Research Log,  Uncategorized

Marketing approaches taken by cultural festivals

November 5, 2023

Effective marketing is absolutely essential in all forms of products, whether that be for people, services, inanimate merchandise, and especially, global, cultural events. By marketing the event correctly you can highly dictate if it’ll be a great success or something that the public just aren’t interested in and in order to create something that’s unique and creative and will make your event be a success there must be engaging promotions that will boost brand awareness.

Multi-Channel Marketing

It’s imperative as a company that’s marketing an event to increase brand awareness by by utilising distributional and promotional strategies together to attract customers and expand their reach to an audience. Instead of a brand waiting for their products/promotions to just be “found” by potential viewers they need to be active in their marketing approaches and discover which strategies in particular will gain them the most consumers.

I’ve taken a look at Glastonbury’s marketing structure to understand it’s popularity and how they have successfully created loyal fanbase.

As Glastonbury has become such a cult event that fans will consistently return to every year a lot of their marketing relies on word of mouth and content that the public, outside of the marketing team, will make about the festival therefore seeming more organic and natural as it hasn’t been strictly been created from management team themselves. This has become more popular in recent years due to rise of social media and “influencers” which give brands more outlets to reach a wider audience. For example, Lily Allen’s music video “As Long As I Got You” where she chooses to shoot it during the festival itself intentionally or unintentionally advertising the event towards her fans. The music video can then spread around the internet and gain traffic so that when her fans see’s that Lily Allen loves going to Glastonbury Festival the endorsement might make them research into it more. The music video also features a Samsung phone product placement which not only benefits Samsung but also subconsciously generates positive feelings towards the brand and the platform where it was promoted, furthering Glastonbury’s appeal.

Another part of the marketing strategies taken by festivals that make them so successful is by diversifying their content onto social media where they’ve curated a loyal following and can guarantee anything that they release will gain a certain level of traction. Depending on the generation of user or how accustomed they are to using social media it may be easier to find out information on the event this way as it is much more condensed as it has to fit a smaller screen size. For example, Instagram has the highlights feature where the user can easily navigate through categorised photos and gain a quick understanding for the event whereas it may be harder for the younger generation to find the same information on a desktop as they are much more used to the display of a mobile phone.

Brand Identity

To create a strong promotional campaign for an event it’s important that the brand already has an established brand identity so you can differentiate your business from the rest of the market.

Before Glastonbury’s first televised broadcast in 1994, they relied heavily on word of mouth but managed to grow in size and reputation by appealing to a specific niche, the counterculture movement of the 70s. They then set their brand apart from the others by establishing themselves as a powerful voice of social and political change. To this day they still stick to the events core values by allowing the Left Field stage at the festival to be used for political debate and programmes for talks and performances.

Hull as a city has similarly defined itself as a hub for creativity and innovation after winning the UK City of Culture award in 2017 after decades of often being overlooked. Following the economic hardship and industrial decline Hull incurred, many of the British population have certain ideas and prejudice against the city due to its somewhat negative reputation, however Hull has reclaimed this stereotype and now celebrates the arts and diversity within the city through multiple festivals.

Due to Hulls rich history and past the Freedom Festival now hold onto similar ideas and identity and celebrate them during the festival making it all the more meaningful to residents and a way to market the festival to the public further outside of Hull.

References:

  • Leanne Bayley (2014) Lily Allen shot her new music video at Glasto & it’s brill. Available online: https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/lily-allen-glastonbury-music-video-as-long-as-i-got-you [Accessed 04/11/23]
  • Lily Allen (2014) Lily Allen | As Long As I Got You (Official Video) [Video]. Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu905oeqrOg [Accessed 05/11/23]