Case Study 6 : Planning Integrated Brand Promotion.

For this project, the individuals are given the task of developing an IBP plan that encompasses the creation and promotion of a branded entertainment venue for Victoria's Secret. Not only will students have the opportunity to build a branded event, but they will also determine what additional sponsors will be pursued to help provide financial or logistic support for the event, decide what sales promotion and direct marketing efforts will be used to support the event andmore importantlysell tickets to the event, and discuss how public relations will be used to promote the event and what it stands for.

This project is designed to give you an opportunity to explore the promotional side of advertising and promotions, setting the advertising element aside for the time being. Although advertising does play a part in any IBP effort, this project is simply not about the advertising. Instead, students will focus on other opportunities for promoting a company, its products, and even the message it is trying to convey to an audience. Focus on several audiences. The first is the consumer audience, answering the question: how do we attract consumer attendance at our event using methods other than advertising? The second is the corporate audience, determining how we can attract corporate sponsorship of our event.

The Scenario.

Victoria's Secret has decided to make a concerted effort to raise money for Breast Cancer research. As part of this effort, they have decided to put together an event that connects their brand with the consumer and with the cause in a "unique and compelling" way. Given the success of the annual fashion show that is televised on CBS, Victoria's Secret has decided to take the show on the road. Starting this year, Victoria's Secret is putting together a music festival that will feature a number of popular bands, several fashion shows, including all the Victoria's Secret models, and other attractions that lend themselves to a traveling festival of this sort. At its heart, however, the company wants the event to help raise awareness for their cause as well as the money that they believe will help find the cure.

You have been hired to help develop this event, plan the promotional efforts for the event, and determine what other brands will be pursued as sponsors for this event. As such, you have been given relative carte blanche in building this event from the ground up. In other words, the only direction the company has given you in terms of building the event is that they want you to build a music festival that fits with and is an extension of the Victoria's Secret brand and is as completely an immersive experience as can be managed.

To that end, you will produce an event proposal that provides an overall blueprint of the festival and all that it entails. Included in this proposal will be a description of the event itself, a discussion of the sales promotional and direct marketing efforts that will attract consumers to the event, an overview of the proposed sponsorships and how to attract those sponsors, and, finally, an outline of the public relations efforts that will not only promote the event but also the cause the event is designed to support. Your final proposal should not only contain these components, but it should also demonstrate the quality of your company's professionalism and marketing skills. In other words, your group has not only been tasked with demonstrating your understanding of how to build an event of this nature but also with your ability to market your consulting company within the context of this plan so that you could use it as an example for future clients.

Event Analysis.

This section provides an overview of the event that you have designed for this project. In it, you will describe, in detail, the event that you designed, making sure to discuss how the event fits with the Victoria's Secret brand. You will begin this analysis with a discussion of what your assessment of the Victoria's Secret brand is and what it is hoping to accomplish with this branded entertainment event. Then, you will want to discuss the audience for this event as well as the music and the bands or artists that will be pursued for this event (making sure to think about alternatives in case the artists you've chosen don't have the time or inclination to join this particular music festival). Finally, you will want to discuss the other activities and event details that will be a part of the festival.

Brand Analysis.

For the brand analysis, you will want to demonstrate the breadth and depth of your knowledge of the Victoria's Secret brand, which will require some research on your part. You can find much of the information you need at www.victoriassecret.com or through a Google search. You might also explore the Limited Brands annual report for additional information concerning the brand. Ultimately, you will want to define the essence of the brand in order to match appropriate bands, activities, and sponsors to the Victoria's Secret brand.

Audience Analysis.

In this section, you will answer a very basic question: who will be coming to the event? In other words, what market segments will most likely attend a Victoria's Secret branded event and who would Victoria's Secret like to come to the event. Understanding the audience the event should attract will provide your group with insight into what bands should be invited to the festival as well as what other activities will be held. In short, you will determine where the audience will come from and why they will come to your event when there are so many others that they could attend.

Brand Analysis.

Once the brand and the audience have been analyzed, the group can start to put together a list of musical artists that will fit with both. Feel free to use your imagination and think big, but also keep an eye towards the brand and the audience. Although very popular bands in their own right, it is unlikely that Slayer and Metallica will fit with the Victoria's Secret brand. An artist like Bob Dylan, on the other hand, might fit because he's done commercial work for Victoria's Secret in the past. In addition, keep the cause in mind.

An artist like Kylie Minogue, a breast cancer survivor, might be a perfect fit for the festival.

Event Details.

