Innovative Marketing Communications

Guy Masterman, Emma Wood

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN: 9780750663618
• eBook ISBN: 9781136395208
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

Innovative Marketing Communications for Events Management provides students and event managers with a complete insight into the strategic and innovative marketing of events of all scales and nature. The book builds a conceptual framework for the development, planning, implementation and evaluation of innovative communication strategies for the marketing of events, and the effective use of events as an innovative communications method in general organizational marketing.

With a strong practical underpinning, Innovative Marketing Communications for Events Management emphasises to event managers the importance of effectively integrating a range of tools and techniques to communicate the event and provides them with a better understanding of how a variety of private and public sector organisations can use events within their communication strategies.

Section Two Communications Toolkit

DOI: 10.4324/9780080492742-6

Happy Halloween. Thirty-one on the 31st! The 2004 and 31st New York Village Halloween Parade provided entertainment literally for the masses. The event consisted of 50 000 costumed marchers parading 6th Avenue in lower Manhattan in front of an estimated two million spectators of all ages. The Village Halloween Parade Inc advisory board consists of 60 community leaders and politicians that ensure that this event is not only socially and culturally beneficial but that it also impacts economically. The event is estimated to bring $60 million into New York City. One of the event's key communications tools is its website through which it reaches participants, spectators and sponsors all year round (www.halloween-nyc.com).

This section provides an evaluation of the personal and non-personal communications tools that can be used for event communications. It considers current and best practice and also an innovative approach for managers of events. Each chapter considers a different communication tool by reviewing theoretical frameworks and research and comparing and contrasting those with industry practice. The essence of an integrated approach to marketing communications is that the tools are selected in combinations that will achieve marketing objectives. While the tools are considered on a chapter by chapter basis, they are done so in an integrated context in order to demonstrate how public relations, E-marketing, advertising, sponsorship, sales promotion and direct and relationship marketing can be used coherently and harmoniously to achieve those objectives.

Public Relations

E-Marketing Communications

Advertising

Event Sponsorship Programmes

Sales Promotion

Direct and Relationship Marketing

Chapter 5 Public Relations

DOI: 10.4324/9780080492742-7

Objectives

• Understand the role and value of public relations in the events industry
• Understand the function of public relations in integrated marketing communications
• Identify the planning process and the requirements for a public relations plan
• Identify ways in which public relations techniques and tools can be innovative

Introduction

In an industry where traditional mass media and methods are often too expensive an option, the value of public relations for mass and personal media communications is high. This chapter aims to build up a conceptual framework for the development, planning and implementation of event public relations (PR) by focusing on first, role and function and then on the building of a PR plan that is comprised of a set of techniques and tools that are fully integrated into the overall communications mix.

While event communications are often dominated by PR activity because it offers relatively inexpensive alternatives, such activity can also carry the highest level of credibility. Consequently PR is arguably a critical component of event communications.

What is PR?

Black (1993) maintains that PR is planned in an effort to create goodwill and mutual understanding between an organization and its publics. Jefkins and Yadin (1998) discuss the creation of understanding via knowledge. Thus PR can be described as a two-way process. Organizations can impart knowledge but they also require a response for PR to be successful.

If organizations are on one side of this relationship, who or what is on the other? An organization should be aware of parties, individuals or groups that may bear influence on their performance. These are the event’s stakeholders and those that can be identified as priority targets can be referred to as target publics. The communication with each of these publics needs to be carefully tailored in order to affect a change in the opinion of that public. A traditional objective is not only to change perception from poor to good, but also from good to better. For example, even when perception is considered to be good it needs to be sustained and possibly enhanced. However, it is difficult to determine exactly what a more favourable opinion is as the perception of such is personally derived. It is also difficult to perceive favourably of certain situations, take for example those situations concerned with human suffering. A more reliable role for PR is therefore concerned with affecting changes of opinion through the dissemination of knowledge for better understanding (Jefkins and Yadin, 1998).

Another common view of PR is that it is only concerned with press relations. PR is also a corporate, financial, marketing, community and an internal activity. The primary role for event PR is to change the opinions of those parties that can bear influence on the success of the event and that can therefore include a range of different publics and the company.

PR is therefore focused on credibility and reputation and consequently with external perceptions. It is not concerned with how an organization perceives itself, but how its target publics perceive it. An organization must therefore identify how it is perceived in order to change opinion, further highlighting why PR is a two-way process.

While PR has this strength it cannot operate alone. It needs to be a part of an integrated strategy for communications that has common and cohesive themes that extend across all forms of communications. PR can support and be supported in this sense by advertising, direct marketing, sales promotions and personal selling (Yeshin, 1998; Pickton and Broderick, 2001; Fill, 2002). This is not always an easy process in practice as Clow and Baack (2004) consider, as in many organizations, the PR role concerns more than just marketing communications, there are separate PR and marketing departments. For many small event organizations this is not an issue. For example, it is common for several roles to be played by the same people, although this does not necessarily mean that integrated marketing communications (IMC) are being practiced.

