Sponsorship

 A common form of promotion for events is Sponsorship, Sponsorship can be defined as follows:

        ‘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

Objectives of Sponsorship

•   Enhancing Image/Shaping Consumer Attitudes 
•  Driving Sales
• Creating positive publicity/heightening visibility - 
• Differentiating from competitors
• Helping with good "Corporate Citizen" role
• Enhancing business, consumer and VIP relations
• Increase sales

http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/sponsorship.shtml

McFly Sponsorship

McFLY have chosen 'Ice-Watch' to sponsor them on their upcoming April tour, as 'Ice-Watch' are a 'cool, young' brand they obviously would want to support something similar to them, and McFLY are obvious a big attraction to this type of target audience. By Ice-Watch sponsoring McFLY this gives McFLY fans a chance to win prizes which include t-shirts, meet and greets with the band and also tickets to the tour itself. By offering these special prizes to the fans, which are an obvious attraction as it is to do with the band, it is also giving Ice-Watch recognization as all fans have to do is click 'LIKE' on the facebook page and then enter the competition, this is easily giving Ice-Watch more viewers and fans on their own page. As McFLY and Ice-Watch are now linked together, the fans will instantly think it's cool to own their own Ice-Watch.

 When fans of the boys see them wearing 'Ice-Watch' it will be a big influence towards the fans going out and buying one, therefore 'Ice-Watch' are making a profit from this. With celebrity endorsement towards a product there is always a bigger chance that it is going to sell better.

London Fashion Weekend Sponsorship

On the other hand London Fashion Weekend take a completely different approach to McFLY, instead of having one main sponsor they have a fair few. Vodafone are the principal sponsor of the event. Instead of looking into every single sponsorship and what they do for the event, I have chosen to go into more detail with Vodafone and what they intend to do for the event as they are the principle sponsor. They are proud sponsors and customers of Vodafone are able to get unrivalled access to the world of fashion via tickets and unique 'money can't buy' experiences. Vodafone are able to offer customers the chance to buy tickets for the event 48 hours before they go on sale and be on the front row for the catwalk to see the latest trends before they hit the high street. www.vodafone.co.uk /vip

When first googling London Fashion Weekend, the first thing that actually came up was the Vodafone website. This was an instant package that users are able to purchase by being a Vodafone user. Then when you actually click to go onto the website the main message they want to give is that they are sponsoring the event 'We've joined forces with some of Britain's biggest retailers to bring you everything from out of hours shopping experiences to London Fashion Weekend sponsorship. We'll be updating these great offers throughout the year, so check back regularly to see what's new.'  

Target audiences

Every event should have a target market, this is something that needs to be discussed before all the advertising and promotions are done. The four P's product, place, promotion and price make up the marketing mix strategy and are the main reason for any success in any event.
Without a target audience, the marketing mix cannot be built as the event would have no idea who they are supposed to be aiming their promotions at and who they actually need to satisfy.


As McFLY are a 'typical' boyband, you would instantly think that the target audience is obviously going to be younger girls around 11+. Since 2004 McFLY have had a strong fan base who attend every tour they hold.So over the years McFLY have achieved their own audience, who go back and are willing to always pay money to see them.
Recently, McFLY have slipped and have lost a lot of their fan base from not doing as much touring/releasing new albums. But before this tour, each of the individuals have participated in different TV shows which is regaining a wider audience. Harry took part in 'Strictly Come Dancing' which he won, Dougie took part in 'I'm a celebrity get me out of here' which he also won. Tom and Danny have also took part in the shows 'Popstar to Operastar' and 'The Cube' all of these are well known shows which are able to get them a bigger fan base.

As I could not find anything specific on McFLY website about their target audience, I decided to research into the actual target audience of all boy bands. I found a website which McFLY were listed on-
http://www.thecleaningservice.djteresa.net/BoyBandsCaliberRecords.pdf

According to this website the target audience of boy bands is -
The target market for boy bands consists of tweens and teens aged 10-19 and tend to be predominatly female. There are currently 20,549,505 people in the 10-14 age  group within 10,026,028 being female. The largest growth segment is the 15-19 age group with an 8.25% growth over 1995, representing nearly 1.6 million new people in the segment. There are 20,528,072 teens in this segment and 10,087,875 of them are female. The peak growth is in the 15-19 age group with diminishing growth trends in the younger age groups.
Although this information is quite old I still believe that this is the main target audience for McFLY.

On the other hand, London Fashion Week tend to attract the complete opposite, although both of the target audiences are mainly girls the things that they are interested in vary on completely different levels.

On the London Fashion Weekend website, i found who they think their target audience actually is, from the image above I have found out that the average person who attends the event is a part of the socio-economic group ABC1, a female who is around the age of 29. The average spend per person at the event is £60. London Fashion Week think the main people who attend the event are -

• mothers and daughters
• females with a high disposable income 
• a 'girly' day out

As London Fashion Weekend have discovered their target audience, this makes it a lot easier for them to provide suitable advertisements which aren't going to go to waste. For example there is no point in advertising the event in a mens magazine, advertising in something like Vogue would be targetting the audience that they want to.

Online Presence...

