I went for the Audi Fashion Festival on the 9th of may, which was show casing Mango's fashion clothing line. It was an invitation only event and my friend happened to have the invitation.This event is almost similar to the L'Oreal Melbourne fashion festival. Like the Audi fashion festival, it stretches over a number of days from the 15th of march to 22nd march. Each day show-casing a different fashion line from a different designer.Both events were succesful in their own ways, however the L'Oreal Melbourne fashion festival was just a larger scaled event. The 8 P’s are a great way of a marketing strategy. The 8 P’s are product, place, people, programming, partnerships, promotion, packaging and distribution and price.
ProductThe Audi Fashion Festival is succesful in terms of its marketing strategies, its product was very specific, it was to show case Audi cars as well as different reowned fashion designers from Christian Lacroix to Mango.
The L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion festival’s product is also fashion lines by Melbourne’s very own designers. Some are high end and some are new to the industry. L’oreal just offers the runway and platform for these designers to show case their line while the Audi also show cases its own cars and well as being the sponsor.
PlaceThe Audi Fashion Festival was held at Ngee Ann city, which is a perfect spot because it is right in the middle of Orchard road and it is held at a place where most of the designer's labels are from Louis Vuitton to Chanel. Orchard road is aTheir target markets were also specific, they advertised in the proper magazines and along Orchard road because that was where the event was held at.
While the L’Oreal Fashion Festival was held in Victoria, which is reputable for holding many major events such as the Australian Grande Prix and the Australian Open. This shows that Victoria is well-known to hold major events and this can assure people that this event will be as successful as the organizers has to be quite reputable as well.
People
The target markets for the Audi Fashion Show were fashionistas and those of working class. Some of these events are either an invitation only events or there was an admission fees. You would have to be in some sort of a class, or part of a membership to earn you that invitation. As for those that required tickets, it ranged from $10 to $400. You also had to be interested in fashion and clothes to want to go for a fashion show, thus the advertisements were located in high end fashion magazines like Elle and Vogue.
2 supermodels were used for this fashion show, Charmaine Harn and Jacquetta Wheeler. Both have been modeling since their teens. Both also have been praised by well-know designers and celebrities such as Karl Lagerfeld and Maggie Q.
Programming
The program for the Audi Fashion Festival was good because it show-cased our very own local talent, Ashely Isham, and also show-cased high end designers such as Marc Jacobs and Christian Lacroix . Incorporating a Car show case and a fashion show case was also a good marketing strategy because this does not only appeal to women, it also appeals to men. This way, the men wouldn't be dragged to a fashion show by the women and to leave with a black face. After the fashion show, the men would be able to walk around the Audi show room and feel satisfied.
The program for L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival consist of local fashion designers as well as well known ones. Its program is more extensive than the Audi fashion festival. While Audi Fashion has 14 programs, L’Oreal has over 40 fashion shows.
Price
For the fashion shows that at priced at $10, it is reasonable and cheap especially for students who are very conscious about fashion nowadays. However those that are priced at $400 and those that require an invitation like the Christian Lacroix and Mango’s fashion show allow people to think highly and feel good about themselves.
The L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival’s prices ranges from a free admission to as expensive as $450. Most however are quite expensive, some do not go below $45 for a show.
Promotions
The Audi Fashion Festival offers a 10% discount to Mastercard holders only while the L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival’s website did not show any promotions.
I think that they should have more promotions to get people to go for these shows. Maybe they could have people win tickets to the different fashion shows. This way, more people would be exposed to it.
Partnership
The partners for Audi Fashion Festival are Audi, Samsung, Lee Hwa Jewellery, St. Regis. Baker, Georgia. These partners are pretty well known and each have a reputation for themselves.
The partners for L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival are Paper Stone Scissors, Myer, Westfield, Pacific brands etc. These partners are also very well known in Australia and they are very high end brands that also have a reputation.
These well known partners can also give the customers a sense of pride. It can also make them feel high class thus feeling good about themselves.
Packaging and distribution
Audi fashion festival collaborated with Mango, Mastercard, Action hair salon, Raoul and Baker to give their members invitation and discounts to their show. This is a form of packaging and distribution of tickets. This makes the show only exclusive to the members.
