Let me now show you readers how the Singapore Writers
Festival was able to retain and attract visitors to its festival. We will look
at how the SWF used the 8Ps of marketing.
Product:
The very first marketing mix that we will be discussing
would be the Product. The “Product” is something that comprises of all the
elements that make up the festival or event. The Singapore Writers Festival has
maximized the use of this marketing mix to its advantage. For this particular
festival, the main components of the product would have to be the different books
presented during the festival, the authors, the panel sessions, the
performances and as well as the meet-and-greet cocktail sessions. A lot of
guest turn-up was due to the fact that new or popular books were being
published or launched during the festival. And these guest were all, or at
least, mostly book lovers or writers themselves. They were there to meet some
of the authors to gain more insides from them to creating a good book that’s sure
to check the attention of the readers and keep them engrossed in it for hours.
That’s where the panel sessions and meet-and-greet sessions come in as it
allows guest to mingle with some authors.
The services provided were minimal because the only times
that the visitors would come in contact with the staff would be when they are
purchasing their tickets. However, there were several staff located at
different points of the exhibition to assist visitors if they got lost or are
in query. There was also just one information counter and the staffs there were
friendly and approachable and answered every question of mine with a smile even
though they were approached by many students like me before. Since service is
intangible, to help reduce the intangibility, tangible items such as pamphlets
and a Singapore Writers Festival book were given to visitor for their own
reference and insides to the festival.
In terms of branding, The Singapore Writers festival has
already positioned and branded itself very well. In 2011, the festival
attracted more than 50,000 visitors. I believe that the festival will have no
problem increasing that figure for this year’s festival and the years to come.
"Met Neil Humphrey, one of my favorite newspaper article writers. He is a British humor columnist and author."
"The many books on sale."
Place:
Place; which is the second marketing mix has two meanings to
it in terms of event marketing and it includes the geographical location and
the purchasing points for the tickets to the event. For this festival, in terms
of location wise, they have located themselves in the civic district of Bras
Basah and in the centre of all museums which are their venue partners. The
location also is easy to get to as people know where it is. For example, if you
tell them that SWF is located at SMU, people know where SMU is immediately. During
the interview with the information counter staff, she said that the main focus
on picking the venue was to ensure ease and accessibility as will a proximity
to their venue partners.
On purchasing of the festival tickets, tickets were made
available at all Sistic outlets which one can find almost anywhere at a
shopping centre these days. Ticket sales were also made available at the ticket
and information booth located at the festival site itself. To further improve
on this marketing mix, the event planner might want to consider selling the
festival tickets online at the SWF website for ease of access.
Price:
The third marketing mix that I will be evaluating on would
be “price”. Price is the value that consumers place on the event experience and
are prepared to pay for. A price value must very from a certain amount to even,
’free’. As I spoke to the information counter staff on their pricing, she
mentioned that all the festival’s events that are free are actually children
events. The reason being is that children are unlikely going to stay throughout
the event and as a result, parents are not willing to pay. The second reason
was, because these events were out-doors, it is difficult to put a price on it
as anyone and everyone could see what was going on in that particular event. As
the rest of the free events take place in the festival venue itself, which was
also where the bookstore and information counter was located. The reason for
this was practical and also to help draw crowds in. People would be interested
to know what is going on and will in turn, buy tickets. So actually if you look
at it, SWF has planned this in a form of a marketing strategy as well as a
physical strategy.
The priced events are targeted towards people who are really
interested to attend in-depth events at the festival to learn a specific skill
for instants, to meet an author to find out how he/she gets their inspiration
to produce a good book. These forms of tickets are not cheap but as the
information counter staff mentioned, there are lots of people who are willing
to pay for these tickets.
Promotion:
Promotion, which is the next marketing mix, is concerned
with how well the organizers of the festival does in promoting through various
forms of marketing communications. Singapore Writers Festival used more of
outdoor advertising such as by using posters as their medium. Posters about the
event were hung on a few lamp posts along the roads in the town area and at the
venue itself. There were huge posters that helped to advertise the event as
well.