Having an online presence is something that every event will need, as the internet has become so popular and is a marketing source that nearly everybody uses, without having an online presence competition would be too high for a business to last without one. I found that the benefits of having an online presence are the following - 

• The internet has been proven as an effective means to generate income.
• Having an online presence allows you to do business with thousands of people everyday with no face to face selling.
• A sale tool that automate sales, marketing and even selling operation.
• No matter where you are. No matter what you are doing. Your business presence is online. Open 24/7, 365 days a year business or store front.
• Reach potential clients locally, national wide or worldwide. No boundaries, no territories, no limits. Do business in a global scale.
• Project a solid, professional company image.
• Communicate with current costumer based.
• Attract new custumers.
• Take orders and re-orders.
• Low cost way to promote your company, convey your message and even sell your products and services.
• Low overhead.
• Leveled the competitions with the big companies or businesses.
• Very Cheap- Unlike a physical store or office, web space is becoming cheaper.

http://advancebranding.com/benefitsofhavinganonlinepresence/

Although all of these are important factors of why a business should actually have an online presence, once they do they need to make sure that all the customers requirements are met. This includes the banner, the information, the layout, the navigation of the website - everything. If a customer was to access a website which was hard to use, then they would find it a waste of time and probably just click straight off of it. 

London Fashion Weekend

The target market that London Fashion Weekend want to approach are girls/women, so the colours that they use on the website are important. If the website had used dark colours or something that was totally irrelevant to the event then it could have easily changed the outlook of other peoples views. But as the event are using bright, bold colours which can easily attract attention I believe it is a reason for people to carry on looking. When I first accessed the website I found that everything on it was clear, it was easy to use and the images on the website were relevant. The banner was simple and clearly advertised where the event is located and the dates it is located on.

On the website there were also several other links linking customers to social networking websites for the event, such as facebook and twitter - when following onto these websites more information was given. There isn't too much on the website to make it confusing, but there isn't too little to make it pointless. All the information that is on there is relevant and therefore it is more easy to navigate around.

McFLY Website 

Both of the websites for London Fashion Weekend and McFLY are similar; as the one with McFLYs tour dates on is the official news website. So therefore at the minute all in the information that gets uploaded onto their is about their tour. The same with London Fashion Weekend who's information is about that particular weekend. McFLY then have another separate website where fans are able to watch/see unseen footage, photos, web chats and merchandise. 

McFLYs website is also very easy to navigate around, there are links going to the main website, youtube page, facebook and twitter - the same as  London Fashion Week. Also a link to the main sponsors website. The negative part of the website is the background is quite dull and not very eye catching. It is very basic with the tour dates on the right side and news on the left.

Location and times

On the London Fashion Weekend website, a main page of 'key information' is included where the people who are attending can find out specific details of location and opening times of the event. Information on the photography policy is also stated and it is made clear to all attendees that there is no parking areas and using public transport would be the best option. This is an important thing to have on the website, as customers don't have to go into research and struggle finding where to find the event, they can basically go on the website and all the information is right infront of them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OPENING TIMES:

Thursday 23rd February 2012: 5pm-10pm
Friday 24th February 2012: 12pm- 9pm
Saturday 25th February 2012: 10am-7pm
Sunday 26th February 2012: 10am-6pm

McFLY add 4 new shows to 2012 tour

Due the high demand of McFLYs 2012 tour and the dates selling out much quicker than expected, 3 new tour dates have recently been added.

Tue 17 April York Barbican (on sale Dec 21st 10am)
Thurs 19 April Birmingham Academy (on sale Dec 21st 10am)
Fri 20 April London Hammersmith Apollo (on sale Dec 21st 10am)
Sat 21 April Manchester Apollo (on sale Dec 21st 10am)

This was shown on McFLYs website, but I was also sent an email with the same information from the official newsletter. As McFLY have such a wide target audience they are able to communicate with them by using the internet. Especially with the bigger fans who have joined up to regular updates from the band, where they can find out information like this before it is actually released to the public. Already it is made obvious that the McFLY tour is selling fast and fans are encouraged to buy their tickets as quickly as possible!

McFLY have been touring worldwide for the past 7 years, from small venues to big arenas. On their 2012 tour they have chosen to do a more 'up close and personal' tour at smaller venues all over the UK. Below are the tour dates McFLY have announced.

Wed 7 March Portsmouth Guildhall
Fri 9 March Sheffield City Hall
Sat 10 March 02 Manchester Apollo
Sun 11 March Oxford New Theatre
Tue 13 March Margate Winter Gardens
Wed 14 March Folkstone Leas Cliff Hall
Fri 16 March Nottingham Royal Concert Hall
Sat 17 March 02 Leeds Academy (Mcfly on stage at 8:30 pm)
Sun 18 March Stokes Hanley Victoria Hall
Wed 21 March Southampton Guildhall
Thu 22 March Swindon Oasis
Sat 24 March Plymouth Pavilions
Sun 25 March Torquay Riviera
Mon 26 March Bristol Colston Hall
Wed 28 March Ipwsich Regent Theatre
Fri 30 March Birmingham 02 Academy (Mcfly on stage at 8:30 pm)
Sun 1 April Lincoln Engine Shed
Tue 3 April Norwich UEA
Wed 4 April Southend Cliffs Pavillion
Fri 6 April Reading Hexagon
Sat 7 April London HMV Hammersmith Apollo
Tue 10 April Cambridge Corn Exchange
Wed 11 April Preston Guildhall
Fri 13 April Glasgow Clyde Auditorium
Sat 14 April Newcastle 02 Academy (McFly onstage 8.30pm)
Sun 15 April Leicester De Montfort Hall

 

Both McFLY and London Fashion Week choose to do a lot of their promotion by using their own website. As the internet is such a popular source, this is the perfect way to advertise as almost everybody has the internet so all target audiences can be reached at the same time. Both of the events have a newsletter which can be signed up to, which sends the consumer information before it reaches the public. For example pre sale tickets are advertised to buy for both events to ensure the customer actually get what they want.

London Fashion Weekend have there own twitter page where customers are able to follow them to find out the recent updates that are happening. This is a way that the public can stay in contact with the event personally. The twitter page is able to offer further promotions and chances to win fast track entry to the event.