Selling their tickets through ticket.com is also another way of distribution, this website serves as a middle men between the customer and Audi Fashion Festival.
Audi Fashion Festival packages their prices in a such a way that it makes you feel important. $400 for Christian Lacroix because it includes dinner, $60 for the Ashely Isham couture and Gareth Pugh Autumn/ Winter because it includes a cocktail reception and $20 just for the show alone. They packaged their fashion shows that caters to the high end and those that just want to watch the show as well as gain the experience.
ProductThe Audi Fashion Festival is succesful in terms of its marketing strategies, its product was very specific, it was to show case Audi cars as well as different reowned fashion designers from Christian Lacroix to Mango.
The L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion festival’s product is also fashion lines by Melbourne’s very own designers. Some are high end and some are new to the industry. L’oreal just offers the runway and platform for these designers to show case their line while the Audi also show cases its own cars and well as being the sponsor.
PlaceThe Audi Fashion Festival was held at Ngee Ann city, which is a perfect spot because it is right in the middle of Orchard road and it is held at a place where most of the designer's labels are from Louis Vuitton to Chanel. Orchard road is aTheir target markets were also specific, they advertised in the proper magazines and along Orchard road because that was where the event was held at.
While the L’Oreal Fashion Festival was held in Victoria, which is reputable for holding many major events such as the Australian Grande Prix and the Australian Open. This shows that Victoria is well-known to hold major events and this can assure people that this event will be as successful as the organizers has to be quite reputable as well.
People
The target markets for the Audi Fashion Show were fashionistas and those of working class. Some of these events are either an invitation only events or there was an admission fees. You would have to be in some sort of a class, or part of a membership to earn you that invitation. As for those that required tickets, it ranged from $10 to $400. You also had to be interested in fashion and clothes to want to go for a fashion show, thus the advertisements were located in high end fashion magazines like Elle and Vogue.
2 supermodels were used for this fashion show, Charmaine Harn and Jacquetta Wheeler. Both have been modeling since their teens. Both also have been praised by well-know designers and celebrities such as Karl Lagerfeld and Maggie Q.
Programming
The program for the Audi Fashion Festival was good because it show-cased our very own local talent, Ashely Isham, and also show-cased high end designers such as Marc Jacobs and Christian Lacroix . Incorporating a Car show case and a fashion show case was also a good marketing strategy because this does not only appeal to women, it also appeals to men. This way, the men wouldn't be dragged to a fashion show by the women and to leave with a black face. After the fashion show, the men would be able to walk around the Audi show room and feel satisfied.
The program for L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival consist of local fashion designers as well as well known ones. Its program is more extensive than the Audi fashion festival. While Audi Fashion has 14 programs, L’Oreal has over 40 fashion shows.
Price
For the fashion shows that at priced at $10, it is reasonable and cheap especially for students who are very conscious about fashion nowadays. However those that are priced at $400 and those that require an invitation like the Christian Lacroix and Mango’s fashion show allow people to think highly and feel good about themselves.
The L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival’s prices ranges from a free admission to as expensive as $450. Most however are quite expensive, some do not go below $45 for a show.
Promotions
The Audi Fashion Festival offers a 10% discount to Mastercard holders only while the L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival’s website did not show any promotions.
I think that they should have more promotions to get people to go for these shows. Maybe they could have people win tickets to the different fashion shows. This way, more people would be exposed to it.
Partnership
The partners for Audi Fashion Festival are Audi, Samsung, Lee Hwa Jewellery, St. Regis. Baker, Georgia. These partners are pretty well known and each have a reputation for themselves.
The partners for L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival are Paper Stone Scissors, Myer, Westfield, Pacific brands etc. These partners are also very well known in Australia and they are very high end brands that also have a reputation.
These well known partners can also give the customers a sense of pride. It can also make them feel high class thus feeling good about themselves.
Packaging and distribution
Audi fashion festival collaborated with Mango, Mastercard, Action hair salon, Raoul and Baker to give their members invitation and discounts to their show. This is a form of packaging and distribution of tickets. This makes the show only exclusive to the members.