In an effort to create more awareness about this event, they advertised
in online networks as well. Aside from their official website, a Facebook as
well as Twitter account was set up for the SWF and in it, information as well
as pictures on the festival is published. SWF also used electronic direct
mailers (EDM) to reach out to customers as this allowed customers to be
notified regularly on updates of the festival. These are what they called, free
means of publicity and promotion. The paid means are the posters, banners,
newspaper advertisements, advertisements via the radio and as well as
billboards at bus-stops and train stations.
Partnership:
The fifth marketing mix is partnership where it involves the
stakeholders in producing the event. The stakeholders for SWF include the National
Arts Council who is the official organiser for this festival, the Lee
Foundation who is the festivals major sponsor as well as Suntec Singapore as
their side sponsor. As mentioned, the key venue partner is the Singapore Management
University and hence, the reason why some of the events at the festival were
held within the Singapore Management University campus itself. The official
hotel for this event is the Rendezvous Grand Hotel Singapore where the many
special guest authors stayed at during their invitation to the festival.
During my interview with the information counter staff, she
mentioned that it was only right that, for a festival or event, the organisers
gain one sponsor for each category. This allows the ability to “sell” the event
to the different organisations. When organisations know that they are the one
and only official organisation in the festival under a particular sponsor
category, they will in turn provide certain perks for the festival such as
discounts or free rooms in the case of Rendezvous Grand Hotel Singapore. If,
however, there is more than one partner in a category, the festival would have
less bargaining power. Also, it is important that an organisation take into
consideration the other organisations marketing message before engaging them to
be an official stakeholder. In this case, SWF did in fact consider the
marketing ways of the official stakeholders as they are in one way or another involved
in words.
An interesting stakeholder would be an organisation call ‘Aesop”
which actually deals with beauty and skin care products. However, due to their
background on “telling stories” to sell their product, they were engaged by
SWF. By looking at this, I believe that the main take-away here is that, as
long as the marketing strategies of two organisations align with each other,
being partners will make sense even though the end product of the two
organisations is different.
People:
One of the key importance for the event to take place is the
people involved. This is where the sixth marketing mix which is the “People”
mix comes in. This mix includes the host of the festival which in this case is
the National Arts Council who organized the festival and the various venues
that made it possible for the different events to be carried out. This festival
could not have been a success if not for the steering committee, the
secretariat which comprises of namely, Programming, Site and Logistics,
Marketing and Product Development. Certainly, the visitors also played a huge
major role in participating in the event. They are the ones who helped generate
the revenue for the event. Without them, the purpose of the event would already
be invalid.
Also, not forgetting the many different authors and artists
who turned up for this festival to share their ideas and stories with the
visitors. I’m sure many of the authors have left inspirational marks on the
visitors.
Programming:
Another marketing mix that was used for this event was
“Programming”. Programming within the event is also a marketing decision,
especially by the way of creating targeted benefits. It involves the elements that
make up the whole festival.
The Singapore Writers Festival had lots of activities going
on throughout the 10 days of the festival. They include book publishing, book
reading sessions, panel sessions, talks, workshops, live music performances,
seminars, moving image galleries, dining with authors, meet and greet with
authors, cocktail sessions and storytelling workshops for children.
On top of that, there are events tailored to different
audiences. There is an event called ‘Origins of desire’ which is catered
towards the mature audience as it talks about sex, love and erotic novels.
Besides that, some programmes are created in a way that it
ensures the ability to reach out to all four languages. This form of
programming uses language as the main attraction point to gain the interest of
not just the English literate, but also the Tamil, Malay and Chinese speaking
groups.
Packaging and Distribution:
The last marketing mix would be the "Packaging and
Distribution" mix. Essentially, it involves how the product is bundled up
with other services or goods that are then sold to the customers, adding more
value to the actual product. Methods of distribution plays a key role because
with the help of proper distribution, there will be an increase in awareness
for the event as well as increasing its revenue all together.
When one would to make a purchase on the festival ticket,
he/she will be given a festival pass. With this pass, one would be able to
attend the different events around the whole festival. This is a method of
packaging the festival pass with the different events. However, some events
need further admission fees to be made and this brings out the exclusivity of
the event.
I believe that the distribution channels used by SWF are both
the direct and indirect channels. For the direct distribution channel, it comes
in the form of social media such as Facebook, Twitter and the festivals
official website. As for the indirect distribution methods, SWF uses newspaper
and radio advertisements to publicize the festival.
