An Analysis of the Impact of Traditional and Social Media Communications on the Marketing of Events

Successful communications rely on the effective coordination and integration of a range of elements in order to achieve the goals set.

A clear and consistent strategic direction is needed as well as detailed sub strategies undertaking the different levels of objectives. The first step for strategy development, after target markets have been identified, is the draft of a positioning statement (Kitchen, 1999).

Once the positioning statement has been realized, a range of strategic options may be available to reach the desired positions and results. They need to be evaluated and therefore the best option chosen need to be developed, leading to the campaign message or overarching theme (Shimp, 1997). Therefore, appraising what has just been said, it is clear that there is a need to select the most suitable media to send this message across to the selected target markets.

Communications strategy can be described as ‘a pre-determined set of actions that differentiate your product from its competitors in terms that are positive and personally relevant to your key target audiences’ (Wirthlin Report, 1999).

The different theories of perception, branding and information processing contribute to a valuable reinforcement in developing successful communication strategies and they have been explored by interviewing event professional in the research stage of this project.

As Masterman and Wood (2006) say, the communication strategy needs to fit within the marketing and corporate strategies of the company. In order to understand this correlation, it is necessary to consider the generic strategic direction that the organization is undertaking.

Porter (1986) claims that the only three strategic choices at this point are ‘differentiation’, ‘cost leadership’ or ‘focus’. According to him, an organization trying to follow two or more of these alternatives is considered ‘stuck in the middle’ and is improbable to be effective.

The three strategic options have implications on marketing communications. In relation to what Porter (1986) says, the main issue concerns the financial costs that small or new-born event agencies have to carry out to differentiate themselves and represent a great issue in the current competitive environment.


On the other hand, the current academic literature does not provide any examples of strategic planning for the use of social networks within the tourism sector. Therefore this point has been explored in the interviews with marketing managers to find out what is their way to tackle modern tools of communications and if they have any strategy behind their use. 
The next paragraph will discuss the role of branding in the events industry, as part of the integrated communications, which have been just discussed.