The estimated cost for print media is $24,500. Onsite ads The name and logo of Laneways should appear on banners during the festival to offer exposure to the patrons. The cost is estimated at $5,000. Additional Marketing Press releases should be sent to over 200 national press contacts in Singapore. Further, 1,000 posters and 15,000 postcards will be published and distributed to locals in Singapore. Other advertisements should also be placed in local magazines and newspapers in Singapore pending final budget and sponsorship deals (NITB 2010). Table 1: Cost of campaign Description Quantity Cost per unit Cost AUD Total Television ads (35 seconds, 3 to be created) Advanced broadcast package 3 5,000 15,000 TV sport (primetime & late night) 15 channels 2000 30,000 45,000 Radio ads (35 seconds ads, 3 created) Setup 60 Studio hire 10 100 1000 Production cost 3 200 600 Broadcast station 9 1,000 9,000 10,600 Internet ads Web banners 50 200 10,000 Facebook page 500 Twitter page 500 Youtube 500 11,500 Press releases 500 500 Onsite banners 50 100 5,000 5,000 Print Media Newspaper 14 1000 14,000 Magazines 5 500 2,500 Post cards 1,000 3 3,000 Posters 1,000 5 5,000 24,500 TOTAL 97,100 Implementation Within the next 12 months, several campaigns should be implemented to allow them adequate time to publicize the event. The television and radio ads should be produced 3 months before the day of the festival in Singapore. The printing in newspapers and magazines will begin 2 months before the event. Placement of website banners on strategic websites will begin much sooner, and will start six months before the event. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google Plus will be activated 12 months before the event. Conclusion The campaign should aim at building an awareness of Southeast Asian Laneway festival in addition to the local festival. The objective should not merely be to increase the sale of tickets in a manner that makes effective use of marketing funds and time; rather, it should be aimed at satisfying the target market, as opposed to merely advertising the festival with the view of high sale of tickets as it has been the norm. References Assael, H & Marvin, R 1976, "Approaches to Market Segmentation Analysis," Journal of Marketing Vol. 40 No. 4, pp 67-76 Baker, M 1998, Marketing: Managerial Foundations, Macmillan Education AU, New York. Baroni, N 2014, Laneway Festival 2014 Set Times and Maps Released, viewed 21 Jan 2014, http://musicfeeds.com.au/news/laneway-festival-2014-set-times-and-maps-released/ Civic Technologies 2009, Using Market Segmentation for Better Customer Service and More Effective Strategic Planning, A White Paper for Public and Academic Libraries, viewed 22 jan 2014, http://www.businessdecision.info/whitepaper/pdf/BusinessDecisionWhitepaper110909.pdf Davidson, J 2011, St. Jerome's Laneway Festival: Today Singapore, tomorrow Asia, CNN News, viewed 22 Jan 2014, http://travel.cnn.com/singapore/life/st-jeromes-laneway-festival-making-its-presence-felt-asian-music-festival-circuit-125 Fuller, D, Hanlan, J & Wilde, S 2005, 'Market segmentation approaches: do they benefit destination marketers?', Center for Enterprise Development and Research Occasional Paper, no. 4, Southern Cross University, Coffs Harbour, NSW. Jones, S n.d., Creative Strategy in Integrated Marketing Communications, viewed 21 Jan 2014, http://www.the-dma.org/dmef/researchsummit/HandoutCreative.pdf Leenders, M, Telgen, J, Gemser, G & Wurff, R 2007, "Success in the Dutch Music Festival Market: The Role of Format and Content," The International Journal on Media Management, Vol. 7 No. 3&4, pp.148–157 Grankvist, A, Kollberg, C & Persson, A 2004, Promotional Strategies for Banking Services. Lulea University of Technology Ghodeswar, B 2008, "Building brand identity in competitive markets: a conceptual model," Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp.4–12 NITB 2010, Exploring the Music Festival Tourism Market, Northern Ireland Tourist Board Park, H 2010, Communicating with Audiences: The Strategic Marketing of Music Festivals, viewed 22 Jan 2014, https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/10447/Capstone_Hyunhee_10.pdf?sequence=1 Read More