Schramm's Model...

I used Wilbur Schramm's 1954 model when making this blog. The model ‘emphasizes the process of encoding and decoding a message. Schramm envisioned this process as a two-way circular communication between the sender and receiver; the model incorporates the study of human behavior in the communication process.’  

Communication- the act of imparting information

The model was very handy when writing this blog, it helped me understand how people see and understand marketing communications activities such as advertising. The first realm of understanding is about the brand/event/company making the message (poster/billboard/website) and the second realm of understand is us, as the public seeing the message, understanding it, maybe going out and buying the product/buying tickets to the event. Then this information provides feedback back to the source on how successful the advertising was.

THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE!

http://www.uri.edu/personal/carson/kulveted/wlsmodel.html

Lecture notes- Ruth Hickmott

Advertising of my chosen events...

The National Wedding Show of course advertises in bride magazines such as , Brides, You and Your Wedding and Cosmopolitan Bride, just to name a few. The National Wedding Show advertises in theses magazines because the people that read these magazines that would go to The National Wedding Show, brides and grooms to be. Both magazine and event have the same target audience.

The You Me At Six Tour I have found advertised in magazines such as Kerrang! and Rock Sound. The You Me At Six tour is advertised in theses magazines, just like The National Wedding Show is advertised in the bride magazines because theses magazines have the same target audience of the people that would go to the shows.

Looking at the two theories of advertising, The National Wedding Show is going along the lines of the strong theory of advertising. This is because, Jones states "exponents of this theory hold that advertising can persuade someone to buy a product that they have never previously purchased." People only plan on getting married once and therefore would only really need to go to one wedding show. The strong theory of advertising also mentions that promotional methods help move buyers towards purchase. The National Wedding Show boasts thats it is "The UK's biggest and best wedding event" therefore making it a one stop shop for brides.

On the other hand I feel that the You Me At Six advertising is more along the lines of the weak theory of advertising, this is because the people that will attend the live shows will already be a fan of You Me At Six and therefore the advertising is just "reinforcing brand loyalty." People would not splash out cash to see a band that they were not a fan of.

http://www.nationalweddingshow.co.uk/

http://www.aloud.com/

http://www.kerrang.com/

Advertising...

What is advertising?


'Advertising is the non-personal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media.'
    -Bovee, 1992, p7


Advertising is meant to-

• Catch attention
• Keep attention
• Be memorable
• Be persuasive
• Result in an action

There are two theories on how advertising works, the strong theory and the weak theory.

The Strong Theory of Advertising

Based on Lewis (H of E) and developed by Jones in 1991, the theory states that advertising can persuade a customer to buy a product or service that they have never purchased before. It also suggests that advertising, when used in the long run can change the purchase habits of the customer. Therefore increasing sales, which is the desired outcome of all advertising.

The Weak Theory of Advertising

Proposed by Ehrenberg in 1988, his theory was based on sales date and stated that advertisements are not effective in persuading customers to buy, and also that advertisements do not differentiate from one product to another. All that advertisements are good for is reinforcing consumer decisions to buy or to remain brand loyal. Ehrenberg believed that advertisements reinforced old purchase behavior.


Bovee, 1992, p7

Lecture notes- Ruth Hickmott

Sponsorship...

An increasingly common form of promotional activity is sponsorship. What is sponsorship?

‘Sponsorship is a mutually beneficial arrangement that consists of the provision of resources of funds, goods and/or services ... in return for a set of rights that can be used in communications activity, for the achievements of objectives for commercial gain.’

-  Masterman, Guy (2007) Sponsorship For A Return on Investment, London: Elsevier

Why sponsor an event?


Companies sponsor events as it gets their name out there, as well as this, companies can give away products for free (The National Wedding Show exhibitors) so consumers can test try the products and maybe suggest them to friends. Companies that sponsor events will always have the same target audience as the event (Atticus Clothing and You Me At Six) as there is no point trying to sell your product to an audience that is not interested.
Companies sponsor events to -

• Increase sale
• Target a certain market
• Raise brand awareness

The National Wedding Show

After searching for a few hours I can now see that The National Wedding Show doesn't have any sponsors, this I believe is because the exhibitors pay to have a stall at the event so The National Wedding Show does not need money from outside sponsors. What the exhibitors do is very similar to what a sponsor would do, they push their services and products on to the consumers to get their name out there. Just like a sponsor, they are paying for a space where they can advertise their products.

