Appropriate Venues?

There are many different worldwide venues in which One Direction have chosen to perform in across the time in which they are going to be on tour. The Venues in which they have chosen to play at are all sensible choices in which suit the branding and overall image of the band and the tour. For example the O2 arena in which the group have played for many nights, is a prestigious concert hall in which artists from around the world play at. They are also playing at the LG arena in Birmingham, however this has had little if any advertising from the arena itself. This would have been a brilliant opportunity for them as the host to get as much money as they could from sale of ticket prices. But again you would associate this arena with the playing of groups such as One Direction, as the image of the venue and the group are related in many ways. Any many ways it even suits the image that is portrayed through the website of the group, in that the colours are playful and so is the overall design and layout of the building. The time in which the concerts are held also represents more of atmosphere in which is suited to the purpose of the event.

Similar to that of the UCAS convention being held at the Manchester Central, suits the purpose of the overall event. It is formal and mostly appropriate to be held during the day. The building suggests that formality and isn't brightly coloured so therefore shows more seriousness and less playfulness like the One direction tour. When advertising this event the Manchester Central supplied banners and notifications of the event inside the venue, so anyone that visited could see it was going ahead. The website of the venue however, doesn't help advertise the event at all. After researching the events section of the website, i found no advertisement of the event being held. This may be due to only colleges and sixth forms being able to attend certain conventions/open days and therefore they may find it less beneficial for them to advertise, as most of their clientele that would normally attend an event at this venue wouldn't necessarily attend this type of event.  

Who are the promoters for the One Direction tour?

There are two promoting companies that have been doing the promotions for the One Direction Tour, Live Nation and SJM.


Live Nation is one of the worlds leading live entertainment companies in which is made up of four market leaders, Ticketmaster, Live Nation Concerts, Front line Management Group and Live Nation Network. It has been the promoter of many tours, representing over 250 artists worldwide,  including the 2008 tour in which Maroon 5 played. Therefore I think they have the experience in order to oversea a large scale tour as big as that of One Directions. I believe the promotions by the company have overall been very successful due to the popularity and overall sell out of all tour tickets. The tickets were sold out within minutes of them going on sale, and since then, there has been endless support from them. Live Nation also have a Facebook and Twitter site, which again has meant that the promotions online within the social network have been high with many promotional banners and other advertising tools being used.

SJM, the other promoter for the tour, is again one of the worlds leading promoters in music concerts, being the promotional tool used by the most prestigious artists worldwide, including Take That, Coldplay and Muse. Again i think they are very similarly placed in comparison to Live Nation when it comes to promoting. They were originally just an English based company in which has been taken globally in the amount of success in which they have received as a company. Again I think that SJM as a promoter for the tour has been a successful match in what needed a large amount of promoting.

Another way in which the group have promoted the tour is through having competitions  in order for desperate fans to win tickets to the concerts that have been sold out. This example is a magazine competition   in which shows that if you enter you could be in with a chance of winning tickets to see One Direction. This is  a great promotional tool used by the group in order to receive more publicity about the tour within the public eye.   http://inspirational.uk.com/one-direction-competition-win-tickets-to-see-the-band-on-tour-2/

How do UCAS advertise?

The main way of UCAS advertising the Manchester convention, was through the internet. I found that it wasn't publicized as well as the One Direction tour in that you really had to search to find out about it, whereas the tour had wide spread publicity. UCAS as a company are well advertised, but the individual events they hold aren't. I spoke to an old teacher of mine, who said he receives information constantly throughout the year on the different local open days within the a certain radius, and they liaise with each other in order to make sure students get the best opportunity regarding the conventions. This would mean that local colleges and sixth forms near to Manchester Central would be the main focus of advertisement for UCAS to use. Once looking into this further i found that The University Of Manchester had advertised their presence at the convention well and had described their to the applicants of this year why they should be chosen by them. This is good advertising by the university,and in many ways I think the best way of advertising for the Convention is through the different universities doing so. They are the reason why the student is attending as they want to find out more about the place in which they may be studying their period of higher education. Whilst students are applying for different places at different universities through the UCAS application, they will be looking through their websites and their prospectuses for information about them and why they should attend that university. With the local ones putting information about them attending up through their website means more and more people are going to attend. In conclusion this means that it isn't just UCAS that have to publicize the event, its individual colleges, sixth forms and universities.

