Reflective Evaluation
Anna Brown
Assistant Marketing
Our main objective as a collective team was to put on A Classical Serenade that raised as much money as possible for our charity to help orphaned children in Moldova. To do this we had to create a clear and direct advertising campaign that reached out the right audience demographic (middle aged to elderly). We aimed to be extremely efficient and organised with our time as we had learned from previous events at Arley Hall. That this was crucial in marketing as it had a knock on effect for the duration of the campaign. In addition to this we wanted to make sure that each member of the event management team was proficient in their job role or any tasks they were given so our event management team could function as professionally as possible. For example we needed to create many different types of flyers, posters and advertisements; these were distributed between each member of our team. Regular checks into the progress of each one was done to make sure we were able to achieve our goal. We also intended to make sure that there was trust and accountability in not just the marketing team but also within the entire event management team; this would be done through regular checks into the progress of everyone’s job roles at our event team meetings at the end of every week. This was to ensure that everyone was completing objectives and sticking to deadlines which would allow us to have a stress free planning process.
As a whole our event was hugely successful and I feel that we adhered to our main objective of raising as much money as possible. We raised over 1400 pounds in a single event which exceeded our expectations.
AUIDENCE, TEACHERS AND ARLEY HALL RESPONSE:
The morning after A Classical Serenade we received an email from Shelagh the manager at Arley Hall. In it she explained how Gemma our Front of House manager had received very high praise and was offered a summer job at Arley because of her efficiency and outstanding ability to motivate and organise her FOH team. This high praise has meant that we can confirm our team member’s accountabilities and their professional capabilities in a stressful environment and that our customer service was to the standard of employees at Arley Hall.
We also received feedback from the audience asking us when our next event was and could we do the same event again next year. This is very good news in terms of Marketing because it means that people have responded well to our marketing strategy and by selling all 100 tickets we were able to have a large audience body buy into our production company there for allowing us to build up a strong and positive reputation that they can pass on to their families and friends. This response means that, from a marketing perspective we have an audience base to build on and add to which in turn raises more money for our charity. Also because of the success of our event and the audience’s response Our Production team has been invited to arrange next year’s valedictory dinner. This is a very positive as this invitation comes from people who would not normally had out this opportunity to students.
Our teachers have also complimented us on our capability to work independently. They feel that they are somewhat able to step back and allow us to run the show on our own as a team. They also explained that if something went wrong we were able to deal with it calmly. This confirms our team’s aptitude to handling the stressful environment of running an event like this and proves that we can function as a collective in a professional manor.
MARKETING/ADVERTISNG:
Website Design + Twitter and Facebook Design:
Social media is the biggest form of distributing information to the public. We found that it gave us a way to communicate with our audience and keep the company's profile growing so we can reach a wider audience demographic. This will in turn allow us to raise more money. However I feel that it is still something the marketing team need to build on. For example we need to gain more follows on our twitter account so they can share the information we post which would mean we could reach a wider audience outside of college.
In reflection I feel that the consistency of the design theme was a good idea as it allowed us to create familiarity for our audience. I also feel that it was very clean and simple look that reflected the colour scheme and aesthetics of Arley Hall however it still had a modern edge to it because of its minimalism.
Posters/Flyers:
Overall I am very happy with the design of the posters and flyers as they are simplistic and easy to read but have all the relevant information on them. I was also very pleased with the idea of doing flyers as I felt it gave the audience additional information they needed in order to understand how their money can help the orphanages. In addition to this I think that it was a good idea to put the total we have risen so far onto the back of the flyers in a visual format as it gave the audience/reader something to gauge our progress buy and give them the extra motivation to help us reach our goal. Also being originally opposed to putting images on the posters for fear it would make the posters crowded I actually like them a lot. It adds to the composition and helps with the spacing of the text but also because it gave the viewer an emotional connection to our cause.
Additional Advertising:
Network Warrington (busses)
Local Morrisons and Sainsbury's.
Local hair dressers gave out flyers.
We also advertised on many additional places to help raise our profile and get people to buy tickets. Even though it was possible to get 100 people we already knew to come to our event we felt it would be a good idea to start letting the public know who we are so if we decide to do more public events outside of college we already have a small profile to build on.
However this was the hardest part to organise as my team had not advertised an event like this outside of college before and we found it a huge learning curve. The main difficulty was finding places that we willing to advertise for us for free. As it is a charity event we did not want to pay a lot for advertising. Many contacts we did acquire were eventually dropped which resulted in our advertising campaign being weakened. This meant that the selling of the tickets diminished toward the event day and we had to push really hard to sell extra tickets to people that we knew. In light of this though I do feel we have gained some strong contacts that we can advertise again with in the future.
Tickets:
The design for the tickets was over all very well received by both the audience and our team. There were no complications for the audience and they liked the fact they could pick them up on the door, have them posted to their house or collect them from the cash office. Front of house also liked the perforated edge because it meant that they could keep track of numbers. The audience could also keep the ticket as a memento.
However there were also many complications with the process of organising the tickets and the purchasing system. The lady in the cash office did not write down the correct information in the booking sheet we gave her which resulted in some confusion.
We worked quite closely with front of house as our job roles somewhat over lapped in terms of design and delivering information to the audience upon their arrival. When the audience arrived at the venue in their cars it was important that this was stress free and well organised. To help with this the FOH team asked us to design car parking signs that the crew could display along the drive way so they could easily direct the audience to the right spaces.
Many positive comments were received from the audience about our car parking system and how well organised and effective it was. At previous events we have held at Arley Hall the car parking system was quite dysfunctional and cars were being miss guided and it was extremely hard for us to communicate with one another as the drive way is very long and with it being night time, it is hard to see. So this time the FOH team planned the car parking down to the last detail. More people, signs, torches and radios meant they were able to be more prepared.
We also received praise for the continuity in the design aspects of the show. The flow of the colour scheme ran right through from advertising, programmes and tickets to lighting and the décor of Arley Hall. This meant that we were able to achieve an astatically pleasing show that was beautiful and engaging for the audience.
Conclusion
In conclusion I feel that overall in terms of marketing we did really well and were able to create an aesthetically pleasing and effective advertising campaign and graphic design for the interior of the event. However communication needs to be built on within the event management team to avoid missing deadlines along the way. It would also be better for the marketing team to make sure that they are aware of everything they need to make that is not just within advertising but also graphics for on the night of the show as this would make sure that nothing was rushed and everything could be accounted for early on. I found that creating lists and having detailed plans of what I was going to do and what I needed to do helped a lot in the organisation of the marketing.
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