PR has two key roles. On the one hand it supports marketing activity in the form of promotions and is indeed a key promotional tool for the event marketing mix and the creation of an environment in which it is easier to conduct marketing (Jobber, 1998). On the other, it is also the tool that disseminates non-promotional information to other target publics that are important to the organization (Jefkins and Yadin, 1998). For events, PR has a much wider role to play than just in its support of the marketing push. It extends to managing communications with all those organizations, groups and individuals that are considered an important factor in the successful implementation of the event (Yeshin, 1998; Pickton and Broderick, 2001; Fill, 2002). Piercy (2000) refers to PR as the creation and then maintenance of images that are relevant to different publics. These might involve communications concerned with the changing of opinion or provision of information that are targeted at local pressure groups, community leaders, financial institutions and event participants (Figure 5.1).

Figure 5.1The role of public relations (Masterman, 2004).

Publics

PR is not optional (Jefkins and Yadin, 1998) as stakeholder groups will form their own perceptions of an event however active that event is in generating PR. Therefore the objective should be to improve understanding and knowledge via the active development of PR. If stakeholders will form their own perceptions, then organizations have little choice but to try to influence those perceptions and there are two basic approaches an organization can take. On the one hand they can be proactive in taking the lead in disseminating knowledge to target publics. On the other, they can be reactive and respond to target publics’ requirements and needs with new knowledge. Either way, they will ultimately have little control over how their publics will perceive them. For example, target audiences can be informed that an event will be all the better for a change of venue next time around but no matter how well planned and vigorous that PR activity was, the outcome cannot be managed. The organization has no final editorial control and so the best that can be achieved is an attempt to influence that final perception and improve understanding. It is therefore important that PR, whether proactive or reactive, is a two-way process and an understanding of the levels of perception are assessed prior to any PR plans being made.

The benefits of PR

Using advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion and personal selling as communication tools is a controllable exercise in that an event can determine, compose and deliver exactly what content it wants. PR depends on third parties and their discretion over what is disseminated. In this way events rely on various media to act as catalysts and conduits to impart key PR communications to target publics. Furthermore, this process relies on those media accepting and imparting those messages in the same positive light as they are received from the event. An advertisement is designed and placed with the media exactly as the originator intended. This is because the originator is paying for that privilege in choosing to purchase advertising space. While PR incurs expenditure and is seldom totally without cost, it does not involve any bought media space. PR is designed, but is not always accepted, or indeed is not always portrayed as the originator intended and recipient media will use their discretion to determine how they will impart any of those messages. The objective is to achieve as positive a result as possible and, if a positive result is achieved, the communication is made all the more credible because a third party has endorsed it. Of course, the opposite can also be true.

The credibility that comes with positive results becomes a source of competitive advantage. The use of PR to develop customers, investment, bargaining status with buyers and suppliers, staff relations and new business can result in competitive advantage and an event that exceeds customer expectations.

The uses of PR

The uses of PR can be categorized as follows:

• Customer retention: using PR activity such as events, launches and media liaison to support marketing push to retain customers, grow sales and market share.
• Investment: using PR activities such as corporate hospitality to encourage new and further investment via the development of investor relations.
• Bargaining status: using PR to build brands in order to achieve better relationships with suppliers and customers.
• Staff relations: using PR to portray a healthy organization in order to attract and maintain a desired quality of staff.
• Business development: initiating and building new business through PR activity such as events, corporate hospitality and business-to-business communications in order to develop business from new or existing customers.

Functions of PR

In order to achieve the above, there are a number of functions that can be performed by PR and these can be categorized as shown below.

Opinion forming

Any one person usually has settled opinions on most aspects of life. These opinions can of course be radical, even dysfunctional, but many will be socially conforming and widely accepted by many. Any of these may be self-deduced but may also be influenced by other significant opinion formers. These opinion formers can include family, peers, colleagues, dignitaries and role models. We also know from research that opinions can also be influenced by marketing communications, including PR (Wirthlin Report, 1999). Opinions are held at various degrees of acceptance. In particular a person can hold strong opinions and these are difficult to influence and affect. PR techniques are used to attempt to influence opinion and because they can have more credibility than other forms of communications, they may have more capacity to tackle the higher barriers that are presented by firmly held and existing beliefs when communications become distorted or even dismissed.

Some media will be perceived as being more credible than others and so the skill in managing PR is in selecting appropriate messages, techniques and tools for the right target publics. Strong opinions will not be changed quickly and so the sustained effort of PR, as part of an IMC effort, is often required. For example, the task of convincing UK football target publics in the 1990s that football stadia and matches were viable entertainment customer options presented many barriers. The disasters at the 1985 European Cup Final in the Heysel Stadium, Brussels and the FA Cup semi-final at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield in 1989, created widespread distrust of the safety in football stadia. In addition, there were issues of hooliganism throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Consequently, various bodies and organizations collectively realized that ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Other
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table Of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Case Studies
• Series Editors
• About the authors
• Series Preface
• Introduction
• Section One Integrated Marketing Communications
• Section Two Communications Toolkit
• Section Three Events as Communications Tools
• Section Four Ensuring Future Success
• Appendix
• Author Index
• Subject Index