Objective
1. To identify how the various components of the event marketing mix had been adopted in the Biennale and how effective Biennale has used it to its advantage.
2. To suggest improvements the Biennale can make on the use of the marketing mix
3. To consider the role of the Biennale to Singapore and its value to the tourism economy.
Methodology of research
I have done it in the form of a field trip. During the field trip to Raffles City Shopping Centre and City Hall, my friends and I managed to observe the various marketing mix present in the event.
Background of the Biennale 2008
The Biennale 2008 is actually the follow up of the hugely successful Biennale 2006. It is held in various iconic landmarks in Singapore such as City Hall and South Beach Development. This event is organized by National Arts Council (NAC) and features about 50 artists, both local and international.
My friends and I only managed to visit the exhibits outside Raffles City Shopping Centre and City Hall. I was rather impressive though some artworks were hard to interpret.
2.Marketing Mix
There are 8 Ps in the marketing mix and below I will be identifying at least one example of each of the marketing mix, I will also be evaluating how well the event used the marketing mix to its advantage and I will also state some improvements that can be made by the organizers of the Biennale.
Product
Product encompasses all the elements that make up the event.
As the Biennale 2008 was a follow up of the hugely successful Biennale 2006, it already has a good reputation and therefore people would be interested in seeing what is in store for them.
The standard of service from the staff is also very important. I think the staffs are very friendly and willing to help the visitors as much as they can.
The organizers of the Biennale also made room for social interaction, in one of the artwork called Singapore visitors can write notes and paste it on a room size map of Singapore. My friends and I all wrote notes and went around looking at other people’s notes, I think this will allow visitors to interact as they see each other’s notes.
The various exhibition sites were also placed in a way that it is in walking distance, this is good as visitors not only get to see the artworks but also the iconic landmarks of Singapore. Being located at City hall also makes it convenient for both the locals and tourist to visit the Biennale.
Visitors could also go to the Raffles City Shopping Centre concierge to get the Biennale map.[1]
The Biennale also had merchandises such as t-shirts for visitors to bring a piece of memory home.
All these will help in altering the visitor’s satisfaction level and their perception of the Biennale.
Place
Place refers to the location and the setting of the event.
The Biennale 2008 was held in a number of different exhibition sites, all in walking distance. However, I only manage to visit the exhibition site at Raffles Place and City Hall.
I think the ambience of the overall place is good, everywhere seems clean and the rooms that hold individual exhibits were all decorated to suit the artist’s work. However, I think there could be improvement in the allocation of the various exhibits. The organizer can put up the page number of the artworks on the description outside the exhibit rooms as for the visitors easy reference to the guidebook.[2].
Place also refers to the distribution of the tickets.
At City Hall, booths are set up at the side of the staircase where visitors can buy their tickets.[3] or get information.
These tickets would allow the visitors to visit both City Hall and South Beach Development. The tickets also come with a free guidebook that allows visitors to read up more about the artist and his/her works.
However, when we went to City Hall, there were no proper indication of the place to buy our tickets and none of the staff checked our tickets. This could be improved by allocating one or two staff at the front of the staircase checking whether visitors bought their tickets and having proper signage to tell visitors where they can buy their tickets from. This would help the organizer to maximize profits as some visitors may not know they need to pay to get in.
Also when my friends and I went for the field trip we did not know where City Hall was, we thought it was the shopping centre instead of the old Supreme Court. I think that the organizer should also state the venue more clearly next time.
Programming
Programming is to create unique, attractive programs in making the event a success.
Besides the Biennale itself, the organizer also created several other programmes to make the Biennale more unique and resulting in its success.
One such programme is the Kid’s Biennale which caters to the children and families. The children were taught how to make windmills and after making their windmills they can either bring it home or put it in the windmill room.[4] With every windmill that is collected in the windmill room 5 dollars will be donated to a children’s charity.[5]
Another programme is the Vernissage[6] , it provides a sneak preview to the Biennale before it officially starts. This would attract locals and tourists alike to know more about the Biennale before going and it will also acknowledge those who first heard about the Biennale.
The Biennale also has their self-guided tours[7] which allow visitors to know about the artworks without a tour guide guiding them. All the visitor need is to download the audio tracks of the various artworks into their mp3 and listen to it while they are viewing the different artworks. This is a first for me and I think it is good because I get to view the artworks on my own time without a tour guide rushing me around. However, one negative thing about it is that not all the artworks are available in the audio tracks and the voices from the audio tracks proves to be rather monotone. The Biennale can improve this by putting all the artworks on audio and trying to make the voices of the tracks livelier.
People
The people of an event are the staff and the visitors.
One advantage of the staff in the Biennale is that they all wear uniforms which make them easier to recognize. The staff also stationed in most of the exhibits to assist visitors if they have any doubts with the artworks. They are also friendly and eager to help when visitors asked them questions.
