Public Relations - National Wedding Show

These two events I have chosen are similar in many ways; this also includes their PR objectives. In my opinion the national wedding show also tried to make people aware of this show, particularly their target audience, which in my point of view has been successful as their articles are within wedding magazines, displayed on their website, talked about on their twitter page and facebook page. They also use PR to boost their ticket sales by also providing the total ‘VIP’ exclusivity to people who have a certain ticket.

Within the exhibition area of the website it contain links of the national wedding show being featured on TV for example 'How to look good naked'.

The link can be found here http://www.nationalweddingshow.co.uk/gok-wan-presents-how-to-look-good-naked-from-the-uks-largest-wedding-show/6508688.article


Unlike Sherlock Holmes their main objectives won’t be to increase attendees as much since they usually attract over 50,000 people a year with 89% having a household income of over £58,000. I assume that this would mean that they are trying to encourage these people to book in advanced to provide a clear indicated of roughly how many people will be attending this event, this also prepares and helps workers to estimate how many workers and crisis management strategies.

The above like Sherlock Holmes also shows an official facebook page and twitter page. Both of these pages keep their customers up-to-date with recent news like the increase in wedding fees and other related information that their customers will be interested in. This is like a way for people to interact with people who are also interested in the same thing; this page makes people involved in the approaching date of the event and a regular update in interesting facts.

On Sunday 12^th February roughly over a week before the actual event their facebook page has 8,097 likes and 122 people talking about it, whilst their twitter page has 4,536 followers.

These numbers are insignificant compared to the ones Sherlock Holmes have but they are completely different events and Sherlock Holmes has a more wider potential client base than the national wedding show.

On a side note they have also recently created an iphone app to help bride plan out their day.

In my opinion, though the national wedding show are doing relatively well for themselves even considering how they are mainly attractive to women, Sherlock Holmes have a better public relations approach.

Public Relations - Sherlock Holmes

What is it? ‘Black (1993) maintains that PR is planned in an effort to create goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics’

(Black, S. (1993) The essentials of public relations. Kogan Page)

(Masterman & Wood. (2006) Innovative marketing communications. Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann)

The uses of PR

-Customer retention

-Investment

-Bargaining status

-staff relations

-business development

Functions of PR

-opinion forming

-internal relations

-participants

-public official liaison

-community relations

-product support

-financial relations

-crisis management

-press, television and radio relations

(Masterman & Wood. Innovative marketing communications, 2006. pgs88-92)

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes would use public relations to create awareness for the movie. I’ve come to this conclusion because movies need viewers to come to watch the movie in the cinema, and also attend the premier event that always occur before the official date of the movies release.

Sherlock Holmes to the running up-to the event have used the media to make the public aware. This mainly includes promotional work on tv shows, news articles, personal information that would inevitably link to the movie (without them having to say anything about the movie, journalists provide a promotional tools by simply linking these actors and actresses to the movie).

The above screen print contains an interview from the cast of Sherlock Holmes, I'm not able to upload it but this is the link: http://bcove.me/ajn7unrd

These are just some examples of PR that have been done by the Sherlock Holmes cast. A constant example of PR would be the continuous updates about the movie on facebook for their official page. 2,154,098 have liked this page whilst 78,462 have talked about this movie; these states were taken on Sunday 4^th December 2011 which has increased since then.

Their public relations team concentrate on garnering viewers to watch the movie in the cinema, this is because the success of the film, beside the reviews written by people, are also based on the income for the opening weekend/week of the movie and whether they have doubled or tripled the money spent for making the movie. The entertainment industry is a business like any other but take more risks as they can never know whether a movie will be a hit or an epic fail.

Sales Promotions: What techniques are they using?

Definition: ‘Communicated offers which add short-term value to the products (such as prize draws, two for ones, free gifts, and competitions)

(Source: Masterman & Wood, Innovative Marketing Communications, 2006, pg 75)

Definition: ‘Laspadakis (1999) sees sales promotion as a tool that can enhance a brand’s long-term interests.’

(Source: Masterman & Wood, Innovative Marketing Communications, 2006, pg 179)

‘Boone and Kurtz (2002) define it as a range of marketing activities that are not personal selling, advertising or publicity, but perform a similar role; that of enhancing consumer purchasing and distributor effectiveness.’

