Sales Promotion

Definition: A range of tactical marketing techniques designed within a strategic marketing framework, to add value to a product or service, in order to achieve a specific sales and marketing objective.

 (Institute of sales promotion website) 

This is considered to be the practice of offering a temporary additional value to a brand in order to reach a specific marketing objective.

There are 4 different types of sale promotion, win, free, save  and cause related.

The main type of sales promotion I've seen from Crufts has been cause related. This is where another organisation will benefit from the purchase. It's one day left to go until Crufts begins, and there's still plenty of tickets available, so to give that final push, they've put a direct link on the website as the first thing you see now. Right below the link is a link to the sponsor Eukanuba. If you look at the link there's also, save, where they're now offering the tickets at a discount price if you book in advance.

Enter Shikari's usual tactics when coming to sales promotion is "win". There are always plenty of competitions with either NME, Kerrang or HMV where you can win tickets to their concerts. This is a promotion that most bands use with their tours. Along with tickets, winners usually get special treatment such as a chance to go backstage or some free merchandise.



There are several different sales promotion objectives:

• repeat sales
• sales to new customers
• develop trial by new customers
• pre-empt or counteract competitor activity
• develop sales leads/create a database

Masterman and Wood,  chapter 9 (2006)

Crufts promotional methods seems to meet the objective of "develop sales leads/create a database" as well as meeting repeat sales with their kennel club membership link. However, Enter Shikari's methods seem more like "sales to new customers" as well as repeat sales which they are pretty much guaranteed. 

Masterman, and Wood, E (2006). Innovative Marketing Communications. Oxford: Elsevier.

Objectives

Defined: Objectives are used to quantify progress towards an event's goals and set performance benchmarks that allow event organisations to assess whether the different aspects of their planning have succeeded or failed.

From studying Crufts promotion and advertising for the past couple of months, I can begin to draw some conclusions on what business objectives they have set. After some poor publicity in the previous years, Crufts attendance will have definitely taking some beatings. Therefore, one of their objectives may have been to raise attendance at the event, not for entrants (because the kennel club are very dedicated to this event) but for familys/friends and the general public watching the event. Usually, an event like this always likes to draw in new crowds and tap into different target markets, however I have seen no evidence of this with any of their promotion or marketing, making either their marketing mix flawed, or their objectives not very clear.

(Here's a streaker from 2010 that makes this post a bit more exciting haha!)

Enter Shikari, having this huge following that I'm always talking about, will have objectives for their overall tour and not just the one show. Their tour objectives are likely to be about attendance at shows that haven't done so well in the past, as well as bringing new fans to the scene and building a stronger fan base. They could make a stronger fan base by chatting to fans after the show, signing autographs and taking pictures, this knocks down the barrier of them being "celebrities" in the music industry, and more like regular people, making the friendship between them and their fans stronger. Furthermore, by releasing new singles (or a new album in the case of this tour) they are more likely to sell out on their tour dates because people will want to see them play their new music, creating a "hype" about their new tour! 

(There's a nice bit of crowd interaction, those two girls look like they're really enjoying themselves!)

Crufts and it's poor publicity in the past..

After doing a bit of reading into crufts publicity history, i'm beginning to start to change my view on the event as a whole. To begin with I thought it was just some dog lovers meeting up and comparing their dogs..  However, I've started to read more into it, and the publicity scandal in 2008 has really changed my opinions. I'm a massive dog lover, and I've uncovered some articles on news websites such as the guardian which are really tainting how I originally perceived the event.

In 2008, the RSPCA (a charity that I truly respect) stopped hiring a stand at the event after seeing a documentary aired on the BBC, showing connections between the kennel club, and disabilities in dogs which may be due to inbreeding. The show showed that some dogs couldn't even mate or give birth unassisted, which surely contradicts the fact that you breed specifically to make a genetically better dog, not deformed or disabled. This documentary led to the BBC no longer airing Crufts on their channels (a 40 year long connection) and handed the deed over to channel 4. This poor publicity was a massive hit on Crufts, lowering their reputation and stature, as well as diminishing the audience that they could broadcast to.

After this horrible news, here's a picture of a happy dog, not all is bad in the dog world!

I'd like to say it all finishes here, however that article got my quite angry, and intrigued to find out what other things these owners have been up to with their dogs whilst they're out of the arena. An article I found dating from 2011, shows that some award winning dogs who were kept by a mother and daughter, were found in cramped conditions, without bedding or fresh water with 104 other dogs! For some ridiculous reason, these people were still allowed to keep dogs (well not quite 104, but 5 each) after being accussed of 23 different animal welfare offences! Seeing articles like this makes me really wonder if Crufts is so much of a prestigious event, especially as one of their former national champion poodles, worth £5k!! had an ear infection. What are these people?! I thought they were dog lovers, but it doesn't seem like these pair particular love their dogs, or even like them! Here's a picture of me and my dog, showing some love because I'm not such a cruel and ill-mannered person. 

Matthew Weaver. (2008). RSPCA boycotts Crufts in dispute over breeding of 'disabled' dogs. Available: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/sep/16/animalwelfare. Last accessed 5th March 2012.


