Selecciones - Webs

Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
V. Developing the
Integrated Marketing
Communications Program
16. Sales Promotion © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
Event Marketing
Another type of consumer-oriented promotion that has become very popular in recent
years is the use of event marketing. It is important to make a distinction between event
marketing and event sponsorships, as the two terms are often used interchangeably yet
they refer to different activities. Event marketing is a type of promotion where a
company or brand is linked to an event or where a themed activity is developed for the
purpose of creating experiences for consumers and promoting a product or service.
Marketers often do event marketing by associating their product with some popular
activity such as a sporting event, concert, fair, or festival. However, marketers also
create their own events to use for promotional purposes. For example, RC Cola staged
events to launch RC Edge Maximum Power, a new soda targeted at teens that contains
Indian ginseng and taurine in addition to caffeine. RC put together a 25-market tour
that included radio tie-ins and “Edgy” events such as white-water rafting and skydiving
at which samples of the product were distributed (Exhibit 16-25). The comarketing
promotion Coppertone created for Wal-Mart, which was discussed earlier in the chapter,
is an example of an in-store event marketing activity.
An event sponsorship is an integrated marketing communications activity where
a company develops actual sponsorship relations with a particular event and provides
financial support in return for the right to display a brand name, logo, or advertising
message and be identified as a supporter of the event. Event marketing often takes
place as part of a company’s sponsorship of activities such as concerts, the arts, social
causes, and sporting events. Decisions and objectives for event sponsorships are
often part of an organization’s public relations activities and are discussed in the next
chapter.
Event marketing has become very popular in recent years as marketers develop
integrated marketing programs including a variety of promotional tools that create
experiences for consumers in an effort to associate their brands with certain lifestyles
and activities. Marketers use events to distribute samples as well as information about
their products and services or to actually let consumers experience the product.
Summary of Consumer-Oriented Promotions
and Marketer Objectives
The discussion of the various sales promotion techniques shows that marketers use
these tools to accomplish a variety of objectives. As noted at the beginning of the
chapter, sales promotion techniques provide consumers with an extra incentive or
reward for engaging in a certain form of behavior such as purchasing a brand. For
some types of sales promotion tools the incentive the consumer receives is immediate,
while for others the reward is delayed and is not realized immediately. Marketers often
Exhibit 16-25 RC Cola
used event marketing to
introduce Edge Maximum
Power
543
Chapter Sixteen Sales Promotion