(Masterman & Wood, Innovative marketing communication (2006), pg 178)

Marketing objectives include:

-develop repeat sales

-develop sales of existing offers

-develop trail of existing products

-introduce new offers to current and new customers

-develop trail of new offers

-pre-empt and counteract promotions for new and existing, direct, indirect and substitute competitor offers.

-develop sales lead + create database information for offers

^ these are examples of customer sales promotional objectives. Other objectives could include trade sales and internal sales promotional objectives.

(Masterman & Wood, Innovative Marketing Communications, (2006), pg 180)

Examples of words used as sales promotions would be: WIN. FREE. SAVE!

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Sherlock Holmes franchise were not connected with the competitions, they simply gave free tickets to organisations where these organisations promoted the movie by giving people the opportunity to win these tickets through competition means. Some of the ways people can compete would be to join certain promotions, for example the above chance to win the premier ticket would only be applicable to people who have a 16-25 railcard. This is also means of targeting their target audience.

Movies tend to use the promotional word WIN when promoting their movies.

The above print screen shows that there are plenty of opportunities for people to win items, this includes cinema tickets, premier tickets, Sherlock Holmes merchandise among other things that may not be associated with the franchise.

This sales promotional technique of winning would attract people, especially the fans of the franchise. The chance to win a chance to win a premier ticket is especially attractive because people can’t simply buy these tickets, it provides something of a VIP experience because with premiers there tend to also have celebrities and red carpet treatment.

(I for one have been attracted to trying to win one of these tickets but for a different movie. I wasn’t as lucky to win a ticket but I did attend the premier being one of those screaming fans trying to get the autograph of one of the actors......guess what movie premier it was. I’ll give you a hint, has it something to do with vampires and this year is set to release its last movie in the franchise. ;p )

National Wedding Show

Similar to Sherlock Holmes, the National Wedding Show use the promotional word of WIN to attract people. If we were to compare the price of the items they would be winning it would be Sherlock Holmes prizes that are more rewarding. However getting something for free is still better than nothing. The tickets on the day cost approximately £20 but £16 if booked in advanced. People can simply buy the tickets themselves but if given the opportunity to win these tickets their consumers will still participate.  Humans in general are attracted to the words associated with winning, free, limited etc.

As I had previously stated people can save roughly £20 if they win a ticket. However ‘SAVE’ is also used to attract people. Even saving a penny means something, penny’s do add up, I’ll give an out of context example, when in the high street there are £1 stores, 99p stores and even 98p stores, even if it simply a penny there is a reason why these stores have been opening and are more popular than regular stores that sell the same things but at a higher price. The simple conclusion is that people like free stuff and saving their money, given with today’s economy it’s not really surprising.

Finally this example is again a save technique but in this case the prize is bigger than simply winning a normal prized ticket. Consumers can buy these VIP tickets however the price is at £35, almost double the standard ticket.

What I have basically pointed out is that people are attracted to these promotional words and are definitely a sure way of attracting these people. Our mind have become accustomed to looking for the opportunities to save the money we have worked so hard for, and especially saving this money from being spent on leisure activities such as this.

Advertisement: Strong & Weak Theory Part 2

National Wedding Show

I believe that when looking at the national wedding show it would be more useful looking at the strong theory in advertising, similar to Sherlock Holmes. Unlike the sherlock holmes sequal that may have garnered loyalty with the audience that had watched the previous movie, the national wedding show may not have that kind of loyalty with previous attendee’s as this event is mainly a one-off for people, mainly because it attracts soon-to-be brides but once these women are married the need for attending this event is gone.

As Schultz et al in their Integrated Marketing Communications book the obvious and main communications objectives when advertising would be ‘to make the consumer aware’ and as a side objective ‘to inform the consumer’. They are trying to attract the recent brides-to-be to attend the event, similarly like the previous years that they try to attract these women. In the case of their advertising techniques using the strong theory, their advertisments try to show women what they would want for their wedding and not neccessarily need, targetting the women’s mind to make them think that the products in the advert is something that they need.