Having a stall at The National Weeding show is very good exposure for the exhibitors. 'The National Wedding Show has been featured on The Apprentice, How To Look Good Naked, Ten Years Younger, Cherry Gets Married and Wedding TV - this has raised the profile of the show, expanded our visitor awareness and provided coverage that money simply cant buy.'


The You Me At Six UK Tour


Again I am struggling to find a sponsor for the You Me At Six UK Tour, I thought that if the tour did have a sponsor it would be on the tour poster but as you can see below there is no sponsor present.

Although, searching for another few hours and I found theses...

 

I have looked in to AP but have no idea what they are, Atticus on the other hand I did have luck in finding information about. It is a clothing company that is designed by musician, manly from the band Blink-182. This clothing range is a good sponsor for the You Me At Six tour and the one off gigs as the target audiences for both  the tour and clothing company would be very similar. 

The image above is from the Atticus website, where they have a whole blog on the You Me At Six US Tour, here's a link to the website... http://blog.atticusclothing.com/

Masterman, Guy (2007) Sponsorship For A Return on Investment, London: Elsevier

http://blog.atticusclothing.com/

http://www.nationalweddingshow.co.uk/exhibitor-area/press-coverage

The World Wide Web...

Using Google...


So typing The National Wedding Show in to Google, there was 11,600,000 results, and The National Wedding Show comes up as the first choice, in fact the whole first page was relevant links to The National Wedding Show, showing the dates and where to buy tickets from.

Typing You Me At Six in to Google and 78,200,000 results come up. The You Me At Six website comes up as the first, followed by Wikipedia and then ticket offices.

The design and layout of a website is very important, if a website is not visually impressive or hard to maneuver around, the consumer will not be sold on the event, the website is the best advertising.


The National Wedding Shows website does this perfectly. Its visually beautiful and very appealing to women, with its girly colours. 'The National Wedding Show' is printed in big pink letters at the top of the page, next to this is two pictures of a wedding cake and flowers, followed by the two dates of the event and just below the dates is 'CLICK HERE TO BOOK TICKETS NOW.' This tells the consumer instantly the name of the event, the dates and how to get tickets. The rest of the pages has videos, blogs, news articles and links to social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter.
The Website is easy to maneuver with the simple navigation bar across the top. The website seems to be everything a stressed out bride needs to make her life easier.

The You Me At Six website is very different from The National Wedding Show's. The first thing I notice is the colours used, whereas The National Wedding Show's website uses girly colours (pinks and whites) the You Me At Six website uses gray's and blacks, this shows the two different audiences the events are trying to appeal to.

The website is not as busy as The National Wedding Show's and is in the design layout of a criminal record. The website is again easy to maneuver with the top left hand navigation tab that takes you to different areas of the site. The only other information apart from this tab on the homepage is the news box, witch has up to date information on the tour as well as the album. 

The homepage has a tab to sell the album but not the tour tickets. To get your hands on the tickets you have to go into 'LIVE DATES' and all the remaining tickets are available there.

The You Me At Six website also has links to social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, the same as The National Wedding Show.


http://www.nationalweddingshow.co.uk/
http://www.youmeatsix.co.uk/
www.google.com

Google Alerts...

So my lecture Alex, said it would be a good idea to sign up for Google Alerts, what he didn't say was that I will be swamped by information day after day.

Later in the Blog I will go through all the emails and see where and how the events are being advertised and promoted, but as you can see already there is a lot more emails about the Me Me At Six Tour than there is about The National Wedding Show.

www.hotmail.com

Signing up...

So I have signed up for the You Me At Six website as well as The National Wedding's website. I received an email from You Me At Six for signing up but nothing from The National Wedding Show as of yet.

I have also signed up for You Me At Six's and The National Wedding Show's Facebook pages.

The You Me At Six Facebook is much more about promotion of the tour and album sales, where as The National Wedding Show's Facebook I don't think sells show at all. For example, here is a quote from You Me At Six's Facebook "MANCHESTER, there are only 250 tickets left for our 2nd night at Manc Apollo. Get yours this weekend and let's sell this bitch out!" The National Wedding Show's Facebook gives you information about celebrity weddings and ideas for your own wedding but does not advertise The National Wedding show itself.