Daily Mail Reporter. (2011). Crufts-winning mother-and-daughter duo plead guilty to keeping 104 dogs in 'horrific conditions' - but they are STILL able to keep and show the animals . Available: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art. Last accessed 5th March 2012.

Public Relations

Public relations is used to build mutually beneficial relationships with stakeholders and consumers. (Bowdin et al) However, in some cases you can get bad PR.


Oh no! PETA have started again with some nasty PR for Crufts! 

PETA have decided, once again, that now the event is coming up that they should make people aware with some nasty publicity with an old fashioned "freak show" styled poster. Activists are planning on giving this flyer out to people about to walk into the event, stating that the kennel club would rather "keep quiet" the fact that they supposedly inbreed most of their pets, making them genetically bred for their "looks rather than for health, welfare or temperament"

Matt. (2012). New PETNew PETA ‘Freak Show’ Ad Shines the Spotlight on Crufts A ‘Freak Show’ Ad Shines the Spotlight on Crufts . Available: http://blog.peta.org.uk/2012/02/new-peta-freak-show-ad-shines-the-spotlight-on-crufts/. Last accessed 5th March 2012.


Bowdin, G (2011). Events Management. 3rd ed. Oxford: Elsevier. p428.

Social Media - Is it effective?

Many people in older generations view social networking sites as just an opportunity to talk to their pals, however, social media is a massive international method of advertising from either business to business, or business to consumer.

Here's a little snap shot showing you how popular Enter Shikari are. This is their facebook, as you can see they have 509,039 people that have liked their page, this means anything they say about new tours or new albums/merch etc gets put out to over half a million people worldwide. 

This is the top banner from their twitter page. 67,388 followers isnt quite the same as the half a million they have on facebook, however, that's still 67,388 people to talk to, not mentioning if any of their tweets get retweeted resulting in more people being able to see them. Enter Shikari effectively use both social media websites to keep fans excited and in the know of anything that's going on with the band, this could be a reason why they have such a loyal fan base.

Then we look at Crufts.. 

Here you can see that Crufts definitely has a smaller following than Enter Shikari. When I first saw the amount of likes I wondered if that was even enough to fill the event, but it is so don't worry! (The arena can seat 12,500.) However, it's currently only a week until the event is over and tickets haven't sold out. 

This is the only crufts twitter account i could find, it's the radio station for Crufts, however that isn't even happening this year! "Unfortunately there won't be a Crufts FM this year. We hope to be back next year. Good luck to everyone going to Crufts & have fun," is their most recent tweet. This leads to some assumptions that the event may not be as big this year. It also shows that Crufts haven't put as much effort in with marketing and making their event really popular this year. Furthermore, the radio station being the only available twitter page for crufts shows that they are not fully utilising the social media side of marketing. 

 The NEC Group. (2012). Planning an event. Available: http://www.lgarena.co.uk/planninganevent/concert. Last accessed 4th 

TV

Crufts is being aired on More4 between 6:30pm and 9pm on the days of the event (8th-11th) so that dog fans don't miss out! This could also help to increase membership of the kennel club or attendance for the event for the next year so could be considered as a form of marketing as well as just airing the event. I found the info about this on their facebook page! http://www.facebook.com/Crufts


Previously (not for the this tour however) Enter Shikari have put live stream up on the internet so that you can watch them playing live at one of there gigs in the comfort of your own home (however, definitely not as fun!) Here's a video of Enter Shikari at Reading Festival last year incase you haven't listened to them yet! This was also on BBC3 showing that Enter Shikari get quite a bit of coverage. The video also shows they've got quite a lot of fans because this was only about 4 in the afternoon haha! I was in one of those mosh pits.. I came out covered in other peoples blood and mud. It was amazing!

Sponsorship

Here is a simple definition of sponsorship: "Supporting an event, activity or organisation by providing money or other resources that is of value to the sponsored event. This is usually in return for advertising space at the event or as part of the publicity for the event." Tutor2u.net 

Crufts has been sponsored by many different companys in the past, and are still sponsored by some of them. For example, Crufts has been partnered with Samsung since 1993. There other major sponsors are:

• Ekanuba (a dog food company)
• Argria (pet insurance)
• Royal Canin 
• Arden Grange (another pet food manufaturer)
• Lathams (another dog food company!)
• Pro Plan (you guessed it, dog food)
• R & L Pet Products Ltd
• Vet-Medic Pharmacy

On looking at the sponsorship I've also finally found some sort of target audience for Crufts! On the sponsorship page (where crufts are trying to make companies want to sponsor them) it mentions this phrase: "The audience in 2011 reached 138,000 dog loving visitors, and three quarters of them are the lucrative ABC1 female demographic with an average household income of £39,253."

Enter Shikari, being a relatively small band and this not being a magazine tour (ie kerrang! tour or relentless..) does not have any sponsors.

Crufts. (2012). Sponsors. Available: http://www.crufts.org.uk/sponsors. Last accessed 3rd March 2012.


Tutor2u. (2011). Promotion - Sponsorship. Available: http://tutor2u.net/business/marketing/promotion_sponsorship.asp. Last accessed 7th March 2012.