Event Management

What is the need of

events?
Before we start the course on Event Management, lets
first understand:
• Why Events?
• The needs for events?
 Why Events?
 Over the last few years, the no. of entertainment and community
events subsidized by enthusiastic advertisers has increased. They
apparently recognize this as new media form possessing the unique
abiltity to breakthrough the clutter of thousands of commercial
messages that bombard customers daily.
 An event can enhance and link other elements of a promotional mix-
advertising, public relations, sales promotions and direct marketing-
to create singular, high visibility experience for the consumer.
 Events literally bring products to participants in an innovative and
personally involving manner. An example can be of Camlin - New
product line of Artoons sketch pens.
 Events can subtly, yet effectively, reinforce the brand image of the
product or service in the interest of the consumer through an event
association using celebrities, locations and/or acknowledged industry
leaders. An example can be of Coca-Cola India.
 Why Events? (Few Examples)
 Camlin Artoons -
 When Camlin was interested in introducing active school students to its
new product line of Artoons sketch pens, in addition to advertising in
the expected magazines and TV options, it sponsored drawing
competitions at premier city schools. It offered product a giveaways and
demonstrated the product’s features and benefits through a huge float
and a road show covering most schools in south Bombay in the tour.
 Coca – Cola India –
 In 1998, soft drinks manufacturer Coca-Cola India acted as the title
sponsor of part of the Asha Bhonsle Live Concert Tour organized by
UNIRAPPORT Events, a division of UTV. The concert was an elaborate
tour of 10 cities. The audience had the opportunity to watch Asha
Bhonsle live in concert. Coke obtained the opportunity to present the
event and use tickets for the show as giveaways, thus effectively trying a
brand building exercise with increasing customer traffic in its retail
outlets as well as a sales promotion campaign. Events therefore offer
innumerable opportunities for the sponsors to extract every possible
mileage available in the marketing lexicon.
 Why Events? (Contd)
 Though sponsoring of a big event like a rock show, an Olympic Games or a
cricket tournament invariably means sharing the limelight with other
companies and other brands, the customization of events totally serves the
communication agenda of a company.
 Communication through live media integrated the functions of advertising,
sales promotions and public relations.
 Because many events like the ones mentioned above are either media-owned
or media-designed, it seems obvious that this new tool should be part of the
media planner’s repertoire.
 It is the media planner who will be in a position to identify event
opportunities that their clients’ communication goals and who has the
relationship with the media vendors to negotiate the best deal.
 Events vie for a very small share of the marketing budget pie as of now. But
as the importance of events as a marketing tool builds up, it will eat into a
larger portion of the marketing budge pie vis-à-vis other currently popular
modes of marketing communication such as television advertising and
internet banner ads. It will thus become a part and parcel of the integrated
campaign. This is so because events help in addressing the diverse marketing
needs of a company.
The needs for events?
• Diverse Marketing Needs Addressed by Events.
• Implementation of Marketing Plan.
• Marketing Research
• Relationship Building
• Creating Opportunities for Better Deals with Different Media.
• Events and the Economy

We will deal with each of the above mentioned needs and also how these are
addressed by events in subsequent slides.
 Diverse Marketing Needs Addressed by Events.
 Brand Building - Events help in brand building by:
 Creating awareness about the launch of new brands/products.
 Presentation of brand description to highlight the added features of
product/service
 Helping in rejuvenating brand during the different stages of the product
life cycle
 Helping in communicating the repositioning of brand/products
 Associating the brand personality of clients with the personality of target
market
 Creating and maintain brand identity
 Image building
 Focusing the Target Market - Events help in focusing the target
market by:
 Helping in avoidance of clutter
 Enabling interactive mode of communication
 Implementation of Marketing Plan
Events authentic test marketing
Enabling focused sales and communication to a captive
audience
Increasing customer traffic in stores
Enabling sales promotions
Helping in relationship building and PR activities
Enthusing and motivating the sales team
Providing an avenue to affirm presence
Generate Immediate sales
Generating instant publicity
Recruit new distributors and sales representatives
 Case Syudy – Frito-Lay
 In 1997, the Frito-Lay company announced the continued test marketing of a line of fat-free potato chips and
low-fat tortilla chips, make with procter & Gamble’s new fat-free cooking oil, Olean. This expanded test market
was launched in the Central Indiana area including Indianapolis.
