The Marketing Mix......

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.

List of partners can be found here: http://www.singaporewritersfestival.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=82

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.