Raffles Hotel Singapore & it’s Event Marketing Strategy
Background
The famous Raffles Hotel Singapore is under the
Raffles Group. The focus of the company’s brand is lifestyle and not the
property. For Raffles Hotel Singapore, its business is aimed at the affluent
leisure and business travellers (Temporal) . Hence, the hotel’s
events are mostly organised in accordance to the hotels goals.
Raffles hotel have the tradition of creating
enchanting stays. Hence, Raffles revelry was created to ensure a lifetime of
cherished celebrations. The event of Raffles hotel is mostly aimed at the rich
and affluent people all around the world: namely the tourist that stays in the
hotel and the famous people that they would host for the events that they have
during the year (Raffles Hotels &
Resorts) .
Event Marketing Strategies
An example of an Event that Raffles Hotel organised is the Raffles Wine Food Art Experience. The event’s target is the affluent and discerning tourist and richer public (Raffles hotel Wine Food
& Arts, 2010) .
Most of the hotel event is also psychographically segmented. With the
luxury standard of the hotel, events that they work with or organises will aim
to provide the public with lifestyle and value. Tourist or business man staying
in this luxury hotel will be of a higher class in the society. Hence, they will
naturally participate or willing to pay for events that are more equivalent to
their social class and will add value to their lifestyle. It was said that the
event organised will create rapturous affairs that are destined to inspire awe
from guests and patrons (Raffles Hotel
& Resorts) .
The hotel positions
its event by having a focus of the famous people that they are hosting and
through its event’s category. For example, every year they will mention the
famous acclaimed chefs, vintners and artist from around the world that the
event will be hosting (Raffles Hotel
& Resorts) .
In addition, this is a unique event in Singapore
that is about wine, food and art experience.
The Singapore Writer’s Festival
The Singapore Writers Festival (SWF) is a festival
held annually that could be targeted at all age groups. Their target market is
very wide as they have many activities that could cater to the needs for even
the younger generation to activities suitable for the adults or readers. When
visiting the event, I know that there were many places within the area that the
activities will be held at.
The event can widely cater to many different age
groups even the young as there is a programme name little lit! In addition, not forgetting the adults, there is also Origins of Desire which content is very
suitable for the adults.
Upon arrival at the event venue, I went to the Pavilion where entry is free. Inside
the Pavilion the impression that I’ve got about the event is that it has a very
simple set up. The place where there is booth set up at Singapore Management
University (SMU) is very convenient and has shelter that allows people to avoid
the rain. At Pavilion, there is information counter that visitors could
approach if they have any enquiries of the event itself.
There were also many shelves of books. When
observing those shelves, I can see that Kinokuniya seems to be one of the major
partners in the event as the books are mostly from there. Example of how the shelves look like is displayed below. Books on general
could be seen as something boring to many people and that is the same for me
too. However, after I enter the Pavilion, I realised that the books there is
all filled with very interesting topics that could easily catch the eyes of
many people.
When mentioning the word ‘FREE’, it will attract many typical Singaporeans to poke their
heads into it. At the pavilion of SWF, they have a counter that is filled with
many freebies to takeaway. There were freebies such as the event booklet, event
bookmarks and many more. There were also many attractive event goodies that
could be bought such as the event related umbrellas, tote bags, story books and
many more as shown below. The event venue is also artistically designed with many cute
patterns that drew my attention to it.
The free Bookmarks
On a daily basis, a board(as shown below) at the SWF event is
updated to inform the public of the activities that will be happening on that day.
In the event booklet, there is also a Festival District map that shows the
different happening location for the festival. It is really a lovely festival
as one will never get too bored out of it as there is many places in the
district to explore.
Not to forget, there were events that is ‘Off the beaten track’ for many to
approach the festival in a different way. One of the programmes is the Song of
Poetry. The first thing that came to my mind when I see the event title is that
it must be a musical performance of poetry. But it caught me off guarded as it
was actually a life music performance of the poetry inside the bar Switch.
