AVERSE TO A BIT OF ADVERTISING?

So the two events Hyper Japan and the I.O.E.X  both must have advertised and promoted the events for them to be of notice to the outside world. When searching for two events for purposes of research for a university degree assignment it did not take me long to find which two events i wanted to research the marketing strategies of.
I found these events because they had advertised and well enough for it to come to my attention. I first saw an I.O.E.X advertisement in the Main Event, event industry magazine (hard copy, but this is the weblink,http://www.themaineventmagazine.co.uk/) and the Hyper Japan event was advertised to me via their venue's advertising tool which is the Earls court  website(http://www.eco.co.uk/).

This is proof of advertising, but what is advertising and can we find a clear definition of what it means?
Well many see advertising as a form of communication and it is, advertising is conveyance of the product or service to the consumer market and or the end user. Lets see what the intellects think!

"This idea of advertising "delivering a sales message" is not a new one"(Schultz, D.1990)

That's right advertising has been around for centuries even millennium.

George and Michael Belch really sum advertising up. "Any paid form of non personal communication about an organization, product, service or idea by an identified sponsor."(Belch, G. Belch, M.1998)

OK we now know what advertising is i hope! lets look at how these two events Hyper Japan and I.O.E.X went about advertising their events.

Hyper Japan is up first.

The main concentration of Hyper Japans advertising was via internet/digital, social media and viral marketing/ advertising. There has also been an approach of sales promotion and the use of PR to deliver their sales message. I did not find any hard copy advertising and could not tie them to any magazine or news paper.

Also there i could not find any poster or billboard advertising. The fact that there must of been little to no hard copy advertising around the Hyper Japan event leads me to believe even more so that the main marketing strategy was to be online and strongly based around the website and social media links.

Here i will look more closely at how they advertised.

Lets start with the website, Cross Media have been building this site into what it is today over the past two - three years. The website is used as the main advertising hub for the event. The website is used to advertise the whole event(build up, the show and after show review). The website acted as the media hub in the sense that all roads/ routes connected to the event would or could potentially lead back to the main website.The only website so far out of  the sponsors, partners or public relations that i have found to have website pop ups and banners from Hyper Japan is the Eat Japan website who have a banner down the left side of their home page.  I am yet to find any other digital media on other websites apart from the standard Hyper Japan Image/logo which would be at the top of some form of PR.

There was a huge use of social media marketing being used by Hyper Japan, all social media links reverted in one way or another back to either one of their social media sites or in the long run to the main website. This was a core part of the marketing and advertising strategy being used by Cross Media (Hyper Japan), get all  internet and social media traffic about there event pointing towards their website.

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I.O.E.X is next!!

So we know that the I.O.E.X has used hard copy and internet advertising by placing advertisements in the industry press magazine Main Event, but i am still yet to find any other hard copy press or magazine with advertising I.O.E.X may of paid for.
I would think that due to Main Event having a stand at the I.O.E.X there may have been some form of B2B partnership deal with either free advertising for a discounted pitch prize at the show or some form of B2B deal.
This i would say would be a large part of the marketing and advertising strategy from I.O.E.X. To use all exhibitors as a form of B2B discounted or free advertising platform. This works for both parties and would definitely be in place with all sponsorship deals.

Between exhibitions, shows and the businesses/consumer market in the given genre of which they might sit there is  normally extensive saturation of the trade show advertising via press or online media within the genres associated media and very little further than that, Obviously, whats the point of advertising an outdoor event trade show to a consumer comic book convention audience!!

This is true but the outdoor events industry is vast and the catchment of many differing industry and trade genres is needed in the case of the I.O.E.X and i believe that the marketing strategy they have taken which is to use platforms of media that many view., i.e online and hard copy trade press and magazines. Also the use of public relations techniques with the I.O.E.X sponsors, supporters and media partners makes for good advertising.

There is use of social media with the use of Twitter, Facebook and  LinkedIn which i believe is a must in today's world especially when it comes to marketing strategies and public relations.

What i believe to be the best marcomms tool that the I.O.E.X have is their website. It really has all guns blazing in all directions. As a student and industry professional myself  i know that these days the website is the first port of call when it comes to getting the low down on the event i am working or attending.

The website really works and as a marketing tool allows visitors to easily understand why they need to attend or exhibit the show. Not only is the website good but all e-marketing as in e-newsletters is really informative and very well pieced together and cleverly directs you back to the website.

Another important aspect and defiantly one of the main reasons for prediction of greatness from the I.O.E.X event is that it is the little brother or son of the almighty C.O.N.F.E.X. The association to the UK's biggest conference and exhibition show is a huge plus for the marketing strategy of the I.O.E.X.
As it is the C.O.N.F.E.X (U.B.M)that birthed the I.O.E.X(also U.B.M), announced its arrival and has most defiantly helped it take its first steps to becoming another industry must attend event, this has helped massively in creating a buzz about the event via public relations, as everyone who already attends or has anything to do with C.O.N.F.E.X will be falling over each other in an attempt to be a part of I.O.E.X or just to show that they were there first.

Very Clever marketing strategy by the parent company U.B.M,(U.B.M is a global media and B2B communications, marketing, service and data provider. Check out this link for more on big mumma!!http://www.ubm.com/about-ubm/ubm-overview.aspx).

Creating a new event and marketing it to target groups that they already either had links with or had their eyes on over the last few years. The new event I.O.E.X is really the an extension of the C.O.N.F.E.X but due to the size of C.O.N.F.E. UBM really could not have just linked the two, they had to create a completely new event with a clever strategical marketing approach.



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