......and Twitters....

The You Me At Six Twitter, again is much better at promoting the actual event. You Me At Six's Twitter is all about trying to sell tickets for their tour where as The National Wedding Show's Twitter talks about celebrity weddings e.g. Drew Barrymore enjoys being engaged.

www.hotmail.com

www.facebook.com

www.twitter.com

For whom..

Target audience...


The National Wedding Show...

• The show attracts over 50,000 visitors a year
• The average household income of visitors is £58,000
• 89% of visitors are in the ABC1 socio-economic band, our audience has the ability, as well as the desire, to splash out!
• The average spend of visitors as a direct results of the show is £1,427
• 97% of visitors come with the bride
• 27% of visitors come with the groom
• Half of all visitors bring the mother of the bride
• 40% of visitors come with their bridesmaids
• You have access to not only the bride but the bridesmaids, mother of the bride,
• groom and a whole host of the wedding party
• The average group size is 2.6
• 4 out of 5 visitors dont visit any other Wedding Show
• 77% of visitors are getting married within the next 7-18 months you are gaining acces to couples in the early stages of their planning when lots of decisions are still to be made - 69% of visitors say they are in the early stages of their planning

All this information was easily accessible on The National Wedding Show's website, on the other hand the You Me At Six target audience is a little harder to define. I believe the target audience for the You Me At Six Tour will range drastically  as they are preforming at festivals as well as doing gigs. I'm going to take a guess and say the target audience is people like me:


The You Me At Six Tour ...


16 - 25 years old
Even male, female split, maybe weighting more heavily female
From every socio-economic band
Tour would be attanded in groups of 2 to 6 people
Many attendees would have seen the band more than once


Ok so I have gone on to the Kmr software website (TGI) and found the target audience for Kerrang magazine as I think people who read this magazine will be a similar target audience to the people that will go to the You Me At Six live shows.

15-24 age group

C2DE national social grade

2,999/23,000-26,999/43,000-49,000/over 50,000 pounds total personal income before tax

Not working- full-time student/at school/unemployed

Single

No children 


http://www.nationalweddingshow.co.uk/exhibitor-area/our-visitors
https://www.kmrsoftware.net/netquestuni2/default.aspx

In the beginning...

Hi there,


For my EV402 CW2 i'm going to chooses two events, these can either be business to business trade shows or consumer events. The brief we have been given is to follow the chosen events and see how they are promoted, e.g advertising through media or direct mail/emails received from the event and then compare and analyse to see witch event is the most effective in its promoting.


The first event I have chosen is the You Me At Six tour that begins on the 24th January 2012 in Cleveland, although I will only really be concentrating on the promotion for the event in the UK, mainly the London dates at the O2 Academy in Brixton (2nd and 3rd of April 2012).


Here is a link to the You Me At Six website, where all tour dates are listed. http://www.youmeatsix.co.uk/index.php/live-dates/

The second event I will be following is The National Wedding Show, this event runs from the 24th-26th of February 2012 and is held at London Olympia.


Here is a link to the National Wedding Show's website, where information can be found on the event. http://www.nationalweddingshow.co.uk/london-show-24-26-feb-2012

A little bit of back round...

You Me At Six are a soft rock band, originally from Weybridge, Surrey were formed in 2004. They rose to fame in 2008 with their debut album 'Take Off Your Colours'.

They were nominated for 'Best British Band' in 2008, 2009 and 2010 at the 'Karrang! Awards' and took home the award in 2011.

The second album, 'Hold Me Down' was released on 11th January 2010 and reached number 5 in the UK charts. The third album 'Sinners Never Sleep' was released on 3rd October 2011 and reached number 3 in the Uk charts.

The band consists of five members:

Joshua James Alphonse Franceschi - Lead vocals

Maximus Michael Helyer - Rhythm guitar, vocals

Christopher James Miller - Lead guitar

Matthew James Barnes - Bass

Daniel David Flint - Drums

The National Wedding Show is 'the UK's biggest and best wedding event'. The event brings together over 250 exhibitors and has the UK's largest collection of wedding dresses under one roof.

The show was founded in 1994 and is now valued at over £5.5 billion. The event attracts over 50,000 consumers each year.

http://www.youmeatsix.co.uk/index.php/live-dates/

http://www.nationalweddingshow.co.uk/london-show-24-26-feb-2012