Overall, the SWF is an eventful festival that
brings the public into different ways of looking at everything that comes in
the form of words. It is indeed a very interesting and worthy event to attend
and enjoy.
Singapore Writer Festival’s (SWF) Marketing Mix and its Effectiveness, and the Changes of SWF
Event Marketing Mix & its Effectiveness
Product
‘experience’ – The core
service provided at SWF is to let people be happy and enjoy the process of
reading. With this goal, the programmes available at SWF mostly have the aim of
allowing visitors to enjoy the programmes throughout the events there.
The books available at the festival allow visitors
to touch the book and read it at their own pace (Tangible product). The tangible products such as the book available
there allows visitors to browse the books easily with no restrictions. It gives
visitors an ease of mind to browse the products available at the festival.
At SWF, major literary talents from all over the
world will be presented (augmented
product). It allows the festival to be a unique one where readers whom are fans
of famous authors could meet up with the authors live!
In an event, it is said that people is part of the
product and that interaction with compatible or same minded people results in
visitor’s satisfaction (Allen, 2005) . Hence, the SWF is
successful as the programmes available can cater to the needs of like-minded
people. Its product contributes to the event’s success as it allows anyone to
be able to enjoy their product.
Programming –
At SWF, their programmes comes in different forms such as those with festival
pass to ticketed programmes and even free programmes.
All the programmes will have its own name with the
core concept of it. For example, when there is a talk by authors of their new
books, the name of the programme will be accompanied with ‘Brand New Books’ to
allow people to understand that the programme will involve the talk of a new
book by it’s author. Another example is where programme for kids will have the
programme name accompanied with ‘Little Lit!’.
Also, the programmes and its settings are matched
very well. For example, Song of Poetry performances by bands were held in a
bar. In this way, distinguishing core concept in program and the matching of
event program with its physical environment actually contributed greatly in the
success of SWF.
Packaging –
For SWF, there are special packaging such as the event with a meal which they
name it ‘literary meals’. In addition, visitors could also purchase visitors
pass to enter a whole package of selected events for the 10 days of events.
By packaging the event together with Food &
Beverage product, it help to enhance the programme as visitors might turn up
due to slight interest and also the love for the particular food & beverage
outlet that is coordinated with the event. Hence, SWF’s package of literary
meal contributed a little in the success of the festival as it is an effective
mean to better position the festival in the current market.
People &
Partnership – The festival consist of many sponsors and
supporters. According to one of the person working in the event, she mentions
that finding sponsors is not an easy thing as people can just turn them down
easily. However, the people that are already sponsoring them actually sponsor
and support them as they have the ‘sense of sharing a common vision’.
Their common vision is to allow people to have fun
and enjoyment through the words that they see or read. To them, everything
starts with words. Books, conversation, lyrics, and many more, all consist or
start off with the existence of words. For example, one of their venue partners
is SWITCH by timbre. SWITCH is a bar, and many would be thinking how can a
writer festival be held in bar. And here is the reason; the songs that are
being played by timbre all are formed by words in the lyrics that they sing
from. And for them, they feel very strongly that everything comes from words
just like literatures.
Hence, by working with sponsors and supporters that
have the same vision as the SWF organisers, it contributes to their success as
they have a strong alliance and they will also be their solid and loyal
partners.
Pricing
– At the event, there is different pricing that caters to meet the needs of
many different people. They have free events, festival pass for certain event
throughout the festival at one pricing, 1 day pass & 2 day pass, and for
many other events, the pricing will be ranged according to its programme. There
can be as cheap as $15 all the way till price as high as $200.
From this, we can see that the festival has very
good pricing strategy to contribute to its success as the pricing suits many
potential customers in the public and is accordance to their demands. For the
higher demand programmes, naturally the price is charged at a higher rate. And
for those that have lower demand, the price will be lower and some is even made
to be free so to attract people who are visiting event for the first time.