 The company had announced that it was encouraged by the positive consumer response to snacks made with
Olean and by the successful test market results to-date. Since April 1996, consumers had eaten more than 1.58
Million servings and they consistently had reported that snacks made with Olean offered a good way to reduce
fat in their diets and were a choice they wanted to be made available. This limited test market occurred in 31
supermarkets in three cities in 1996 and concluded in Cedar Rapids, IA; test markets in Grand Junction, OC and
Eau Claire, WI ended as planned in October.
 During this period, the company received more than, 1,000 compliments from consumers who tried snacks made
with Olean, over 1,800 inquiries’ about where these snacks can be purchased and more than 5,000 favourable
inquires from Interested consumers across the country (i.e. requesting fat content and other nutritional
information). Then, the snack company analysed its test market findings and decided to expand the test market
by applying its consumer. Research in the Central Indiana area with changed to the product name, packaging
design and price. For example, the product was called WOW! In the expanded test market since better described
the product with its great taste and low-fat/calorie reduced attributed versus the name MAX used in the initial
test markets.
 Beginning on February 24, the WOW! Snacks were distributed in Central Indiana supermarkets,
convenience/gas stores, mass merchandisers and club stores. During the February 28 long weekend, the
company gave away free samples of the WOW! Snacks at 500 different locations across the Central Indiana area,
each a micro-event by itself with banners, flyers and coupons being used as promotion to attract the target
audience to experience the new product. They were also asked to fill out a survey describing their feedback.
Frito-Lay continues to provide its full line of original and baked snacks in the test market and nationally.
 The WOW! Snack line, which incorporated the Lay’s Ruffes and Doritos names on the newly design packaging,
promises all the great taste of America’s favourite snacks but with low and no-fat, calorie-reduced attributed.
The WOW! Product line includes Lay’s WOW! Potato chips, Lay’s WOW! Barbecue Flavored Potato chips,
Ruffles WOW! Potato chips, Doritos WOW! Nacho Cheesier Tortilla chips and Doritos WOW! Cool Ranch
Tortilla Chips.
 Case Study – Techfest -IIT Bombay
 Techfest is the annual technology festival hosted by IIT Bombay. The philosophy behind
Techfest is to appraise future technocrats with the latest in science and technology. Our
endeavour is to capture the dynamic world of technology in the form of a festival.
Techfest is not merely a three day festival. It is a looking glass into a future that will be
moulded by technology.
 Techfest 2001, held from the 2nd to the 4th of February 2001, has continued the tradition
and standards set during the previous editions of the festival. Techfest 2001 brought a
series of events like the lecture series, competitions, workshops and a whole range of
other activities which kept audience engrossed for the entire three day duration of the
festival. Such event, had AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) as its main sponsor. Not just
that, AMD actually made an entry into the Indian market through the medium of
Techfest, taking the market by storm. Other main sponsors over the years. Such as IBM
have given excellent post-event feedback and have promised that the association with
Techfest would only grow in the future. Selectica Configurators, the main sponsors of
Techfest 2000, too found Techfest the most suitable medium to venture into the Indian
market. Other sponsors over the years have included TCS, Wipro, Cypress
Semiconductors, Netpilgriom.com, Schlumberger, Enron, i2 Technologies,
Planetasia.com, Oracle, PCS, Texas Instruments, VSNL, MTNL, GE Capital, SAS,
Cabury India, At & T, Siemens, MBT, Informix, Onward Novell India, Radiostar, Pepsi,
The Indian Express Group among others. Techfest has also had media sponsor like
Express Computer and their sister publication It People.
 Marketing Research
 Helping in creation and sustenance of a panel of consumers surveys or announcements
during events can be used to attract and select from the provide feedback to the company on
the products/brands that it manufactures or trades.
