Ryan's Marketing Roundup- March

SO March is coming to a close, the financial year draws to an end and the clocks are going forward, oh and on top of that I got to go to a Financial Services Expo. Now that’s a pretty interesting month right? More and more I’m realising that if you need to sell something you have to make it emotionally motivating, in order to engage people to interact with it. People want and now expect more than a product, they expect a full service and to be treated like an individual and not just a number. The challenge I have is how do I make that first sentence sound more exciting when YOU are reading this? Hopefully got your attention by now and you’re willing to read on.

Firstly, I’d like to look at two of the big sporting events scattered throughout March and it started off on the 4th with a boxing match between David Haye and Tony Bellew. Now for this purpose I’m not interested in the outcome of the fight, it’s the build-up to the fight and audience figures that makes you think. The build-up to the fight involved a lot of hype and a lot of trash talking which in turn gets people to notice. The two British fighter’s gate sold out the London O2 within 15 minutes and this pulled in the first £2.5 million. Combine this with the reported 600,000 pay-per-view sales this generated a further pot of around £10 million, plus another £1 million in sponsorship's and foreign TV rights and this now starts to show the magnitude of the event. There is clearly an audience for boxing, that’s obvious, but the hyped build-up to the fight where each fighter throws insults back and forth without doubt promotes the fight further, it entices people to have an opinion and take note when this fight takes place. The numbers speak volumes of how much this approach works within the sporting industry, if you want to advertise and promote something a little bit of personal warfare certainly helps put it in the public eye.

Secondly, an event that’s close to my heart- the Cheltenham Festival and this was between 14th – 17th March. This was ITV’s first festival after investing £30 million into racing which included the terrestrial coverage so they were keen to put on a show. They promoted the coverage on several platforms including social media as well as their exciting TV advert which was run in the lead up to the showpiece. The Festival is the pinnacle of the national hunt season and culminates in the Gold Cup on the Friday. This year several of the big runners where absent but this didn’t spoil the attendances as they seen a record number for Ladies Day on Wednesday and St Patrick’s Thursday- in total 260,060 people went to the 2017 festival over the four days. With all hype and interest around this, this undoubtedly has a major impact on the bookmakers and according to gambling executives the sports betting industry will make revenues of around £200 million from the festival so this is why everywhere you would have looked you would have noticed numerous offers, TV adverts and email campaigns driven towards engagement. It’s a big business and to capture the imagination of individuals using the romance of the festival is ultimately fruitful to the industry.

One of my favourite days of the year regularly sees lots of feel good stories emerge. International Day of Happiness on the 20th March gives companies the opportunity to do something good for their customers. Emirates Airline surprised passengers travelling from and transiting in Dubai with some Business Class upgrades. Simple gestures like this cement a strong foundation between customers and the brand and it’s these personal touches that can transform a normal run of the mill flight into one you remember. As well as doing this Emirates also gave their employees a little treat. Eligible employees were given one free service ticket to any destination on their flight network, not a bad little freebie is it? This was promoted using social media and they used hashtags on Instagram, Twitter etc. as well as gaining some interest through different media sources. Etihad Airways had done something similar which included some upgrades like spa treatments, business lounge access and in-flight Wi-Fi access. I particularly liked the Emirates story because they gave something out to customers as well as their employees. A little touch goes a long way- #HappyEmirates indeed.

If anyone has any other stories of companies that done something special on the 20th March then please let me know!