UCAS also send out many visual forms of advertisement through the post giving listings of when the conventions are and the nearest one to you is. As mentioned previously, they also advertise largely through social networks in order to gain as many followers as they possibly can, as the student audience will be spending a lot of there time on them.

Newsletters and Advertising- One Direction

One Direction have a news letter in which fans can subscribe to and it will inform you of the latest movements of the group. Once i had subscribed to the newsletter i found that in many of the letters there had been very little coverage on the tour itself. I also found that many of the newsletters were very similar in content. Many spoke about creating their new video for 'One Way Or Another' and other things involved in the comic relief appeal, including selling clothes they wore on the making of the video for the song, making their own video to save money and having the comic relief single of the year, as well as being nominated and winning the 'Global Success' award. The latest newsletter I received however did give a slight insight into the tour. They gave a brief description of how the band are doing on tour, and how great full they are to the fans for supporting them. They also reference Facebook and Twitter as well as Instagram, another form of social networking through uploading photos. They ask the fans to get in contact with these pages, and to keep up to date with what the band are doing on their tour.

They have advertised the tour in many different forms, including through the comic relief appeal. This has come at perfect timing for the band as there has been endless amounts of publicity for them through this and therefore has given them the opportunity to publicize the tour. They have also done endless amounts of appearances through different medias, including a performance of their new single on the hit TV show 'Dancing On Ice' on the 5th February, and on the same day appeared on Radio 1 online, as the Radio 1 1D Takeover session. They also did this a week later on the 12th. This meant the audience could here their new songs, as well as become familiar with them. They would made reference to both their tour and their new single when being questioned at the end of the performance or set. This is great publicity for them as its getting them more and more noticed in the public eye.

They have also advertised through magazines and newspapers, as well as on the internet. Being on the covers of magazines has helped the group to gain more followers, and get the audience to understand them more as a performer and a person, as the cover of a magazine often means an article within it. This example of Harry being on the cover of Teen Vogue is excellent way of advertising them. Teen Vogue is a well-known magazine that many young teens, their target audience, would read. They can mention they're tour as well as other vital things throughout the interview in which will be the article within the magazine.
   

UCAS Social Networking

UCAS has also used Facebook and Twitter as ways of advertising, but less so than One Direction had done for the promotion of their tour. The Facebook account is very vague in information they give for events individually but gives a brilliant over view of what UCAS have to offer. For example they give lots of information in deadlines for associated resources such as student finance and they are willing answer as many questions as needed by the potential students of associated universities. But they have little information on individual events that are being held such as different conventions/open days that are being held around the country. They do show encouragement to go to conventions, but more an a whole rather than advertising them singly. When comparing the Facebook pages of One Direction and UCAS it is very obvious that they are both catering for a different target market. On Directions having more photos and other pictures all over if, whereas the UCAS page as a lot of information and question and answer sections.The Twitter page for UCAS however differs from the very vague/non-exsistant description of the conventions. There is a specific page dedicated to 'events' UCAS hold, which include the individual conventions held by them. However they don't give enough detail as to what happens at the conventions and don't promote them enough. They tell them when they are going ahead but don't give them any other information or push anyone to go. They also say it in a block with several other conventions that are being held at different parts of the country and just ask if people are attending. They again are open to any questions that are needed to be asked by the students but don't give enough initial information about the event. The background of the twitter page as demonstrated here, shows the student what the set out of the open day will be like, but again each one could be different and they wouldn't know. When this is compared to the profiles of One Direction, it is very weak and gives more general information about UCAS rather than promotion for the conventions.