These print ad’s highlight the allure of the event, showcasing wedding dress, expert advice and the whole VIP experiance for the day. The magazines these ads will be advertised in are mainly women doing pre-wedding research, thus targetting their target audience directly. Even though we are currently still in recession and recently the Church of England have increased the wedding fees ‘The current plan, which will be introduced from January next year, will increase weddings fees by 40%, from £296 to £415’ (Source: nationalweddingshow.co.uk). This is further reason for the national wedding show to adopt the strong theory and why they have done so for many years in my opinion. People don’t generally come back to these events after their wedding but can get customers through word-of-mouth which these people are relaying the needs the adverts have instilled in their minds.

So with regards to the strong theory viewing consumers as rather intelligent or stupid in the case that they are easily manipulated that can seem to be the case. Women only want what they deem to be special or is given the aura of being something that not everyone can have, this trait in women is enhanced as it is for their wedding. So the national wedding show are relatively smart in using the strong theory in their advertisments and can even beat the increase in prices and the recession as society will always have people getting married and divorced then remarried.

It’s a sad reality but weddings are something every girl dreams to have whether it be once to the guy you love or many because you haven’t found Mr Right.

P.S

More articles about weddings can be found on the following link --> 

http://www.nationalweddingshow.co.uk/home/weddings-fees-to-increase-by-40/6507736.article

Advertisement: Strong & Weak Theory Part 1

Advertising definition: ‘Mass media communication where space is bought. Can be corporate, brand or product based’

(Source: Innovative Marketing Communications by Masterman & Wood, 2006, pg 76)

What is advertising and what contributions does it make to society? ‘It influences the individual manufacturer’s sales to some degree. Advertising lubricated the competitive system by telling consumers about the differences between competing brands’.

The study of the strong and weak forces of advertising are studied by many academics, Professor John Philip Jones goes into detail on both theories but mainly on the strong theory whilst Andrew Ehrenberg of the London Business School sees advertising as a weak force.

Strong theory – ‘sees advertising as a dynamic force operating as an engine for brand innovation and other types of change in the market-place’

The strong theory is basically in the interests of the capitalists society, advertising in terms of the strong theory is able to increase sales and can manipulate the consumer by using phychological techniques in its advertising. Thus persuading people to buy the items without them really needing the product or service. Sees’ its audience as stupid and easily manipulated.

Weak theory – ‘cannot act as a prime mover in the capitalist system, used defensively by most advertisers as a means of protecting the status quo’

Unlike the strong theory it does not believe adverising is strong enough to persuades a person’s original perceptions. Instead of using advertising to attract new customers, the use of it is to retain exisiting customers. See’s its audience as intelligent and not easily manipulated.

                                                (Source: ‘Advertising: strong force or weak force? Two views an ocean apart by Prof John Jones’, International Journal of Advertising)

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows – Strong Theory

Whilst I was unsure of which theory to use when looking at the advertising technique of Sherlock Holmes i believe that the strong theory is more applicable rather than the weak theory. The movie business has always been a shakey territory as there are many alternatives like pirate dvds, illegal downloads and online viewing from illegal recordings. So Sherlock Holmes in my opinion would use the strong theory to get people to spend money to watch it in the cinema and spend money, even if they have the opportunity to watch it for free without the need to waste money.

Trailers are a prime example of advertisers using psychological techniques to manipulate the person to watching the movie in general, using cliffhangers to intrigue people to find out ‘what happens?’

Another technique used is the sex appeal of the autors chosen to be in the movie. Women and men both like to watch people they deem to be attractive in the movies they watch, for example Robert Downey Jr has had a previous bad boy appeal can continues to give a mysterious effect on the viewers whereas Jude Law can attract women with his sex appeal
AND the accent that comes with being british (which I don’t personally understand, are british accents sexy? Maybe I don’t find it as attractive because I actually live in England and hear it regularly *shrugs*)

Within the 2 months of its release almost everywhere i looked i would see a promotional poster of the movie.

