Tough Competition

I have just returned to my hotel with the rest of the Corporate Sports team after a busy day of organising the Chevron City to Surf for Activ in Busselton. The last few days have been extremely busy with setting up the event, running a collection point the day prior, assisting with the event and also helping to pack up. 

We were on site from 5am and my role was to act as a road marshall and to make sure the entertainers were checked in and ready to perform. Fortunately, everything went smoothly! Below are a few of the entertainers I organised to attend the event (a face painter and duo band). Apologies for the poor quality images - I took them on my phone.

The event was a success with a record number of participants, however it didn’t all go according to plan. Two days before the event we discovered there would be another event on the same day and right next to our event! The other event was the Pedal Prix, a six hour pedal car race (I have provided an image of the Pedal Prix below). This was a massive issue as it was also a racing event and could steal some of the attention away from our event.

It also bought up the issue of volunteers. This year we really struggled with volunteer numbers. Once discovering Pedal Prix was on the same day, it made a lot more sense why volunteer numbers were so low as most of the local clubs and schools were volunteering at their event instead! As a result, many of the Corporate Sports team had to fulfill volunteer duties as well as their normal duties which was very demanding.

Another issue was the fact that they wanted to compromise on certain details and times. For example, when they planned to have a minute silence, we were scheduled to run our presentations and awards. With the events right next to each other, this was an issue as our presentations would disrupt their minute of silence. While they wanted to change the time of our presentations, we simply could not due to the scheduled entertainment, the times the racers were due to return and the fact that it is a sponsored event so some of the changes were out of our control. We simply could not negotiate and had to agree just to leave our events as we had originally planned.

Despite the fact we had direction competition, the event still went well with a huge crowd turning up. The event taught me a lot about competition and how to handle such issues. In future, it would be best to be aware of other events that may be running on the same day (or even the same week or month) well in advance.

I have found a few interesting links that provide more information on how to stay ahead of the competition and the do’s and don’ts of handling competition.

http://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/marketing/marketing-strategy/ten-ways-to-keep-ahead-of-the-competition

http://www.smallbizclub.com/leadership-sections/best-practices/item/353-handling-competition-do%E2%80%99s-and-don%E2%80%99ts?Itemid=636

These links as well as the experience I have gained from today, will help me to handle future events.

Until next time,

Sophie

Creating an online pressence for Period Panties!

This week in placement I was lucky enough to be invited out on a meeting with the boss. He briefed me that we were meeting an associate advertising agency to talk with one of their clients about building a website through Concept Marketing. The client is trying to launch online a fashionable line of Period Panties (yes very awkward topic with your male boss!) I had noted that the client had not conducted a lot of research into their competitors and prices so I conducted some research of my own and developed a competitor analysis on two of the client’s online competitors. I looked at the website designs of the competitors and analysed how these had positive and negative affects on the brands. I discussed whether they were seen to be targeting the correct market through their images and textual content. I then researched into the online prices they were offering as well as the range and fashionable characteristics of the underwear in comparison to that of the client we had met with. This was really interesting, being able to see the different approaches people go for when looking at their online presence; I’m looking forward to see what the clients think of some of their competitors strategies and how they decide to develop their website to make them unique and different. Thanks for reading Emeline

Southbound surveys, SLAM and secret stuff- Sunset Events

Hi everyone,

It's the first day back at uni for most people today and soon it will be the first day of some students internships which is exciting!

I have been doing a variety of tasks at Sunset Events lately, as well as continuing media monitoring and organising publicity documents for each event. Janelle, the communications manager, printed out the survey results from Southbound 2011 and this year, as well as the results from Moshtix. There was a quite a bit of information to sort through! My task was to work out the main changes from Southbound 2011 and 2012. The paperwork given to me showed where people bought tickets from, how people heard about the festival, how much people would spend at the festival, how many people camped, what age groups attended, the backgrounds of people and the postcodes where punters came from.

It was really interesting pouring over all this information because it showed the target demographic of the festival and gave a great overall picture of the festival. I compiled a document and calculated the percentages and numbers that changed between the two years of the festival. There were some notable differences. Surveys are actually so useful because I think that would be a way to improve them and cater to the needs of the target audience. It also gives a good indicator of who attends so that key messages and strategies can be tailored to that specific audience when promoting Southbound!

I realised there can be one downfall to surveys and that is inconsistency. The 2011 surveys were conducted on a certain number of people, and the 2012 survey was conducted with half the number of the 2011 survey, so it is hard to say as larger audience and variety of festival goers were approached. The other problem was that the surveys were conducted differently in each year so it made it impossible to compare some data when it was done completely different. Surveys need to be uniform each year so that you can get a broad picture of the changes and make accurate assumptions.

I have also been looking up flights for a potential competition for West Coast Blues n Roots, a festival coming up on the 1st of April. Singapore also has a roots festival (as they also had a Laneway too!) so my communication manager is brainstorming potential competitions and so I've been doing research to see if it is feasible. I know there may be a few students from/in Singapore so if you're a blues and roots fan you can get more info at www.rockandroots.com.sg/!

I've been doing a fair bit of research for a confidential matter which I'm sure will become public sometime in the near future, but that has been interesting and I've really enjoyed doing it. I find research so enriching because you learn so much! Other than that, I've also been trying to help with SLAM- Save Live Australian Music. It is a cause pretty close to the hearts of all live music lovers to help save live music because it is quite a dying thing. Janelle was looking for bands to get on board and support the national cause but found it quite difficult. I've just been making a document of the WA publicity of SLAM for Janelle to report to the national counterpart.

As usual, there is so much more to say but I will have to save that for next time! Can't wait to hear more about everyone's internships, hope they are all going great!

Until next time,
Lisa