Once working my way through the UCAS home website, i found an overview of Manchester Centrals convention which gave details of the opening times, an address  as well as contact details for the organisers. It also had a conventions guide and a visitors booklet (as shown in picture below.) As a whole i don't think the social networking tool of marketing for this event has been used very effectively. As a company they could have advertised the individual conventions a lot better making people more aware of them, rather than it being down to them to find out information about them individually. People in today's society like their information to be 'spoon fed' to them and unless it is, they are less likely to get the information for themselves and therefore less likely to even know about them. The information given here is all the need to know basics for someone to attend the open day, but they could have used more techniques of persuasion through the power of social networking.The websites use of imagery and type of font differs very clearly to that of One Direction, is very formative and simple looking. Not a lot of design on the page and focuses more on the information than any imagery. 

One Directions Social networking

One direction have used various social networking sites as a marketing tool in order to promote their tour. In the social network dominated society that we are in today, an effective way of marketing is through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

One Directions Facebook page has promoted the group continuously on the run up to the beginning tour date, posting pictures of the group practicing for the tour as a whole, as well as promoting competitions to win tickets to the shows and other day to day statuses in which would be of interest to the One Direction target audience. There was a daily countdown in the build up to their debut show of the tour, on 22nd February at the O2 arena, which received over 100,000 'likes', as well as many other promotional tools, including a new single release, and there support to comic relief. 
The tour was a sell out, with them having to add an extra date on in order to satisfy the millions of fans who support them and were unable to get any tickets. There were many statuses involving their success at the BRIT awards, where they won the 'Global Success Award.' This included a performance by the group in which they sang 'One way or another,' there single in which was released as the comic relief song. They have also started to sell items of clothing on their Facebook and Twitter accounts, in which they wore on their comic relief video. This helps as a promotional tool for their tour, as the money sold from the garments will all be going to comic relief. This shows that the young group of boys are very charitable and want to make a difference, and this when building up a fan base, defines them as a group and that there target market are supporting. When making the video to go with this song they filmed it all themselves, in order to save money although any money that was made from sales and downloads etc was all given to comic relief, again promoting them well.

The One Direction Twitter page has been posting similar things to their Facebook page, although they update it more frequently. It seems as though their Facebook page has been used for photo uploading and more descriptive updates, whereas Twitter has been used for quicker updates on the bands whereabouts and what they're up to. On this print screen  i have demonstrated an example of the added tour date being promoted by the band member Harry Styles, which has been 'retweeted' by the One direction page itself. I've also given another example of the comic relief promotion in which increased sales towards the touring dates.

The One Direction website itself updates fans on recent 'tweets' and posted 'statuses' on Facebook, as well as latest releases, recent news, events for the group and other information on the band. They have their own spotify channel on the website which also plays their songs, both old and recent. The website is set out in a modern format with lots of bright colours and playful designs being used as a visual ploy in order to attract their target market which is the younger generation. The main age group the band seem to attract is early teenagers, who will all be attracted to this layout. The website is also clearly set out and easy to read with clear large font sizes. It is clear with this website who the target market are and compared to that of the UCAS home website it is obviously a younger audience.The UCAS website however, has to capture the attention of a broader age group, as university students aren't just teens leaving college at 18 going onto higher education, there are also lots of mature students who decide to attend.

What is UCAS?

The second event i have chosen to do as part of my two event marketing comparison is the UCAS convention. There are many conventions that will be starting around this time of year as this is when students have to start applying for universities.  was founded in 1994, and since its founding year, has been the responsible for more than two million applicants each year applying for full time under graduate courses. You apply to do a course at a university through the UCAS website, where the university keep the status of your application up to date. Colleges and Sixth Forms are well informed of the latest conventions, where all of the universities come together and promote themselves, in the hope that they have done enough to secure the application of many different students. UCAS try to make it as easy as possible for students to apply for courses, and one way of them doing so, is to hold conventions, so the student has the best opportunity to look around and see what variety of things are on offer.

There are conventions being held between February all the way through to September. The specific block of conventions i have chosen to look at are the Manchester conventions which are being held at the the Manchester Central arena on the 19th-20th March. They are all day events running from 9.30-3, on both days, and will have a wide range of universities attending them in order to promote their university to the students. The more applicants a university gets, the better their reputation will be among the competition.