‘Place’, Physical
setting & Processes – The venue of SWF events is strategically located
all in one district. The ticketing for the events is easily located at the
campus of Singapore Management University (SMU) which is just less than five
minute walk from the bras basah MRT station. In addition of the easily found
location for ticketing, online purchases could also be made.
On top of that, when visitors purchase ticket at
the SWF pavilion on SMU campus, they could also get hold of all the information
they need for the festival. For example, they could obtain the brochure where
there will be a map showing the festival district which helps in directing the
way to different programme venue. In addition, the brochure could also be
downloaded from the internet on smart phones which is much simplier and very
earth friendly.
By selecting the right location to place the
different programmes and booths, it contributed to its festival in being
successful as it is all strategically located and placed.
Integrated
Marketing Communication for Events – The main theme of 2012 SWF is ‘Origins’. By
seeing the word ‘Origins’, it gives people the product message that it will
link back to the original stuff. Like how book currently have been transforming
into e-books, back at the SWF, they will have many different books in their
hard cover.
To me, the word ‘Origin’ made me feel that the
event is about how the books written by certain author will all be linked back
to them. The programmes where there is meet the author session seems to be how
the event will be all about. By saying this, we can see that the brand brings
about different messages to the public, just how the public will like to see it
as.
Also, SWF is marketed through the Medias such as
Facebook and their own website. Facebook is a very trendy platform to plubicise
the event as many festivals and events is currently using Facebook as the
platform to organise and spread their event. In addition, SWF
also made use of the internet technology to provide information to the public
through these platforms.
In conclusion, SWF had used these events marketing
mix to contribute to its success in the festival.
Changes of SWF 2011 & SWF 2012
SWF 2011 and SWF 2012 did not have much change as
the festival venue is the same throughout the years. The possible change can
only be the programmes of the SWF event. The change of the programmes from year
to year is so that visitors get to exposed to different things every year, and
it is also one of the way the festival develops themselves.
Special event suggestion for Raffles hotel to collaborate with SWF
I would suggest holding prestigious signature event
to be held at the Raffles hotel premises as part of the SWF event. In the
festival district map, Raffles hotel could be spotted. Hence, Raffles hotel can
be considerate as one of SWF’s partner too as it is in the festival district.
To add on, ‘Prestigious signature event’ is where
Raffles hotel could host one of the programmes in its events room and there
will be this award plaque signed by the most famous authors in the festival. And
the plaque will be awarded to best writer taking part in the story writing
event held at Raffles Hotel. And the stories written will be put up at the
event room in Raffles hotel like a gallery for visitors to come and read the
stories written.
This will draw interest as fans of the famous
authors invited will die to have the signature plaque where all the signatures of
famous author is on it. It will motivate them to participate in the story
writing competition so to get the plaque that they will desire.
This is a good idea of how Raffles hotel can
collaborate with SWF as it is a unique event that has not existed in the SWF so
far.
Works Cited
Allen, J. (2005). Festivals and
Special Events Management. Milton: John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.
Raffles
Hotel & Resorts. (n.d.). Raffles Hotel Wine, Food & Arts Experience.
Retrieved November 21, 2012, from Raffles Singapore:
https://www.raffles.com/singapore/meetings-and-events/raffles-revelry/past-events/wfae/?parentid=8916
Raffles
hotel Wine Food & Arts. (2010, December 16). Retrieved November 21, 2012, from LIFESTYLE ASIA:
http://sg.lifestyleasia.com/features/wine-and-dine/raffles-hotel-wine-food-arts-experience-6631
Raffles
Hotels & Resorts. (n.d.). Raffles Revelry. Retrieved November 21,
2012, from Raffles Singapore:
http://www.raffles.com/singapore/meetings-and-events/raffles-revelry/raffles-revelry/
Temporal,
P. (n.d.). Raffles International. Retrieved November 21, 2012, from
Branding Asia: http://www.brandingasia.com/cases/rafflesintl.htm
