On advertising and promotions

IN the broad field of marketing, sub-marketing fields like public relations, sales, advertising and promotions utilize events to achieve its goals.

A single event can (and actually should) serve more than one sub-marketing field.
Events can be tools for promoting a product, can have advertising, can increase sales and can boost a company’s image.

Although certain companies have different organizational structures (some companies have departments labeled sales and marketing where public relations, advertising and promotions fall under it; others have marketing and communications departments separate from sales yet incorporate public relations, advertising and promotions in it) the common factor among these companies is they recognize and use events as tools.

In creating events, the important thing to remember is the prime purpose. Is it primarily meant to increase sales or is its main goal simply to boost corporate image?

Once you’ve indentified the prime purpose, other corollary points can be considered. In the course of creating an event with the prime purpose of selling a product for example, your company is offering a free service beneficial to your target market that in turn enhances your company’s image.

One example of such event is Marco Polo Plaza’s Power Meetings & Theme Parties Corporate Fair. The prime purpose is to sell the venue, in this case Marco Polo Plaza, to clients for their meetings and parties.

The corporate fair event ingeniously achieves this by offering showcases and lectures to clients for free. For two whole days, Marco Polo Plaza’s Corporate Fair featured an open house where its Grand Ballroom and function rooms were set up in various themes so meeting planners and party organizers gain ideas.

The Manila Room, for example was fitted with the spa theme. The Sinulog Room showcased native concepts and the Asian Room offered Asian themes.

The Grand Ballroom was transformed into an inspiration of the beautiful city of Venice. These were set up with the help of Cebu’s prime eventologists Teresin Mendezona, Ritchie Mendoza of Event Makers and Debbie Huang of Simple Wishes.
Free seminars included a lecture on “Stress Management” by Cory Quirino, a wellness authority and “Putting a Wow Factor into Your Events” by Rita Neri, the country’s top special events planner.

The event was a raving success. Events planners and corporate marketing personnel who are Marco Polo Plaza’s regular clients and potential clients filled the function rooms eager to learn the tricks of the trade, learned from experts and went home inspired to do more creative events for their own companies.
Naturally, the success of the corporate fair both planted the seed of future sales deals and boosted the hotel’s image for hosting it.
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April May Tudtud-Ramos is an out-source corporate publicist since 1999. She is also an Advanced Communicator of Toastmasters International affiliated with the Queen City Toastmasters Club. For comments send e-messages to apriltudtudramos@yahoo.com.