ADVERTISING

Advertising is ‘The non-personal communication of information, usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature, about products (goods and services) or ideas by identified sponsors through various media.’
(Bovee & Arens 1994)

There are two theories about advertising, the strong and the weak theory. The strong theory is Basis is that advertising can persuade someone to buy a product or service that they have never previously purchased. Advertising increases sales
And that through continued advertising a long-run purchase behaviour can be generated. The weak theory basis is that adverts are not effective in persuading people to buy, as the adverts do not differentiate one product from another. The weak theory believes that adverts simply reinforce consumers decisions to be brand loyal and remind them of past purchases.

The effectiveness of advertising can be measured by monitoring a rise and fluctuating in sales, depending on the advertising situation.

When advertising a product or service, one has to choose from the many medium available what type of advertising media to use, for example, radio, TV, the web, the press or outdoor advertising. This is not an easy task as each media brings its own advantages and disadvantages.

From looking at a graph such as the awareness of media graph(above) ,one can see that most noticeable form of media was TV, followed by Newspaper/ magazines. It is very expensive to advertise on TV and the practicality of TV advertising does not include the advertising of events, the two events I am looking at are both situated in areas around England for a number of days, it would be very expensive ad advert for the whole of England when someone living in Newcastle is unlikely to attend Oxford Fashion Week simply because they saw the TV advert. Newspapers and magazines, on the other hand are far less expensive and can be targeted at the right audience if the advert is placed in the correct market segments. Posters are the next best advertising and the web the least. For this reasons one would expect the majority of advertising to be carried out via the medium of TV, print or outdoors. 57% say they have “checked things out on the internet after just hearing about them on the radio” these statistics are shows that radio can also be an effective form of advertising, particularly for an event.
The area that the event is in will have a local radio station. It would be good advertising to have an advert on that radio station to encourage the local community to attend the event.
Advertising across multiple media is more effective than only advertising on a single media. Even though advertising on radio is effective, radio advertising works best as part of a mix.
During advertisements on the TV or radio there is always the risk of ‘clutter’ jeopardising the effectiveness of the advert, this is when distractions divert the consumers attention, Advertising clutter across media is at an all-time high and now has reached daunting proportions. Some observe that a more cluttered environment reduces advertising viewing and it impairs advertising memories, this makes both the TV and radio media weaker advertising tools.

Outdoor advertising can also be successful Outdoor advertising deliver immediate results for advertisers. 29% say outdoor advertising caused them to visit a retail store within a week. This would have the same affect for an event which proves that outdoor advertising, such as posters in stations and billboards are farley effective forms of advertising media.

Oxford Fashion Week sent no newsletters or direct emails to any of their clientele, this is a very easy marketing tool that can be easily used and them not utilizing this puts them at a disadvantage, a sign up to newsletter option on the website is such a good way of collecting data from clients and registering their interests in the event. I believe that Oxford Fashion Week should keep their customers and potential clients updated via the direct mail tool. The National Wedding Show, on the other hand attempted to use direct mail, however, this was not effective as just one email was sent. Neither the National Wedding Show nor Oxford Fashion Week are making the most of a very easy, cheap and potentially very beneficial form of marketing – direct mail and newsletters.

DIRECT EMAIL - Oxford Fashion Week

Oxford Fashion Week has no direct email or newsletter sign up section, there is a section stating the email addresses of the different departments of the event but that is all the email marketing options available. Oxford Fashion Week is a very new event and would be able to grow and develop in the years to come with the aid of audience profiling. Not having this option is damaging to the event as it is a simple and low cost, yet effective way of gathering the information. Not having e-newsletters available for customers may also be damaging in that it will not keep the event fresh in their minds, they may forget about the event and subsequently not purchase tickets or attend. An objective for the years to come may be the introduction of direct mail.

DIRECT EMAIL - National Wedding Show

When registering to receive the National Wedding Show newsletters it simply asks for your name and email. This is no way to create a data base, It could be useful in creating forecasts, fine tuning objectives and on improving the event.

Although this company have not taken full advantage of having the customers intent on registering it is to source priceless customer information, this is not a bad thing for the customer themselves as it is simple to use and is not time consuming.