Selling their tickets through ticket.com is also another way of distribution, this website serves as a middle men between the customer and Audi Fashion Festival.
Audi Fashion Festival packages their prices in a such a way that it makes you feel important. $400 for Christian Lacroix because it includes dinner, $60 for the Ashely Isham couture and Gareth Pugh Autumn/ Winter because it includes a cocktail reception and $20 just for the show alone. They packaged their fashion shows that caters to the high end and those that just want to watch the show as well as gain the experience.
About these best practices
I have just mentioned the 8 P’s that are very important when considering you marketing mix for you marketing strategy. They are important when the company needs to keep up its competitive advantages or the ‘building of mutual beneficial relationships’.
The first P which is Product is important because we need to know what the people want and what they need and what they are willing to pay for. If we do not know any of these things, the event will not be successful in capturing our audience.
The second P is Place. This is the physical place and the facilitating component of the place is distribution of event products. The place is very important if we want our customers to enjoy their time. If the physical place and facilitating components are not sold to our customers properly we risk losing their interest in coming back in the future.
The third P is Partnership, partnership is very important because we want to keep and maintain good corporate relationships. Partnership benefits everybody because most of the time, members of that particular partner can gain free entry or a certain amount of discount or even get free things.
The fourth P is Promotion, promotions are usually advertising, PR and sales promotions. In this case, both fashion shows had very little promotions except the invitations and the 10 % discounts.
The fifth P is Packaging and distribution. Packaging with other events or destinations can be of use to the event, it can create spin-offs and it can add to that unique touch to the event. Events can use well known destinations to appeal to their customers.
The sixth P is Programming, this is a marketing decision that helps to bring in desired benefits. If the program goes as smoothly as planned it brings the event organizer a lot of satisfaction. If the program appeals to the consumer, it makes the event a successful one which is a desired benefit.
The Seventh P is Price, this still exist even though the event is free admission. There is still travelling cost and money that you spend at the event site, etc. Event organizers can set multiple costs to one product, both Audi Fashion Festival and L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival did this for their fashion shows. One Show could have 2 prices, 1 price could be for the show alone and the other price could include a dinner or a cocktail reception.
The last P is People. People in this industry is very important because there will always be interaction between our staff and the customers and even between the customers. The hospitality towards the customers directly shapes their experience. Interaction between customers can also shape their experience. Both determines whether the customers experience at the show will be a good one or not.
Stakeholders
The stakeholders in this event would be the sponsors, the media, the guests, the models. These are people who affect or can be affected by the event.
For example, one of the shows that I went for was the Mango fashion show and it number of people who turned up for this fashion show was very little, in fact, they even had to invite passer-bys to come in for the fashion show. I think this can affect the stakeholders such as the models and the audience. With such a depressing number of people turning up, it can affect the model's self-esteem and it can also affect the ambiance which would affect the audience.
The guest can affect the event if they do not have proper etiquette skills. A brawl can happen anytime just because a particular guest refuses to comply with rules or decides to ignore proper etiquette.
Main Purpose
The main purpose of such a fashion show is so that the designers can get their names out there into the public and gain some recognition. For those well-known designers, it is for them to come up with more clothes and designs. This can get them more recognition and more fans.
The main purpose for Audi is to show-case its cars, it is an alternative place for the men to be while the women are at the fashion show and vice versa.
This event catered to couples because it had both aspects that appealed to women and men.
Tourism Benefits
This did not bring in much tourism receipts. This event is not a mega event like F1 or the Singapore open on the contrary it is a very small scaled event. It was not publicized internationally. It was not even extensively publicized in Singapore. From what I saw from the Mango Fashion show, it did not even bring in much people, from that I gather that not much tourism was brought in by this event.
REFERENCES
Charmain Harn’s write up: http://audifashionfestival.com/participants/supermodel_charmainharn.html
L’oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival’s program:
http://www.lmff.com.au/2009/#/festival-planner
LMFF’s program information:
http://www.lmff.com.au/2009/#/2009-program/festival-products-to-have
LMFF’s major partners:
http://www.lmff.com.au/2009/#/festival-information/partners/major-partners
AFF’s promotion:
http://tdc.sg/events/details.aspx?eid=5495