Movies aren’t something you generally HAVE to watch, it’s not like you have to watch a movie to survive, like food and water is to human and animals to survive. By using continuous reminders of the movie wherever you look is a constant reminder that this movie is coming out soon! It eventually becomes something interesting and turns into something you have to watch in order to become satisfied. (As I have been following the movie is has had a different effect on me because its become linked with work and something that because i’ve research it so much it has lost its appeal to me.But i’m just a weird case so don’t pay attention to my little rant ;p)

But in all honesty with regards to the strong theory seeing its consumers as unintelligent or stupid it may be the case depending on the circumstance. Some people may have watched the previous movie and because of this it turns into something they have to watch but only because they want to know what happens next. However we are in recession, money and jobs are hard to find so by using roughly £7 to buy a cinema ticket that could have bought a few items in tesco or even gloves or a scarf in this crazy weather. So yeah the strong theory does work in this case as people continue to watch movies in cinema’s even in this financial situation.

Ok this is just long soooooooo sorry if i've bored you :) Byyyyyyeeeeee

Evaluating their on-line presence

National Wedding Show

Websites: 'They are utilised as marketing communication tools to disseminate booking information as well as direct opportunities for ticket sales'

Innovative Marketing Communications, Masterman & Wood (2006)

‘The art of obtaining natural listings on search engines or search engine optimisation (SEO) has become a business in its own right with agencies specializing in web-site design that makes use of the various ways search engines search and generate results list.’

Innovative Marketing Communications, Masterman & Wood (2006)

Websites in general are part of what attracts people to these events. For the National Wedding Show when typed exactly so in the search engine it is the first within in the list which shows good search engine optimisation.

Another indication that the wedding show has good search engine optimisation is even if the wording has changed it is still first in the results list, for example simply typing in ‘wedding show’ or ‘wedding exhibition’ came with the national wedding shows official website.

Once clicking onto the website the first image that attracts the viewers attention is the national wedding show banner as well as the dates of these shows in both London and Birmingham, also showing that this exclusive event is only on for a selected amount of days in both places until again the following year. As well as this once the page has been opened a video on the page automatically plays talking about the wedding show and giving the audience a sneak peek into previous shows and what to expect on the day.

Another attraction to entice visitors is the announcement in the ‘Lastest News’ that tickets for the spring show are now on sale and the fact that you can save money when booking in advanced. This is especially attracting to their target audience who are mainly women as they can save money which is especially needed as weddings in general cost a lot and this money saved can be used at the event itself.

The website needs to be informative and easy to use as this is one of the first point of access for potential attendees to visit. The navigation on the website is straight forward and the main points are highlighted, an extra bonus the site provides is the chance to sign up to the newsletter for updates as well as an on-going blog. This shows that the website is interactive with its potential attendees and people interested in the event, with its interactive approach the website also has links to other social networking pages like facebook and twitter giving people more options on how to follow the progress of the event and maintaining the interest towards the event.

Not only is the website promoting the event, the website also encourages people to continually visit the page by adding advice, articles, online coaching, design ideas and cake ideas.

Evaluating their on-line presence continued:

Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows

Simply typing in ‘Sherlock Holmes’ into the search engine does not provide the official website for A Game Of Shadows movie or even the official movie for the first movie. Similarly with typing in ‘Sherlock Holmes A Game Of Shadows’ or ‘Sherlock Holmes 2’  the official website is within the first page of the results but is always after wikipedia. Unlike the national wedding show the search engine optimisation of Sherlock Holmes is not as successful, however as both events are different the listing of the Sherlock Holmes website in the results is not much of an importance as it is for the wedding show.

A main objective for movie events is simply to get people to watch the movie, the official website is to continue getting people interested in watching the movie, providing extra footages from the movie, downloadable items, images, videos, soundtrack options and about the movie and it’s characters. Like the wedding show the website also contains links to social networking sites like facebook and twitter however it is not as interactive with its audience unlike the national wedding show. The link with the social networking sites is different from the ones used on the national wedding show, whilst the show is linked to the pages of these sites, Sherlock Holmes twitter link requires a log-in is only to tweet about the movie thus using the people who tweet as a promotional tool to attract further people and the person’s followers. The facebook option on the other hand links to the sherlock holmes page by giving you the option to ‘like’ the movie which then shows on your information page when people look at what your interested in.

