The marketing activity of Festivals Edinburgh is intended to add value to the ongoing marketing activity of the 12 individual Festivals and is planned in partnership with those festival teams. The added value is seen to principally lie in undertaking work outside of Scotland for example, through lifestyle and travel media, as opposed to the arts and cultural media which the Festivals do themselves. In addition, the marketing activity is firmly based on database research which gives us a knowledge and understanding of the location and lifestyle of the Festivals target audiences.
England is the primary area of our marketing activity, with a focus on London/South East and particular Northern Cities [Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle]. During 2012 we are planning:
• A newspaper print advertising campaign through the Guardian and the Times
• An online promotional campaign in partnership with expedia
• A North England radio campaign through outlets to be confirmed
• An airline print advertising campaign in easyJet and Ryanair magazines
• A PR events programme in London, focussed on Directors Lunch for Broadcasters and Lifestyle Reception for Print
• A media visit programme targeted at media in Northern Cities
• A media pitching programming targeting travel and lifestyle publications in the UK
International markets remain a key consideration for the Festivals, with activity focussed on particular European countries with direct routes into Edinburgh [primarily Germany but with secondary focus on France and Spain] and specific long haul destinations [Canada and USA]. During 2012 we are planning:
• Partnership with VisitScotland across their international campaigns and also specific activity around the Year of Creative Scotland campaign
• Video newswire activity, focussing on the summer festivals for online and printed media inclusion
• An international media visit programme, targeting media in USA and Germany
• A media pitching programme to key international outlets
• A reception in London with the Foreign Press Association
• Digital campaign through PPC/SEO to targeted European markets
• Targeting the Travel Trade, specifically the official ticketing resellers for the London Olympic Games, for inclusion of the Festivals Passport in their travel packages
• To work with VisitBritain and LOCOG on media briefing and visits, and audience messaging
A digital marketing campaign complements our work across all of the above markets and has at its core:
• Ongoing enhancement and development of central edinburghfestivals.co.uk website
• Monthly messaging to an online database of over 100,000 customers
• Production of Digital Magazines for in-house and partner use
• Production of digital maps and guides to aid navigation across the city
There is collective agreement that messaging will lead with the summer Festivals in the knowledge that this is a ‘hook’ that will allow promotion of the wider year-round offer – and hence the investment of time and resource is focussed on the pre-summer period.
Timing is dependent on the target market – for example, international audiences need a longer messaging cycle and often make travel decisions earlier than UK audiences – but in general terms the visible ‘above the line’ activity [eg print advertising] will take place primarily in the April to August period when the majority of tickets are on sale, with the pre-April and post-August period dominated by messaging to those that might influence audience decisions [eg travel trade]. The media pitching and media visit programme will take place throughout the year, as will our digital marketing which includes dedicated solus emails for the non-summer festivals and monthly messaging to our database.
The alignment of the summer Festivals with the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012 provides us with one of our central messages - that ‘while the world’s elite and emerging athletes gather in London, the world’s elite and emerging cultural talent will be in Edinburgh, as they are every year in the world’s leading festival city’. This message also plays to our ambition that 2012 provides us with a unique opportunity to position Edinburgh’s Festivals for long-term audience development particularly through the targeting of national and international media.