New Trends in Event Marketing

Introduction

Events have played an important role in different societies and cultures long times. Throughout history, events have been used to promote cities and towns. Looking back on history, it can be seen that events always played an important role in society, either to break down the dullness with the events, to get out of the routine of daily life, or to highlight some important rites or persons. (Shone and Parry, 2010: 3-9).

In the modern age, events which are more strategic and complex activity (Smith, 2008: 4), are seen as an integral part of growth and development strategies, and event planning and marketing has become a common worldwide phenomenon. In particular, the globalization of the economy has greatly increased the volume of travel to international events (Rogers and Davidson, 2006: 24). The event industry is currently experiencing a renaissance period. Until recently, organizers have not had the proper tools to monitor event schedules from start to end. Thanks to technological development, they have proper and actual tools to monitor event schedules (Hindman, 2018). Today, people come together to experience more unique interests, hobbies and passions from the latest animations to electronic dance music of Japan to experience a wide variety of drinks and targeted niche events. The most prominent is that participants and fans enjoy more personalized experiences than ever before (Eventbrite, 2013: 1). Thus, events have become an effective trend among businesses in terms of high return on investment, meaningful interaction among participants, positive perception and image (Ferdinand and Kitchin, 2012: 113).

Event marketing tools such as trade fairs, pop-up brand stores and sponsored events have been integrated into the consumers daily life (Tafesse, Narui and Korneliussen, 2014). Nowadays, the ability of event marketing to provide deeper consumer participation with new, interactive and interesting events attracts great interest among marketers (Close, Finney, Lacey and Sneath, 2006). The focus of the events is to create primarily customer loyalty by attracting customers to the relevant destination (Ravald and Grönroos, 1996: 19).

It is argued that all businesses are on the verge of “Experience Economy”, a new economic period in which customers can organize unforgettable events (Pine, Pine and Gilmore, 1999). Therefore, event marketing, which expresses a promotion strategy in which a themed event is developed in order to create experience for consumers and to promote a product or service, has become increasingly widespread in the last few decades (Belch and Belch, 2004). Because the events that see themselves as an alternative form of marketing communication, are gaining popularity as big investments by marketers. This growth can be attributed to the increasing awareness of marketers about event marketing, which aims to reach potential customers by making use of creative communication tools in achieving marketing, brand and corporate objectives (Zarantonello and Schmitt, 2013; Gupta, 2003). In other words, the basis of event marketing focuses on current and potential consumers (Goldblatt, 2005: 220). In this case, business managers realize that face-to-face events are an effective way to raise awareness and persuade participants to purchase goods and services (Goldblatt, 2013: 13).

Event marketing resulting from integrated marketing communication is the communication tool that can best increase direct contact between businesses and consumers (Tafesse, 2016). The main reason for this is event marketing, which includes target groups in experiential activities, is an effective communication tool that offers the opportunity of social interaction between the participants and between the company and participants (Close, Finney, Lacey, and Sneath, 2006; Sneath, Finney and Close, 2005; Tafesse, 2016; Liu, Zhang and Keh, 2018). Also, event marketing activities increase the experiential value by helping consumers to achieve their goals while interacting with them. Therefore, experiential value is also an indispensable impact dimension and increases the satisfaction and trust of tourists (Wu, 2016: 53).