The Marketing Manager's Yearbook 2008
Digital and Live Events
A Powerful Future Together
Trevor Foley illustrates how the events industry has benefi ted from the rise of online marketing while the
digital revolution continues to challenge other sectors.
According to The Times, Britons are the ‘social networking’ champions of Europe, displaying a far greater
appetite for websites such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo than our fellow citizens on the continent.
According to the research, British internet users spend an average of 5.8 hours a month – about 11 minutes a
day – on such sites. Coverage of the Media Planning Group’s (MPG) report on shopping habits revealed 92%
of families have shopped online at some point, and 54% use the internet to shop at least once a month. There
can be no doubt that digital is the rising star.
Yet, despite news stories on the death of other channels as the internet grows in popularity, the majority in
MPG’s survey (68%) say they still visit their local high street at least once a week. Let’s face it, we do it all the
time: hop on the internet, pin down a product and then nip out to the shops to check it out for real: to touch it,
feel it, talk about it. The bigger the spend, the truer the reality. That is the symbiotic relationship between digital
and ‘live’ marketing, a relationship that continues to grow.
Rise of Events
As online advertising spend overtakes that ploughed into the national press and is forecast to top TV advertising
in three years time (according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau), the rise of digital is well documented. But
alongside Bellwether’s reporting of increased online marketing budgets, 2008 will see the introduction of
head-to-head statistics on the growing spend on live event marketing, as more and more marketers tap into
its power to engage and deliver real results.
Concern among traditional media is very real and continuing to grow, yet of all other media at brand owners’
fi ngertips, it is event marketing that is not suffering ill effects from the digital revolution. In fact the evidence
shows that the events sector is being thrown to the fore of brand campaigns, in part because of its symbiotic
relationship with online.
The second wave of digital media is drawing the traditional mass media sectors under its pull. This isn’t just
because today’s consumer wants to “consume” what they want, when it suits, but also because TV, radio,
magazines, et al., can all be replicated online. Ironically, it is event marketing, the oldest kid on the block that
is riding the digital wave. It’s not just that event marketing is complementary to digital, but that the two have so
much in common, to the exclusion of the traditional mass-market media.
The key characteristic of both digital and events is “pull” rather than “push”. Unlike the interruptive push
techniques of broadcast, direct mail and other media forms, pull, or permission marketing, is exclusive to
digital and live marketing formats.
Engagement
In 2007, ‘engagement’ took centre stage for marketers and brand managers in our increasingly fragmented
world, where consumers need to be able to make sense of the messages they are bombarded with. Taking a
brand into a live, face-to-face environment allows the consumer to build a relationship with that brand beyond
what is achievable online, or in any other media form. Where communities and relationships can be built online
they can be consummated face-to-face. So, event marketing, which for so long has not even been regarded
as a mainstream marketing medium, has now joined digital on the stage as a “now media” star.
Brand Users
Among the greatest users of event marketing are online or airtime brands such as Microsoft, Apple, Google,
eBay, Channel 4, O2 and Orange. O2’s use of events is a detailed and multi-faceted study of effective
brand positioning and relationship building, through countless touch-points with consumers. The O2 Wireless
Festival and the re-branding of the ill fated dome as The O2, the coolest new venue in town, is a lesson for all
brand managers in extending and building trust in a brand.
The innovative team at Channel 4 has begun to infi ltrate the events world, bringing its brands to life through
ownership of dedicated experiential activity. Following its acquisition of a 50% stake in Taste Events, Michael
Hodgson, Managing Director of Channel 4Rights division commented, “Taste is a complete sensory overload
and it’s in the area of food, with which Channel 4 has got a huge resonance and reputation. What we’re now
trying to do is build or own our own properties and within that objective, events is one attractive area”.
David Bolton is Sales & Marketing Director at EIBS Ltd., a leading provider of content management software within the UK. David graduated in 1997 with a BSc in Psychology and formed EIBS with three Co-Directors only two years later. As one of the founder directors, David has worked in the CMS arena for eight years and been instrumental in achieving an average year-on-year growth of over 40%. This year their growth was recognised in the Deloitte Fast 50 list, ranking 13th in the Midlands fastest growing IT companies.