Giving relationship management a proactive feel:
Sony and Aiwa have offered free service camps for their music systems and other products. Similarly, free service camps for Maruti and Daewoo car owners have also been held.
Events such as these help in not only building up a rapport with the customers, but also help in reducing the cognitive dissonance, which is very common in purchase of such type of products. This type of relationship is very proactive in nature because many studies have proved that reduced cognitive dissonance leads to the repeat purchase of the brand.
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Creating a forum for bringing together key corporate influencers, decision makers and businessmen:
The main objective of the 12-city IBM Solutions Forum ’98, organized by Tata IBM Ltd. and spread over a few months, was to bring to the doorstep of key people in the industry, the wide range of IBM Technologies and cost-effective solutions available for all sizes of business.
It also sought to demonstrate to these key people, IBM’s clear leadership in the areas of PC product solutions, servers, industry-specific solutions and electronic business solutions.
The forum also provided a platform for presentations and discussions on packages-both international such as CATIA (a CAD-CAM product) and those developed by Tata IBM’s software partners in India.
Creating Opportunities for Better Deals with Different Media:
A single sponsor may find it difficult to network with the different media. The volume of business generated by one sponsoring firm may not be lucrative enough for the particular media to offer substantial room for negotiation whereas professional event organizers are in touch with the media components daily.
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This enables negotiations by event organizers to be more fruitful than when an individual company negotiates with the media. Negotiations could be in terms of rates (per cc for print media and commercial time on the electronic media) offered free in relation with the sponsorship amount.
While on television and radio, free commercial times are bartered by the event organizer, in the print media, advertising space can be bartered. This may not be possible for individual clients.
Events and the Economy:
Over and above the marketing angle, the economic benefits to the region hosting the event are also a positive aspect. Countries like India should be not only investing in information technology but also other communication infrastructure to be ready in this millennium to host similar mega-events.
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The singular importance of mega-events in driving an economy into a growth phase has already been emphasized earlier, and India needs events like these.
The 1982 Asian Games held in New Delhi gave an impetus to the Indian economy with the setting up of an Asian Games village for the participants with all modern facilities essentially in transportation and infrastructure.
The buses which were introduced during the games to transport athletes are in fact still in operation and are plying between various cities such as Bombay and Pune, 18 years later.
Similarly, the 1996 Centennial Olympics held in Atlanta, gave an impetus to the local economy and helped in giving a face lift to the entire city with new freeways and attractions added to places as The Underground, the World of Coca Cola and the Olympic Village.
These were built in anticipation of the influx of thousands of athletes and millions of fans of the games. The local infrastructure thus got a boost and Atlanta is now amongst one of the most modern and fastest growing cities in the USA.
So far, the above-mentioned needs have been satisfied using traditional media such as television, radio, print, etc. In the future though, events will be in a position to fulfill the above marketing needs as compared to other tools.
Experts have cited reasons for the advent of events as a major marketing tool. In the following section, common problems associated with traditional media have been discussed, followed by the advantages offered by events.