Marketers plan greater role for live events

The latest report by Internet Advertising Bureau and PriceWaterhouseCoopers does not make great reading for the wider advertising industry but the events sector remains buoyant.

Internet advertising is rising fast and grew by 41.2% to £2.01 billion over the last 12 months but that's where the good news stops.

The report states that the amount spent on advertising in Britain's national newspapers grew by a miniscule 0.2% to 10.7% worth £1.9 billion, radio advertising remains deep in the doldrums and TV advertising continues its serious decline, falling back a further 4.7% last year.

So where are marketers going? Live event marketing alongside the internet is an upward trend identified by award-winning marketing and PR agency Wyndham-Leigh who in conjunction with Haymarket's Event magazine recently commissioned JMA Research to survey UK marketers.

The survey, which measured the views of 200 marketers with a combined events budget of around £90 million (average spend £447,000), shows that 46% of those polled expect events to play a greater role in their communication strategies in the future with just 10% saying their use of events will reduce.

Additionally, 61% say they will allocate more budget to events in the next 12 months with only 13% likely to reduce their budget.

Integration of events into marketing programmes looks set to lead the growth with a rise interestingly of 30% predicted in the use of events to support web/viral driven activity.

Additionally, Direct Marketing (+15%), Advertising (+6%) and PR (+4%) programmes all look set for greater integration with events.

Andy Hill, Director: Events for Wyndham-Leigh, said: "Marketers are recognising the benefits of integrating events into their communication strategies.

"What is clear is that web is growing in importance and that events are the supplementary tool of choice - growing twice as quickly as any other marcomms vehicle.

"It will reshape our industry and that process is already underway".

Trevor Foley, group chief executive, Events Industry Alliance, added: "Ironically, it is event marketing, the oldest kid on the block, that is riding the digital wave.

"It's not just that event marketing is complementary to digital, but that the two have so much in common, to the exclusion of the traditional mass-market media.

"The key characteristic of both is pull rather than push media".

The survey also fires some other warning shots at the industry.

Budgets are coming under increased pressure with 50% of respondents saying they are under quite a lot or a lot of pressure to justify the return on their investment (ROI) in contrast to just 10% who say they are not under any pressure.

Additionally, only 6% say they are under less pressure to justify their ROI than three years ago while 65% claim to be under more or a lot more pressure.

The survey also asked respondents to rank the marketing disciplines; Advertising, PR, Direct, Web/Viral and Events against the effectiveness measures of Impact, Measurability and Value.

Events was voted overall most effective.

It scored top in the Impact category and came second to Direct Marketing for Measurability and second to Web/Viral for Value.

"Every marketer will have a slightly different reason for investing more resource into events but it is clear that the ability to inject high impact while retaining good measurement and ROI is helping make a compelling case for integrating events across the marketing spectrum", said Andy Hill.

"It's great news that marketers believe that live event marketing is effective and will make more use of this powerful medium.

"There is no doubt too that the unique full-on brand exposure that events offer can deliver huge ROI.

"At the Events Industry Alliance (EIA) we are addressing the wider 'measurement' issues raised, working on a 'live event marketing effectiveness' project that will quantify the added value that live event marketing brings to brands", said Trevor Foley.

Back to top