Question

Victoria’s Secret has decided to make a concerted effort to raise money for Breast Cancer research. As part of this effort, they have decided to put together an event that connects their brand with the consumer and with the cause in a “unique and compelling” way. Given the success of the annual fashion show that is televised on CBS, Victoria’s Secret has decided to take the show on the road. Starting this year, Victoria’s Secret is putting together a music festival that will feature a number of popular bands, several fashion shows, including all the Victoria’s Secret models, and other attractions that lend themselves to a traveling festival of this sort. At its heart, however, the company wants the event to help raise awareness for their cause as well as the money that they believe will help find the cure. Your group has been hired to help develop this event, plan the promotional efforts for the event, and determine what other brands will be pursued as sponsors for this event. As such, you have been given relative complete freedom in building this event from the ground up. In other words, the only direction the company has given you in terms of building the event is that they want you to build a music festival that fits with, and is, an extension of the Victoria’s Secret brand and is as completely an immersive experience as can be managed. To that end, you will produce an event proposal that provides an overall blueprint of the festival and all that it entails. Included in this proposal will be a description of the event itself, a discussion of the sales promotional and direct marketing efforts that will attract consumers to the event, an overview of the proposed sponsorships and how to attract those sponsors, and, finally, an outline of the public relations efforts that will not only promote the event but also the cause the event is designed to support. Your final proposal should not only contain these components, but it should also demonstrate the quality of your company’s professionalism and marketing skills. In other words, your group has not only been tasked with demonstrating your understanding of how to build an event of this nature but also with your ability to market your consulting company within the context of this plan so that you could use it as an example for future clients.

Promotional Effort:

Discuss the various sales promotion efforts that will bring people to the event. Victoria’s Secret is taking care of the advertising on the large scale, so your task is to determine how best to support that advertising through the use of point-of-purchase advertising, sales promotion techniques, social networking opportunities, and support media. Keep in mind that you will want these efforts to fit with the overall theme of the event as well as with the Victoria’s Secret brand and other brands that have been selected as sponsors. You may also want to discuss direct marketing and personal selling efforts that are designed to bring larger groups into the event or even corporate groups.

Answer 1

The following can be considered as some sales promotion activities for bringing in the crowd for the event:

• Amplify your online advertising
• Consider ad Re-targeting
• Embrace podcasting
• Step up your email game
• Launch a YouTube channel
• Hire a brand ambassador
• Network at similar events
• Invitation-only sessions
• Look for lookalike audiences

Supporting the advertising :

There are literally a lot of ways available to us in the recent days for advertising any thing, since we've everything on our finger tips now. We've to consider the required coverage and number of exposures in a target audience; the relative cost of the media advertising and the media environment. We can use

TV advertising which covers a larger area of audience who are watching TV. However, television remains an option that is best for products that targeted to a broad market. The geographic scope of television advertising may vary, from local or regional advertising through to national coverage, depending on whether public broadcasting or subscriber-based cable services are used

Radio advertising can also be used, In many ways radio suffers the same problems as television, namely, a mass medium that is not highly targeted and offers little opportunity to track responses. But unlike television, radio presents the additional disadvantage of limiting advertisers to audio-only advertising. For some products advertising without visual support is not effective.

Social Media or Internet is also a very good advertising platform for events and all other stuff, Online advertising has spawned a range of new segmentation and targeting approaches including Affinity targeting, Behavioral targeting, Contextual targeting and Geographic targeting and Purchase-based category targeting.

And there are many more for supporting the advertising.

Direct Marketing & Personal Selling:

Well to talk about, there is a lot of difference between direct marketing as well as personal selling, in the context of events.

Personal selling occurs when a company employee, typically a salesperson, has a conversation with a potential customer. This may occur face-to-face in a retail setting, over the phone or on social media platforms. No matter the medium, the distinctive characteristic of personal selling is the direct line of communication between a company representative and a consumer.

With direct marketing, we may reach audience directly, but instead of speaking with them, they send emails, text messages, fliers, catalogs, letters and postcards. Though direct marketing campaigns can be tailored and customized for different groups of recipients, they typically do not involve forming personal relationships with customers. Instead, direct marketing materials are generally mass-produced and sent to large audiences.

So its finally up to us to choose which option to go ahead with, i personally think being an event organizer we must try all the ways possible for getting the crowd to the event. So that wouldn't be a problem if we're are paid enough for the work done.