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The Wiley Event Management Series Series Editor: Dr. Joe Goldblatt, CSEP • Professional Event Coordination, Second Edition by Julia Rutherford Silvers, CSEP • The Complete Guide to Greener Meetings and Events by Samuel deBlanc Goldblatt • Special Events: A New Generation and the Next Frontier, Sixth Edition by Dr. Joe Goldblatt, CSEP • The Complete Guide to Careers in Special Events by Gene Columbus • Dictionary of Event Management, Second Edition by Dr. Joe Goldblatt, CSEP, and Kathleen S. Nelson, CSEP • Corporate Event Project Management by William O’Toole and Phyllis Mikolaitis • Event Risk Management and Safety by Peter E. Tarlow, PhD • Event Sponsorship by Bruce E. Skinner and Vladimir Rukavina • The Complete Guide to Event Entertainment and Production by Mark Sonder, MM, CSEP • The Guide to Successful Destination Management by Pat Schaumann, CMP, CSEP • The Sports Event Management and Marketing Playbook by Frank Supovitz • Art of the Event: Complete Guide to Designing and Decorating Special

Events by James C. Monroe, CMP, CSEP • Global Meetings and Exhibitions by Carol Krugman, CMP, CMM, and Rudy R. Wright, CMP

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This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Copyright © 2012 by Chris Preston and Leonard H. Hoyle, Jr. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

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ISBN 978-0-470-89107-0 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-118-11071-3 (ebk), ISBN 978-1-118-11072-0 (ebk), ISBN 978-1-118-11073-7 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

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DEDICATION This book is dedicated to the late Leonard H. Hoyle, whose insights and enthusiasm provided the inspiration behind this work, and whose instinct for the inherent practicality behind event marketing activities was so ably demonstrated in the first edition. Leonard will be greatly missed by his associates in the events industry, and we honor his memory. I would also like to dedicate this book to my young son, Ben, for whom everything is an event.

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Event Marketing Table of Contents

Foreword – Liz Bigham Series Editor Foreword – Dr. Joe Goldblatt, CSEP Preface In Appreciation Of What Is an Event and What Is Event Marketing? The Evolution of Event Marketing The Theory and Practice of Event Marketing Sponsorship and Cause-Related Event Marketing E-Event Marketing Entertainment and Festival Event Marketing Corporate Event Marketing Association, Convention, and Exhibition Event Marketing Social Event Marketing Future Forces and Trends in Event Marketing Event Marketing Case Studies Resources

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FOREWORD The Potential and Paradox of Events in the Twenty-First Century Today, connecting with others through digital means is an accepted and ever-present reality. Digital interaction is like the air we breathe, invisible and natural, even when it leads to apparently ridiculous situations, such as two teenagers sitting side by side texting messages back and forth to each other. And that’s precisely why, paradoxically, knowing how to leverage events strategically is more important than ever before. The more we live in a world that is digital, the more we need live events—and the more we need to know how to use them wisely.

At regular intervals during the 72-year history of the brand experience agency I work for, Jack Morton, prognosticators and irrationally exuberant technologists have predicted that new innovations—from videoconferencing to virtual events to the Internet itself—would be the death of live events. Yet reports of events’ death were, to paraphrase Mark Twain, greatly exaggerated: exactly the opposite has happened. Events— defined as everything from small-scale gatherings for C-level executives to mass happenings that engage consumers and generate media for brands— have continued to grow in importance as part of the marketing mix. Agencies like ours have thrived. As human beings, we crave “real” human interaction. As leaders of business, we’ve come to acknowledge that we get a lot done when we gather face-to-face that we simply can’t do through other means. As marketers, we recognize that brand experiences that connect with people have an immediacy that inspires positive action more quickly than other channels, and that builds a more memorable and meaningful interaction over the long term. Along with these enduring truths about the value of live events, there’s an even more important requirement: in this digital age, brands that invest in live events must know how to leverage them strategically. This means understanding what is special and unique about live events. It means understanding what live events can do well given a particular brand’s industry, their business objectives, and the people they’re trying to engage. It means knowing how to integrate and incorporate digital interaction in face-to-face gatherings,

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as well as how to balance live versus digital moments in time as part of an ongoing campaign and related set of brand touchpoints. And, critically, it means knowing how to measure the impact of live events. All this makes a book such as this one all the more valuable and necessary.

Liz Bigham SVP Director of Marketing, Jack Morton Worldwide

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SERIES EDITOR FOREWORD It is hard to believe that over a decade has passed since the late and great Leonard H. (affectionately known to most as “Buck”) Hoyle (1939–2010) wrote what historically will be recorded as the seminal pioneering book focused upon improving marketing specifically within the events industry. Buck, a tall, warm, and gentle giant in the meetings and events industry of the twentieth century, served as an executive of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), was the executive director for many years of the Hotel Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI), and was a beloved and admired leader in the modern meetings and events association. One of his greatest professional legacies is the book you now hold in your hands.