Finally, you will want to put together other important details of the event. What other activities will take place during the course of the festival (e.g., fashion shows, contests, makeovers), how many days will the festival last in any given city, how many cities will it visit during the course of its run, and even when will it run? Again, feel free to use your imagination and think big, but make sure you keep the brand and its cause in mind as you go forward.

Sponsorship Analysis.

Once you have the event itself planned, you can then move forward with an analysis of potential sponsors for the event. Each group will assess the sponsorship potential of at least eight possible sponsors for the event. You will need to choose four nationally and/or internationally recognized brands as well as four local industries to approach for sponsorship possibilities. Again, your group must keep in mind the brand and cause when going forward with the sponsorship analysis.

National Brands as Sponsors.

For each national or international sponsor, you will need to provide a quick description of their brand and how it could fit with the festival and its overall branded feeling. You will describe why and how that brand will fit with the event, what benefits the brand may receive from the audience gathered at the event, and the sponsorship requirements expected from each brand (e.g. money, space, advertising, etc.).

Ultimately, you need to be able to show how the event, audience, and sponsors match up.

Local Industries as Sponsors.

Local sponsors can provide a great deal of logistical support for a festival of this sort. Although you may not, at this point, know all the different brands available in any given location, you can at least determine what industries contain potential sponsors in different locations that fit with the event. In other words, you could potentially select OB-GYN doctors as a potential sponsor, which would then require research into the doctors available in different areas. Again, you will want to discuss how the sponsorship will benefit both parties involved and show how the event, audience, and sponsors match up.

Selling Sponsorships.

Finally, once you have an idea of what companies potentially fit with the event as sponsors, you will need to discuss how to approach those companies. This will require a bit of discussion concerning direct marketing and other sales efforts. Your goal here is to determine how best to sell sponsorships to the event both to national brands as well as the local brands you've chosen.

Promotional Efforts.

In addition, you will want to discuss the various sales promotion efforts that will bring people to the event. Victoria's Secret is taking care of the advertising on the large scale, so your task is to determine how best to support that advertising through the use of point-of-purchase advertising, sales promotion techniques, social networking opportunities, and support media. Keep in mind that you will want these efforts to fit with the overall theme of the event as well as with the Victoria's Secret brand and other brands that have been selected as sponsors. You may also want to discuss direct marketing and personal selling efforts that are designed to bring larger groups into the event or even corporate groups.

Public Relations Efforts.

Finally, Victoria's Secret will want to launch a full-blown public relations effort to promote the event and the cause that it supports. Here, your task is to design both a proactive strategy for promoting the company, its cause, and the event and a reactive strategy that analyzes potential problems that could arise during the course of the festival.

Proactive Strategy.

With a proactive strategy, the public relations efforts are related to the marketing objectives associated with the branded entertainment event. The idea is to develop a plan for communicating the raison d'tre for the event, including how and through what avenues the event will be communicated. Again, feel free to think big and be imaginative. Sending Heidi Klum to the The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon is most likely a very manageable (and very lucrative) part of the public relations plan. However, you also want to keep in mind some of the "smaller" opportunities open to you such as that provided by social networking avenues.

Reactive Strategy.

The job of the reactive strategy is to anticipate potential problems and work out how to solve them before they even come to pass. For instance, a festival of this size is bound to produce a rather large carbon footprint... or at the very least, the perception of a large carbon footprint. What happens if a number of people and organizations call for a boycott of the festival as a result of the perception of its carbon footprint? It serves the event and Victoria's Secret well if they have a response to the outcry even before there is an outcry.

Final Paper.

Again, you will want the final product to address the appropriate audience as outlined here. You will also want to construct the branded event plan in a way that markets your consulting agency by demonstrating both the breadth of your knowledge on the material and your ability to wield the tools available to you. Include any actual promotions, charts and graphs, or other images that are pertinent to your work in a neat and organized fashion. Use appropriate headings, font, margin sizes, etc. Make sure you include an executive summary, a table of contents, and appendices as well as any other sections deemed necessary. In short, make the paper look professional and ready to submit to the client who has requested this proposal.

Final Presentation.

Victoria's Secret may have also requested a presentation of your work. You will want to discuss the high points of your work, focusing on what will distinguish your consulting agency as the most suitable to Victoria's Secret's needs. As with the final paper, you will want to presentation that showcases not only what you know but also how you present what you know as well. Remember, ice skaters and gymnasts are not simply judged on technical skill but on artistry as well. Here is your opportunity to demonstrate your artistry in motion.