Since registering for the news updates around six weeks prior to the London event, I have received one email. The email was very basic, the only information in the email was displayed in the form of the poster, consisting of an image of a bride with the titles of shows and events on the days such as ‘250+ exhibitors`. The date of the event, the phone number and link to both the National Wedding Show ‘homepage’ and ‘buy tickets’ page were also present in the email. The heading of the email was ‘Only 4 weeks till the UK's largest wedding show - save money by booking in advance’. I did not find this subject title very motivating and did not feel the need to buy a ticket simply from seeing the email.

Because the picture on the email was so large, it took almost 7 seconds for the email to effectively load as the only information was featured in the picture.

I believe the objective of the email was to encourage sales and attendees at the event. The brand image was the main feature of the email which I believed to be a positive and one is able to see straight away who it was from however the information on the email was limited and the subject heading not motivating in the least and it the email did not motivate me to attend the event.

The exhibitors are however encouraged to send mail shots to their customers encouraging them to attend the event.

DIRECT EMAIL

Direct mail is the promotion of products or services via email Email marketing, if done effectively, can be a great balance for both the National Wedding Show and Oxford Fashion Week. Having said that, it must be done fittingly.

‘Econsultancy, a leading source of independent advice and insight on digital marketing and e-commerce, recently conducted its annual Email Marketing Industry Census. Its results state that 61% of respondents report an average ROI from their (email) campaigns of around 300%, while a further 30% declare it to be above 500%.’

There are, however, rules to getting the email marketing right;
1) It must be relevant. Market to the mistaken addressees and you jeopardize opt-outs and unrecoverable lost contacts for future promotions.
2) Be careful of how frequent you send out emails. Over-mailing your email subscribers can turn even the most engaged receiver off. USE ASOS EXAMPLE!!! Some recipients prefer to be contacted no more than once a month, whereas others are so engaged with your brand that they are content to receive updates daily.
3) Be cautious when using graphics. Images should complement your message content, not detract from it. Make sure your use of graphics supports everything from your brand through to your call-to-action effectively. Remember that excessive images can slow message loading.
4) Try to include personalized touches within the email. Try to add a name or other relevant customer information.
Email marketing has the potential to deliver a larger ROI than any other marketing discipline, but to achieve this, the needs of the customer have to come above all else. Both the National Wedding Show and Oxford Fashion Week have a great opportunity to utilize this marketing tool to benefit them selves.

Search Engine Optimization is an important tool on the web as very few people are likely to look past the first few links on a search engine, for this reason the National Wedding Show have optimized their website to a very high standard and are at the top of every search engine. This is a very useful tool to have as it will increase website hits, therefore increasing ticket sales. Oxford Fashion Week also has a good level of optimization, however, with the word ‘Oxford’ in the title a very large ammount of results appear, for this reason Oxford Fashion Week must keep up to date with their website, making sure that it is at the top of every search engine as often as possible, especially outside the UK as Oxford is a very well known tourist city, this is a very good opportunity to promote the event through the web.

SEO - Oxford Fashion Week

Google.co.uk ‘Oxford’ was not on the first five pages
Google.co.uk ‘Oxford Fashion’ came up as the first link on the first page
Google.co.uk ‘Fashion Week’ was not on the first five pages

Google.com ‘Oxford’ was not on the first five pages
Google.com ‘Oxford Fashion’ came up as the first link on the first page
Google.com ‘Fashion Week’ was not on the first five pages

Yahoo.com ‘Oxford’ was not on the first five pages Yahoo.com ‘Oxford Fashion’ came up as the first link on the first page
Yahoo.com ‘Fashion Week’ came up as the eight link on the first page

These statistics show that the Oxford Fashion Week have effective search engine optimization however it perhaps needs to be slightly more advanced in the wider searches. On all google.com, google.co.uk and yahoo.com the link to the national wedding show when typing in ‘oxford fashion’ were all the top link. As Over 80% of search engine users will not look past the first page of results this is extremely positive, however it was the only search that produced the link on the first page of every search engine.