Marketing mix (8Ps)
Marketing events is the process of adopting the marketing mix through creating value for customers and other stakeholders in order to attain organizational goals. The organization must employ a marketing orientation that stresses the building of mutually beneficial relationships and the maintenance of competitive advantage.
Product, place, programming, people, partnership, promotion, packaging & distribution and price forms the 8 components of the marketing mix. These components can be classified into “experiential” and “facilitative”. The distinguishing feature between these two is the fact that some marketing elements directly affect the customer’s experience at the event.
Experiential Components:
Product
It is critical that the event product must be what the potential customers need, want, and will pay for. The core product that the exhibition offer is the Korean art works produced by 13 various artists as shown below.
PENCIL 2, By Hong Kyoung Tack
Happy World, By Ik-Joong Kang
Other art works
Other art works
Place
The physical location where the art exhibition is being held is the Singapore Art Museum. Over 40 art works occupy Gallery 1.10 to 3.10 of the Museum.
Along the corriddors of the Museum
Programming
Programming within the event is an important marketing decision, especially by the way of creating targeted benefits. These programmes will help attract more visitors to the event as well as further enhancing their experience.
Apart from the art exhibition itself, there are 5 other types of programmes that visitors to the Museum can participate in. They are as follows:
Arttalk on “Contemporary Korean Art Development
Curatour
Workshop Series that spreads over 11 weeks in which each week focuses on different topic.
Imagine: Korean Art & Aesthetics for Kids - a programme specially designed for kids
Korean Fiesta - visitors can learn a few more things about Korean culture such as their food and traditional music and also pick up a few Korean phrases.
Detailed information of the programmes is provided in the brochure below.
People
The people who are involved in making the exhibition a success are the staffs and volunteers of the Museum, the 13 artists whose art works are being displayed at the galleries and the contractors who helped to design the setting of the galleries.
The interactions between visitors, the setting and the staff/volunteers constitute a large part of the event experience.
Facilitating Components:
Partnership
Partnership with sponsors and other organizations is crucial in terms of funding or other ways of support. Their marketing presence can be very beneficial when designing promotional activities.
The art exhibition is supported by the Korean Embassy, Art Council Korea, SMRT Media, Singapore Art gallery guide and Samsung and sponsored by Singapore Art Museum & Lim Yoen Ki, an Exhibition Consultant.
The Singapore Art gallery guide advertises the Art Exhibition on its website as part of its joint marketing initiatives to promote the exhibition to the public. On the other hand, the Singapore Art Museum provide their galleries as the venue for the art exhibition.
Promotion (Communition)
Promotion refers to the range of communication tools which includes advertising, public relation, and sales promotions used to communicate the event.
There were not much promotion done to promote awareness of the art exhibition. From the research that I have done, the public are informed of the exhibition through internet websites such as:
- Korea Festival 2008
- Singapore Art Museum
- Uniquely Singapore
- Singapore Art gallery guide
Apart from that, no other forms of communication tools are used to advertise the event.
Packaging & Distribution
The tickets for the exhibition are only available for purchase at the ticketing counter, located at the entrance lobby of the Museum. No other types of distribution network or intermediaries are being employed in selling the event tickets.
Apart from the issuance of the tickets upon purchase, a pink sticker, brochure, the Museum floor directory and a booklet containing information on the 13 artists were given visitors. Below are the pictures of the times.
The ticket
Pink Sticker
Museum Floor Directory
Booklet
Contents of the booklet
Price
The ticket price of the art exhibition follows the usual admission fee to the Museum. As stated in the Museum’s website, there are different sets of pricing such as for those visitors coming in groups of 20 and those coming with their other family members. They also have free admission to the Museum for certain age group, days and time. Below are the different admission charges to the Museum.
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Evaluation of how well the event has used the marketing mix to its advantage
In my opinion, the event did not use the components of the marketing mix to its full advantage.
Promotion (Communication)
The public does not have a reference point for the event other than that created by the promotion. By looking at the promotion efforts of the event, I feel that more emphasis should be put in advertising and promoting awareness of the exhibition.