Fortunately, Christopher Preston, a very experienced marketing expert and popular lecturer from Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, Scotland, stepped forward one decade later to revise this book to ensure its currency and sustainability within the twenty-first century. Chris has successfully preserved the key principles, themes, and classic philosophies that Buck first developed but also greatly expanded them to embrace and provide new solutions for the new challenges facing this era of event marketing.

From emerging opportunities such as social media to the issues of measurement and evaluation of return on marketing investment and return on marketing objective, Chris Preston has transformed this book to address the major marketing paradigm shifts that are driving change in meetings and events in this new century. This new edition preserves the key classic ideas and concepts first introduced in the original book and then takes them forward with lightning speed to ensure currency with the contemporary challenges facing event marketers today as well as tomorrow.

The term event is derived from the Latin word e-venire, which means “outcome.” Therefore, every planned event must produce a desired outcome. I sincerely believe that Buck Hoyle would be pleased with the outcome of Chris Preston’s valuable contribution to his original work.

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Chris has provided you with a comprehensive set of tools to meet the marketing challenges of the second decade of the twenty-first century through a classic book that first began as part of the John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Event Management Series during the final days of the last century. I hope you will also, through the pages of this excellent book, create your own sustainable legacies in meeting and event marketing thanks in large part to the inspiration of Buck and the many new advancements provided by Chris. As their reader, you are now part of the twenty-first-century meeting and event marketing team that will help further advance this field and profession through your own innovations and creative approaches in the future.

I am certain that Buck is now smiling in amazement as the marketing of meetings and events continues to expand and grow exponentially. He would also, as many have observed after his recent passing, tell a cute story by first asking a question, such as “What is the best way to market a meeting or event?” Then he would shyly answer, “Well, I would start by producing a good one to start with.” Indeed he did this with an event he created entitled “Affordable Meetings,” which has now been produced by HSMAI for over three decades. May you have similar opportunities and success!

Dr. Joe Goldblatt, CSEP Series Editor

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PREFACE “Reject the notion that things should always be done as they have been done before.” Leonard H. Hoyle, Event Marketing, First Edition (1939–2010)

Allow me to welcome you to the second edition of Event Marketing, which I hope you will find clear, enlightening, and useful. I would like to begin by paying my respects to the late Leonard H. Hoyle for the first edition, which was an inspirational text, and which stressed the special qualities of event marketing. His book was written with passion and enthusiasm. Hoyle’s edition focused upon how to promote events. This second edition will be more about how to apply strategic marketing thinking to events. There will be some overlap between the editions, however, as many of the excellent perspectives of Hoyle are as useful and insightful today as they have ever been.

The overarching theme of the book will be that the twenty-first-century events market is becoming overly saturated, like many other consumer markets, and that you need to use strategic marketing thinking to survive. For example, the United Kingdom (population 65 million) has more than 70 different beer festivals running per annum. I can’t say that I have visited every one of them, but everyone needs a goal to work toward. In the United States (population nearly 300 million), there are over 2,500 music festivals running in a year, reflecting a diversity of tastes and, importantly for the event marketer, a wide demographic diversity.

Planned events are everywhere and every time, and consumers now have more and more choice of which events they want to invest in and attend. This book is committed to helping ensure they choose your event. The way to make that happen is to reduce the risk that they will not. That is the essence of strategic event marketing.

Solving Problems and Avoiding Problems Like many people, I wish I had learned to avoid more problems in my life. I also wish I had seen them coming. Well, we live and learn. What if I am

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marketing a planned event in a competitive or hostile environment? What if I am marketing one of these 2,500 music festivals that run annually in the United States? Surely I want to avoid problems by anticipating them. I certainly don’t want to get bogged down with problems, and I certainly want to see them coming. What about the competitors, of which there are very many? Of course I want to outperform my competitors. I want to have the advantage. I want them to have the problems, not me. Who do you want to be, someone who spends a lot of time solving problems, or someone who learns through strategic event marketing how to avoid them?

That’s what this book is all about. Strategic event marketing is risk reduction, how to strategically reduce the risk that something will go wrong. It’s about increasing the likelihood that things will go right. It’s about avoiding problems so that we don’t spend all of our precious time trying to solve them. Sure, there are always going to be things that don’t work out. Marketing is not a magic wand that will make problems disappear, but it is a way of going about your business that will allow you to see them before they hit you, so that you can avoid them by taking the right path.

In the first edition Leonard H. Hoyle put the relationship between marketing and event management very elegantly and succinctly. Hoyle stated, “Marketing should integrate all of the management decisions so that they focus upon the goals and objectives of the event.” That means that marketing events is related to the business of planning events. Hoyle continued to observe that “the enlightened event professional will incorporate marketing at the outset of the planning process.” Again, it is clear that event marketing has a lot to do with event planning, and that it extends way beyond the idea of merely promotion. Furthermore, Hoyle profoundly reminded us of something fundamental to events: “You are in the business of brain surgery. Not as a medical doctor but as a modifier of minds. You will make people happy through celebrations; make them smarter through education; make them collaborate through interaction; make them conciliate through arbitration; make them profit through motivation . . . It’s a people business. If you are doing your job right, you are modifying minds and fulfilling dreams.”