Compared to the national wedding show the website is more boring with its content and colour scheme, the national wedding show contains light colouring and colours that is more attracting towards females, however the Sherlock Holmes website has a more mysterious vibe and is more focussed on making sure the audience watch the movie rather than the wedding show that tries to get people to continuously visit the website.

Sponsorship

Definition: ‘Contribution (financial or in-kind) to an activity (often a sport, music or arts event) by an organisation usually in exchange for name, brand or product exposure’

(Masterman & Wood, Innovative marketing communication (2006), pg 76)

‘The objective is to reach out to the local community that provides the organisation with its employees...it’s immediate operating environment represents a number of key local stakeholders and sponsorship can help to reach out to those groups’              

‘Event sponsorship is now used to drive sales as well as develop favourable brand associations and awareness, promote corporate awareness and develop internal and community relations’

3 key factors for sponsors in making sponsorship successful:

1.      The necessity to exploit event rights

2.      Role sponsorship needs to play in integrated marketing communications

3.      The need for sponsors to evaluate sponsorship in order to improve future performance.

Examples of sponsorship objectives:

-direct sales development (driving of sales)

-brand awareness

-external corporate awareness development (seeking to position or re-position themselves corporately)

-internal relations development (can create goodwill via an involvement with the employee’s community)

-competitive advantage

(Masterman & Wood, Innovative marketing communications (2006), Chapter 12)

National Wedding Show

From the website they don’t seem to have any official sponsors, I have currently emailed a section of the company to figure out who may sponsor the event but in all honesty I doubt they will get back to me in time.

As for them not seeming to have any sponsors I don’t believe they would need sponsors as they have income from people occupying the exhibition stalls. As for giveaways for the event it is assumed that these stalls will be giving away free items to promote their business which in turn provides incentives for people to receive free things. These exhibitors do play a similar role a sponsor would do, this includes trying to attract new customers, try to build a relationship with the national wedding show to get an exhibition space for the following year and an obvious objective would be to increase sales.

On their official website they do promote links to other website.

These links are for photography companies, a wedding magazine and a hotel company. All do link to the wedding aspects but they must at least get something from these organisations by advertising on their website as this would attract clients for the wedding show to visit these websites.

Sherlock Holmes

Unlike the national wedding show that the sponsors are not visibly seen, the official Sherlock Holmes page for A Game Of Shadows has a page dedicated to their partners. These partners include French Connection, English Tea Store, Hershey’s chocolate, Shuttle computer, DELTA and Hardee’s. Warner brothers play a big part in the development of the movie so they can be seen as the main sponsor of the movie, which is always displayed on any kind of advertisements and the credits at the end of the movies.

As a partner of Sherlock Holmes the website also provides links to visit the official pages of these partners, I personally did not know these companies were associated with the Sherlock Holmes franchise.

In terms of sponsorship techniques both events are completely different, movies rely on the income for organisations to actually fund the making of the movie and the national wedding show have people approach them to pay to be part of the event.

Phew I am finally done with all the postings to my blog. I’ll have blog another post that will be totally random so keep an eye out for that. I’ll make changes to some posts, like actually try to print screen the pages of the links on some posts so bare with me.....

Thanks for reading my analysis of the events. A bit boring but it had to be done....

Till next time lovely’s x

Likely Communication Objectives

Sherlock Holmes

For movies the main communications objectives would be to ensure awareness of movie to the general public, this in turn leads to the awareness of who is starring in the movie, its release date and knowledge of an up coming premier which includes celebrity appearances. As this is a sequel it is also communicating to fans that there is a continuation to the movie they had watched.

VS.

National Wedding Show

The name itself ‘National Wedding Show’ draws the attentions to brides. Its main communication objective would be awareness like Sherlock Holmes, to make brides aware that there is a show around to help make planning their weddings easier.

Whilst there are other wedding shows this wedding show is national. Only happening in selected areas for a specific amount of time. It shows exclusivity, which most brides would want to differentiate their special day from other people. In this case and in present society, people are striving to be different and this wedding show would provide more options rather than simply sticking to traditional flowers and buying their dressing from local wedding dress shops.