This is mostly because the market of the people who have an interest in art and culture are rather quite small. This is true as on the day that I went to the exhibition, the number of visitors there were countable.
Therefore, there is a need to have a well-targeted advertising and promotion plan to encourage the public to attend the event.
Some of the ways to promote the event effectively are through the radio channels (eg. 98.7fm), television, press advertising (eg. newspaper, Time Out magazine) and outdoor advertising (bus stop advertisement). These advertising methods are more reassuring as we know that the public will definitely come across reading or seeing our advertisements.
Another way is to target students through having school visits to the Museum to educate them on Korean contemporary art development.
Packaging & Distribution
Comparing this art exhibition to another festival related event which is the K-Pop concert, I feel that the distribution network used to sell the event tickets could be improved.
Some of the ways to sell/distribute the tickets are through promotional road shows, schools and running contest. This will help to further encourage the public to attend the exhibition and create publicity for the event.
However, I do feel that the product and programming component of the marketing mix are being used to its advantage.
Product
Apart from being able to view the art works, the detailed information provided in the booklets and the brochures will help visitors to better understand the Korean art culture, the art works of the 13 various artists and the programmes they offer.
Programming
The programmes that the event offers are created in a way that there is something for everyone. Apart from enhancing visitor’s experience when the visit the exhibition, the 5 programmes also caters to different target audiences of different age group.
The programmes are also scheduled to have different timeslots from each other. This is so that visitors will not of the difficulties of choosing over 2 programmes if they are held on the same time/day.
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Tourism roles and economic value of the Event
Tourist Attraction
As the art exhibition is part of the Korea Festival 2008 which is one of the largest Korea Festival held to promote Korean Culture, it will definitely attract regional tourists, mostly Korean fanatics, into Singapore. They are regarded as quality tourist.
Apart from the art exhibition, there are also other related Festival events that these visitors can choose to visit. This will help to increase visitor spending and length of stay which will lead to a spill-over effect - food & beverage, accommodation, transportation, shopping and visiting other attraction while in Singapore. All these will increase tourism revenue.
Animator
The festival encourages first time or repeat visits to Singapore (eg. to the facilities, attractions). The Korea Festival 2008 will definitely encourage Koreans to travel to Singapore or those who came to here for the festival to come back for a holiday or shopping spree. Thus, this will also generate revenue for the country.
Image Maker
It also promotes Singapore’s capability to be the host of such Festivals in Singapore, therefore encouraging more of such festival of promoting other country’s culture to be held in here.
It encourages more of similar repeat events or other similar events (eg. Japanese Art Exhibition).
Place Marketing
The event helps to create positive images of the country; Singapore as a clean and green city. Singapore will also gain recognition as the place to hold one of the largest Korea Festival 2008.
This event will also attract foreign investors to do business in Singapore.
Catalyst
In addition to the deepening relationship between Singapore and Korea, this event will help to stimulate bilateral trade, foreign direct investment and people-to-people exchanges between these two countries.
This event also supported other attraction in the vicinity: National Museum Of Singapore, Plaza Singapura.
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Conclusion
Focusing on the Korean Contemporary Art Exhibition itself, I feel that they did not adopt the components of the marketing mix as effectively as it could have been in order to attract visitors. The 2 components of the marketing mix that could be improved are the promotion and packaging & distribution. This lead to the event to be less successful as compared to the other related festival event as it does not promote itself well enough to get attention from the public.
However, in a whole, the Korea Festival 2008 was a success. The K-Pop concert, that had attracted both the media and public attention, together with the Korean Flavour Fiesta contribute largely to the success of the Festival.
In conclusion, it is important for any event or festival to make use of the 8 components of the marketing mix to its full advantage so that the event/festival could be a success.
A well-targeted advertising can make the difference between success and failure. Therefore, it is also essential for an event/festival to review the different types of communication tools that they can adopt to advertise and promote awareness of the event/festival.
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