 Enabling market database assimilation, maintenance and updating -
 By keeping track of the reach and its effectiveness as well as interacting with the
audience that actually turns up for the event, event sponsors can assimilate an authentic
database.
 The database can be used to track various marketing trends.
 Events can then help in maintaining and updating the database.
 Changes in the demography of the target segments can therefore be closely tracked.
 Providing instant feedback and opportunity for an authentic and instant market research-
 Most feed back from surveys carried out by market research firms are error-ridden
when carried out by third parties or suffer due to deficiencies in the methodology of
data collection and lack of authenticity.
 Events provide a host of audience-friendly occasions, wherein the required data can be
collected both instantly and authentically.
 The instant gratification handouts can be distributed during the event itself. The instant
gratification that that can be provided in the form of lucky draws and gifts during the
breaks in the event, act as an incentive for the target audience to at least participate.
 Thus, events also lend tangibility to marketing since the uses of events designed to
achieve specific objectives can be directly measured, if so desired. Events thus help in
generating qualified sales leads.
 Relationship Building
 Giving relationship management a proactive feel -
 Sony and Aiwa have offered free service camps for their music system and other
products. Similarly, free service camps for Maruti and Daewoo car owners have also
been held. Events such as these help in not only building up a rapport with the
customers, but also help in reducing the cognitive dissonance, which is very common in
purchase of such type of products. This type of relationship is very proactive in nature
because many studies have proved that reduced cognitive dissonance leads to the repeat
purchase of the brand.
 Creating a forum for bringing together key corporate influencrs, decision makers &
businessmen -
 The main objective of the 12-city IBM Solutions Forum ’98, organized by Tata IBM Ltd.
And spread over a few months, was to bring to the doorstep of key people in the
industry. The wide range of IBM Technologies and cost-effective solutions available for
all sizes of business. It also sought to demonstrate to these key people, IBM’s clear
leadership in the areas of PC product solutions, servers, industry-specific solutions and
electronic business solutions. The forum also provided a platform for presentations and
discussions on packages- both international such as CATIA (a CAD-CAM product) and
those developed by Tata IBM’s software partners in India.
 Creating a forum for career match making -
 One of the more frequently held career fairs in the Brassring Career Event, held in the
Santa Clara Convection Centre in Santa Clara, California by www.Brassring.com. One
such event was held in August 2000 to facilitate a friendly and face-to-face interaction
between software professionals looking for career opportunities with recruiters looking
to hire the best talent.
 Creating Opportunities for Better Deals with
Different Media
 A Single sponsor may find it difficult to network with the different
media.
 The volume of business generated by one sponsoring firm may not be
lucrative enough for the particular media to offer substantial room for
negotiation whereas professional event organizers are in touch with the
media components daily.
 This enables negotiations by event organizers to be more fruitful than
when an individual company negotiates with the media.
 Negotiations could be in terms of rates (per cc for print media and
commercial time on the electronic media) offered free in relation with the
sponsorship amount.
 While on television and radio, free commercial times are bartered by the
event organize, in the print media, advertising space can be bartered.
This may not be possible for individual clients.
 Evens and the Economy
 Over and above the marketing angle, the economic benefits to the region
hosting the event is also a positive aspect. Countries like India should be not
only investing in information technology but also other communication
infrastructure to be ready.
 In this millennium to host similar mega-events. The singular importance of
mega-events in driving an economy into a growth phase has already been
emphasized earlier, and India needs events like these.
 The 1982 Asian Games held in New Delhi gave an impetus to the Indian economy
with the setting up of an Asian Games village for the participants with all modern
facilities essentially in transportation and infrastructure. The buses which were
introduced during the games to transport athletes are in fact still in operation and
are plying between various cities such as Bombay and Pune, 18 years later!
 Similarly, the 1996 Centennial Olympics held in Atlanta, gave an impetus to the
local economy and helped in giving a face lift to the entire city with new freeways
and attractions added to places as The Underground, the World of Coca Cola and
the Olympic Village. These were built in anticipation of the influx of thousands of
athletes and millions of fans of the games. The local infrastructure, thus got a
boost and Atlanta is now amongst one of the most modern and fastest growing
cities in the USA.