PR Comedy!

Usually, I blog about huge brands with vast marketing and PR budgets and some of the industry's most talented and experienced talent! However, marketing isn't about who can spend the biggest budget or who can create a viral campaign with no reasonable purpose or intention. Sometimes, marketing can be about thinking on your feet and reacting in real-time with wit and initiative.

Check out this customer complaint from Baluga Bar & Club, local to my hometown of Preston:

Of course, this complaint was sent to the completely wrong Facebook account- the bar in question doesn't even serve food!! 

Now, the managers at Baluga, Preston had two options in this situation, reply to the message apologising for the mistake in the confusion and suggest that Bianca seek the correct restaurant OR, to use this opportunity to create some great PR and to reply to the comment with humour..... which is exactly what they did:

I think Baluga did a great job- they then shared this great response with their social media. As it was a lighthearted joke I'm sure Bianca and Baluga's REAL clientele found it funny! 

The great thing that Baluga managed was crisis aversion, by producing a humorous response to something unexpected, they managed to produce a great piece of PR!

Awesome work! :-)

Season Pass

Recently I saw an advert for Thorpe Park and a season ticket offering of £48... that was unlimited entry to the park for an entire year! It really got me thinking as although I've never been to Thorpe Park, I have been to the sister theme park Alton Towers and I remember how pricey it can be for a day out there.

A day ticket also costs £48 although you can save by booking online before you arrive. Many people would question why a day ticket is the same price as an annual pass- it seems ludicrous right?

But when you think about it from a different perspective, it's actually an extremely clever marketing tactic that is used in lots of different places where one might not recognise the marketing tactic is in place.

Once a consumer has entered the park once, and paid the £48 fee- the park covers the overheads such as electricity and staffing, and the initial costs of the ride building/ design etc. and any residual value of such assets. The initial costs of that person entering the park are covered. Great- but do these overheads increase as more people enter the park? No.... the staffing/ electricity/ insurance etc. costs are going to be exactly the same whether there are 100 or 6000 people in the park, therefore Thorpe Park's main objective is getting as many people through their gates as possible!

Thorpe Park make such a huge mark-up on added extras such as the car park, food & drinks, games and merchandise that the price of entrance probably doesn't have a huge profit margin. Once customers are through the gates, they are more likely to spend money inside the park ESPECIALLY if they have paid for an annual pass and therefore have the feeling as though their initial cost of the day out was "free"- they may be inclined to spend more on additional add-ons!

Pricing is a marketing tool which is often overlooked, even by myself and although it depends on mark-ups and margins and overheads etc. it can also create a perception of a product and sometimes even a cheap price can detract from a product or service.

So- where else is this tactic used? Night clubs offer free entry or guest list entry before a certain time in the hope that customers will enter and purchase drinks all throughout the night, another example is captive pricing- where a company offers a product for a low price, but then once they are hooked, they rake up the prices of captive products.

I think it is a very wise move from Thorpe Park and one which should see their entries sore and their additional spending therefore increase!

Stephanie

Justin Bieber and why Manchester gets it right.

Ok so anyone who knows me will know that Manchester is my absolute favourite night out in the world I LOVE going out there!
Well I was shocked to see that on Thursday night, Justin Bieber of all people was in my favourite club, Sakura on Deansgate Locks. They get a lot of famous people in there and I've seen endless footballers, hollyoaks, coronation street, tv show stars etc. in there, but clearly Justin brings alot of press attention, not that sakura need it as they do an excellent job of marketing themselves as a high end club. Even on a Thursday night they can afford to charge £20 for entry and still have a huge queue outside and £2000 tables sold out.

However, on Friday night after his 2nd show in Manchester at the MEN, Justin headed for my worst nightmare club, Sankeys. If you don't know what Sankeys is they play grungy drum and bass etc.
Anyway he was REJECTED by the bouncers, despite his worldwide following and fanbase. Which of course hit headlines around the world. A very cunning move for Sankeys as they recieved much more publicity for NOT letting him in and kept their brand image prominent.

Then Sankeys posted this tweet:

Yes the rumours are true...we turned Justin Bieber away last night. He shuffles on stage and we can't be having that in Sankeys now can we!!
— sankeys (@sankeysclub) February 22, 2013

The tweet got thousands of retweets and got everyone not only talking about sankeys- but their tough reputation and risque brand personality. They then used the story to further promote their club nights by offering guestlist to anyone who tweeted "I got in and Bieber didn't".
By creating a hype based on humour and almost teasing and embarrassing, they managed to get a great deal of promotion for the club and by sticking to their own values have increased the reputation of the club as the way Sankeys want to be seen.
You can read the story here: http://metro.co.uk/2013/02/23/justin-bieber-turned-away-from-manchester-night-club-because-he-shuffles-on-stage-3510693/

Very clever management!!