However, not all the staff knows about the artwork they are stationed at. When we asked several staff to explain to us what the artwork meant, many of them did not know the answer or they just pointed to us the guide book or the description on the wall. I think the organizer can improve this by giving training to the staff so that they would know more about the artworks and they can help the visitors better.
The organizer also tried to get the visitors involved in one of the artworks called Singapore[8]. Visitors are supposed to write messages and stick them on the map of Singapore which stretches out to the entire floor of the room. This gets the visitors involved and thus would make the experience in the Biennale a more memorable one.
Partnership
There are numerous partners[9] in the Biennale 2008; some of the main sponsors were City Developments Limited and Jet Airways.
Other sponsors also tried to benefit from the Biennale by giving out promotions when visitors buy the Biennale tickets using their cards. Such sponsors were Passion who gave a 30% discounts to all its cardholders and McCafe who gave a 20% discount to all its customers when they buy the Biennale tickets.
Educational institutions such as Republic Polytechnic and LaSalle also partnered with the Biennale to provide jobs and internships[10] for their students. From what I observed, most of the staff from the Biennale were students from these two institutions. This would prove to be good exposure for the students as they would know more about the world of contemporary arts.
All these partnership also benefits the Biennale as it helps the organizers cut cost and it would also make tickets seem more attractive with all the discounts given. The Biennale would also be seen as more reliable if their sponsors are well-known and thus the event would less likely to fail.
Promotion
I think the Biennale was very successful in its advertising and sales promotions. It included various methods of advertising such as the press, word of mouth and posters.
Word of mouth
I actually first heard about the Biennale through a friend who went there for her fieldtrip. She talked about the various artworks that sparked an interest for me to go visit the place for myself.
This method of advertising is the best because it is free and effortless for the organizers.
However, problems may arise when the experience was unpleasant and word of mouth is negative towards the event.
Press
The press also contributes a big part of the promotion mix for the Biennale.
The event was talked about during the channel 5 9pm news. This covers a huge range of audience because nearly everyone watches the news and the news is a creditable source to gather information. The news talked about the artwork of Montoya Isaac[11] located outside Raffles City shopping centre which shows a different image when you step inside the different colour boxes. This would spark interest to the public who would in turn go visit the Biennale and see the other artworks.
Newspaper
I also read about an article regarding the Biennale on the Straits Time.
It was called “The art of getting her to say ‘I do’.”[12]
It was about a couple who met during the Biennale 2006 and on the Biennale 2008 the guy proposed to the girl in the Windmill Room. This is another example of free publicity for the Biennale.
It also allows the Biennale to target more on couples, showing that the Biennale can be a good place for a date.
The article also mentioned about the venue and sponsors of the Biennale, helping the Biennale to advertise with minimum cost.
Posters
When I reached City hall there were posters[13] all around the building, this helps visitors easily recognize that they are at the right venue.
There were also posters at Raffles City Shopping Centre showing us the map of the Biennale.
However, the distance between Raffles City Shopping Centre and City hall there were no posters directing us. This caused my friends and me to get lost on the way there. I think the organizers should have directions from visitors or posters directing the visitors from the first venue to the next.
Sales Promotion
The Biennale also collaborated with several sponsors to give discounts to visitors when they buy their tickets.
Passion cardholders got 30% discounts and McCafe customers got 20% discount when they buy their Biennale tickets.
Visitors can even get complimentary tickets if they register their name at the front desk of Containart Pavilion[14].
This helps the Biennale to attract more visitors and their sponsors to attract more sales. For example, more people would want to subscribe to Passion to get their 30% discount and more people would want to dine in at McCafe to get their 20% discounts.
However such sales may dilute the revenue of Biennale. This can be prevented by carefully planning whether to give discounts to the various target markets.
Internet
The Biennale also had a website with all the information about the event. The public can just go online to check on the artists whose works are featured in the event and the special artworks that can only be seen at night.
This is great convenience to the people and it is cheap to create a website thus saving cost for the Biennale.
However, the website does not feature the sales of the tickets. This would be a disadvantage as visitors have to go and buy tickets at the booth themselves which may be crowded during the weekends. This can be improved by setting up a link that allows the visitors to buy their tickets online and maybe even discounts can be given to those visitors who buy their tickets online. This would minimize the long queues during the weekends and be of greater convenience to the visitors.
Packaging
Packaging seeks to make the event experience more attractive by lowering cost and maximizing convenience.
The tickets to enter City hall also allows visitors to enter the site at the South Beach Development.
I think this is effective as visitors can visit two exhibits venues with the price of one. It will also save them time and money as they only need to queue at one place to get the tickets.
The organizers also have different ticket prices[15] for different target markets. For example, students and senior citizens only need to pay 5 dollars for their tickets while adults pay 10 dollars. Passion cardholders and McCafe customers also got discounts when they buy their tickets. This would attract more visitors as they would find it affordable to visit the Biennale.
However, there are also disadvantage to visitors who want to visit only one of the exhibits because there isn’t any tickets that allow them to only visit one exhibit.
I think the organizers can improve this by having tickets which cater to visitors who only want to visit only one exhibit.