It is with admiration of Hoyle’s wisdom that I begin the revision of this book. One of my favorite pearls of wisdom from the first edition is, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” Those of you who are producing events right now will know how true that is, and those of you who are studying planned events are becoming aware of it. In a highly competitive modern

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events market, you cannot take success for granted. Success has to be earned through hard work, and strategic event marketing.

My First Experience of Event Marketing The first event that I became aware of as having something special about it was a small agricultural show that ran annually in a rural district close to my hometown in Scotland when I was a child. There were animals and farm machinery, some fairground rides, and lots to eat. What was special about it was that it always rained. No matter what the weather was like that week, the clouds would roll in and sure enough, the heavens would open. That was what made it special. As the fateful event day approached, people would nod knowingly and turn their eyes skywards. In the days before universal social networking, people shared their common experience in person with looks and glances and the odd word or two. The turnout was always healthy, as we locals descended upon the sodden field in our Wellington boots. It became somewhat of a tradition, and its reputation grew out of all proportion to its actual content. I have often wondered whether the event would have held such affection in our hearts had it not been for its uncanny ability to influence the weather, as in other respects it was decidedly ordinary. I suppose that was its brand image, and for some reason it worked. It had that extra something that makes all the difference. Posters for the show would go up a few weeks beforehand, reminding us that the fateful day approached. The poster’s logo was a figure wearing red weatherproofs carrying a raised umbrella upon which cartoon raindrops splashed.

That is how it was that I first encountered event marketing, and I remember thinking the logo was a good idea because it focused upon how we, the attendees, actually felt about the affair. Yes, even in my childhood I began pondering the deep mysteries and strategic opportunities of event marketing.

A Brief History of Events As time rolled by and my teenage years arrived, among other things I found that I had an interest in history, soaking up all I could about times gone by. It struck me that the history of the world is largely the history of events, which have been used since antiquity to entertain and distract, to provide cultural identity, and to express our relationship with one another and with the wider world.

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Back in 2300 BC, ancient Britons were completing Stonehenge, a monolithic stadium to hold events concerning the cycle of life and death, and to relate to the mystery of the heavens. It is only by concentrating on events that the past comes into focus, as the day-to-day business of life becomes lost in time like grains of sand in a wide desert. Back in 876 BC, the first Olympic Games were held, an opportunity for rival Greek city- states to compete via athletics rather than war, although war remained popular. These events have come to define the era. In AD 80, the Coliseum of Rome was completed and citizens enjoyed a spectacle of slaughter that somehow came to be symbolic of that city and its empire.

History is the recording of many human events, and they have very often become the lens through which our history is viewed and by which we understand how the world and human civilization has evolved. There is a long tradition of events, and the events of today are something profoundly human, something that defines who we are. It is often asked what it is that makes us human, that separates us from the beasts of the field. Remarkably enough, one of these things is planned events, as they symbolize our drive to impose order on the world, to make things happen of our own design, to imprint our shared identity upon the passing of time.

When Hoyle stressed that the events industry was a people business, he got to the heart of the matter. Without events, it is difficult to imagine how humanity could have evolved toward the fruits of civilization that we now enjoy in the twenty-first century. Therefore, this book also seeks to inspire you and help you feel proud to be involved in the great history of planned events. You are responsible for bringing people together, and that is a most noble pursuit.

How This Book Will Help You Effectively Market Events In chapter 1, you will learn to distinguish between the marketing of events and the use of events as marketing strategies themselves. This has to do with understanding the purpose of your event. Is it an end in itself or is it a means to an end? That distinction has a lot to do with the strategic marketing of your event.

Chapter 2 charts the evolution of event marketing and will help you see how we got to where we are today with historic illustrations of event marketing in practice. This will provide you with a strong underpinning for the future and emerging evolutions of strategic event marketing.

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In chapter 3, we will build up a model of strategic event marketing that is designed to be both conceptual and practical. It is intended as a user guide to strategic event marketing that both reduces risk for the event and guides the marketer through a series of practical steps that define a process.

Sponsorship is central to the funding of events, and a lot of effort goes into securing the necessary sponsors to make your event work. Chapter 4 helps you to know how to approach the acquisition of sponsorship capital. There is another side to sponsorship. Whoever sponsors your event lends their image and personality to the event, so strategic event marketing also has to do with that important consideration.

Chapter 5 helps you understand how to make the most of strategic Internet marketing to support your event. Without knowledge of how to utilize search engines and how to tap into the communicative power of social networking, the strategic event marketer will be at a complete disadvantage in this dynamic environment.

A great deal of media attention goes to entertainment and festival events, and many a student is drawn toward the subject because of direct experience with this sector of the market. Chapter 6 will help you design, select, coordinate, and evaluate strategic event marketing activities for the entertainment and festival sector.

Thinking once again about the difference between events as an end or a means to an end, chapter 7 helps you understand the role of events for corporate strategy, both external and internal. You will learn to effe

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