Price
The pricing strategy that the Biennale used is the target market strategy. This means it uses different prices for different target markets. This is true as the Biennale charges students and senior citizens a lower price to enter while they charge adults a higher price. The Biennale also gives discounts to Passion cardholders and MaCafe customers.
The Biennale also sells different merchandise such as T-shirts [16] and tote bags[17] at City Hall and South Beach Development.
The public can also sponsor money to the Biennale through it website as an individual or as a company. This would help the Biennale reduce its cost and thus reduce the admission fees for the sponsors[18].
Cost also includes the time spent on the exhibits and the physical efforts required.
I think the Biennale can improve on its opening hours. The exhibits closes at 8pm everyday, this makes it hard for visitors to get the full experience if they come after work which usually ends at 6pm.Since most of the exhibits are indoors the organizer can make lengthen the opening hours to much later.
Another improvement that can be made is the payment of the merchandises. Payments can only be made with cash; this would prove to be inconvenient for visitors who wants to buy big batches of the merchandise but does not have enough money to pay for it. They should also allow credit payments for such visitors.
3.Tourism Roles and Economic Values of the Biennale 2008
Place Marketing
Place marketing involves creating positive images and attracting residents and investors. It also helps improve the quality of life for the locals.
For the case of the Biennale, it created part-time jobs for the locals during the 10 days of its exhibition. The locals also benefited by being more exposed to the contemporary arts scene.
Local artists whose arts were exhibited during the Biennale will also benefit as they will get recognition in an international level.
They would then in turn hold more art shows which would attract more tourists to Singapore.
Businesses in the nearby retail and food and beverage outlets will also improve as tourist would visit them during the times that they are not visiting the exhibitions.
The Biennale 2008 is also a follow up of the hugely successful Biennale 2006, this will attract investors to come and sponsor the event as they know their brands would be exposed to a huge number of people visiting the Biennale.
Tourist Attraction
In order for an event to be known as a tourist attraction, it must first attract quality tourists and it must be able to increase the visitors’ spending and the length of their stay into the country.
For some cases, tourists who are already in Singapore may find out about the Biennale and decides to lengthen their stay in order to visit the exhibits. This will benefit Singapore as the visitors are staying additional days and thus bringing in more money for the economy.
Other tourists may specially come to Singapore to visit the Biennale and as most of these tourists are more cultured, this would help Singapore to broaden its cultural tourism.
Image Maker
Image maker is to create and enhance themes while combating the negative imagery.
The theme for the Biennale 2008 was “Wonder”, the organizer achieved this by showcasing artworks that relate to the theme. The ambience of the place where also designed according to the theme.
Before the Biennale, tourists may have the perception that Singapore is uncultured and a boring place to visit. However, after visiting the Biennale visitors are proven wrong and will have a changed perception of Singapore being a cultural tourism hub.
Animator
Animator is to encourage first and repeated visits to the event.
Since the Biennale 2008 is a follow up of the hugely successful Biennale 2006, it is already drawing many repeated visitors who have been to the previous event. As for the first-time visitors, the Biennale has showed many advertisements such as on the news and in news article to draw these first-timers awareness. If the visitors visit the Biennale this time round and enjoyed themselves, they would be more likely to visit the next Biennale happening in 2010.
Catalyst
Catalyst is to support the other attractions and stimulate business and trade.
Between the periods of 11 September to 16 November, tourist would come and visit the Biennale. This will cause an increase in the demand of hotel rooms as the tourists would need a place to stay and they would preferably stay in a hotel near to the exhibitions.
Businesses in the nearby retail and food and beverage outlets will also improve as the tourist would visit them during the times they are not visiting the exhibitions.
When the Biennale is over, tourist may continue to stay and visit other tourism sites in Singapore thus increasing profits and awareness for our other tourism areas.
Also tourist who visited the Biennale and liked it would tell their friends and family about it, thus helping to promote the Biennale and Singapore.
All these would in result increase the country’s GDP and help Singapore to be recognized as a cultural tourism hub.
4.Conclusion
Overall, I think the Biennale has done a great job in combining all the marketing mix together and creating a fantastic event.
Many people were very aware with the happenings of the Biennale; this proves their effective promotion mix which covers from television to posters.
The staffs were friendly but I think it would be advisable for the Biennale to improve the staff’s knowledge on artworks. This can be done through trainings.
The various programmes such as the Vernissage and the Kid’s Biennale both help create awareness for the event and help attract different target markets to the event.
The various packaging such as the tickets to see both the City hall and South Beach exhibits helped to attract more visitors as they find it affordable to go visit the event. However, visitors would only want to see one exhibit may also find it a minus point.
Some exhibition venues also let visitors see the different iconic views of Singapore’s landmarks while others allows visitors to find out more about our upcoming hotspots such as the Marina Bay Singapore. However, at the same time, the organizers neglected to put signs up to show visitors the direction on how to go to the venues.
Thats all folks.
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