Marketing report - The Roskilde Festival PDF

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Summary

Assignment in Marketing, Branding and Consumer Psychology.
Its a report about the marketing behind the Danish music festival, Roskilde
My teacher was Rodrigo. ...

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The marketing of the Roskilde festival Alexander Alberto Kumle Student number: 17837859

BA HONS International Event Management University of Brighton

Brand: The Roskilde festival

Word count: 2403

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Content list Introduction of the Roskilde festival……3 Analysis of the Marketing mix………….4 Product…………………………………..5 Price…………………………………...6, 7 Place……………………………………..7 Promotion……………………………......8 Brand and branding………………….9, 10 Analysis of the customers………………10 Conclusion……………………………...11 Bibliography………………………..12, 13 Appendices………………………...14, 15

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Introduction

The Roskilde festival is a music festival hosted by the non-profit organisation Roskilde Festival Charity Society (Roskilde Festival, 2018a). All the profit goes to different purposes within music, culture and humanism (Festival, 2018b). The festival is located at the countryside of the Danish city Roskilde, and the next festival will take place from the 30rd of June to the 7th of July (Festival, 2018a). According to Mads Mikkelsen (2018, Appendix A and B), Head of Communication and marketing at the festival, the festival is run by 65 employees and over 30 000 volunteers.

The first Roskilde festival in 1971 organised by local students from Roskilde, was part of the hippie movement in Denmark (Mikkelsen, 2018). They had over 10 000 guests where most of them were students and hippies (Mikkelsen, 2018). The festival became a success, and it has been held every year since 1971 (Mikkelsen, 2018). Between 120 000 and 135 000 guests of all kinds and ages participates at the today`s Roskilde festivals (Mikkelsen, 2018).

Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, Jay Z, The Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar, Rihanna and Cold Play is just a handful of big stars who have performed at the festival (Festival, 2018c). The Roskilde festival aims to be North-Europe`s biggest and most successful festival (Mikkelsen, 2018). But to gain success within marketing requires the best marketing strategies (Brassington and Pettitt, 2006).

This report analyses the festival`s marketing and its customers.

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Analysis of The Marketing Mix

Marketing is a management process where the aim is to identify what your customers want and at the same time make it profitably (Chartered Institute of Marketing, 2001, cited in Brassington and Pettitt, 2006).

The Marketing Mix is a detailed marketing strategy with a mix of different tactics, marketing policies, marketing techniques and other important marketing elements (Morden, 1993). Product, price, place and promotion are marketing elements known as the 4Ps of The Marketing Mix (Morden, 1993). Presenting the right product, to the right price, at the right place with the right promotion will give successful marketing results (Brassington and Pettitt, 2006)

Figure 1 The Marketing mix

Adapted from: https://nitin1209.wordpress.com/2014/02/09/the-4ps-and-4cs-of-marketing/

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Product A product is something so necessary, worthwhile and satisfying that people are prepared to exchange money or some other unit of value to get it, and physical objects, services and people are three examples (Kotler et al., 2008). A product can be divided into three levels; core product, actual product and augmented product (Kotler et al., 2008). People will only see a good as valuable if they get a benefit of it, and the benefit is the core product (Kotler et al., 2008). The Roskilde festival`s core product is the experiences of NorthEurope`s best music festival (Mikkelsen, 2018). The actual product is the physical part of the product with its level of quality, design, and other elements of it, which are put together to create the benefits of the core product (Kotler et al., 2008). The Roskilde festival is more than just a line-up of some of the world`s greatest artists. The Roskilde festival is designed to be a festival city with a massive, lively and varied content, such as music stages, camping areas, art exhibitions, events, and exciting summer activities (Mikkelsen, 2018) The augmented product is all the added values on the top of the product such as warranties and customer service (Kotler et al., 2008). Customer service and support, health & safety, free charging stations for phones, free Wifi hotspots, free cooking facilities, are some of the extra goods that guests get when they buy a ticket (Festival, 2018d). Figure 2: Levels of a product

Adapted from https://getmerit.wordpress.com/2015/10/25/product/

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Pricing The price of a product is the charged amount when two parties agree an exchange (Morden, 1993). The price is the only element of the 4Ps that generates revenue (Brassington and Pettitt, 2006). Profit is the difference between the total revenue and the total cost (Ferdinand and Kitchin, 2012). Price can be used as a differentiator to position in the market (Kotler et al., 2008). Marketpenetration is a pricing strategy where the price is low enough to attract a large number of buyers quickly (Kotler et al., 2008). The Roskilde festival uses this pricing strategy because the festival does not want to be positioned as a festival where the price stops people to attend (Mikkelsen, 2018). Many festivals put extremely high prices so they can earn as much money as possible, e.g. the Coachella music festival in the US (Coachella, 2018). But the Roskilde Festival Charity Society as a non-profit organisation only aims for covering their costs, plus a small profit they can give for charity (Mikkelsen, 2018). Segmented pricing is a pricing strategy where someone sells a product at two or more different prices, and the aim is to attract different customers (Kotler et al., 2008). Productform pricing is one form for segmented pricing where a seller puts different prices on different forms of a product (Kotler et al., 2008). The Roskilde festival uses this strategy so people who want to attend to the whole festival buys the full festival ticket, while people who only want a single day can buy the One-day ticket (Festival, 2018e). Segmented pricing is an effective pricing strategy because it allows for different guests with different purposes of the festival (Kotler et al., 2008). Optional-product pricing is a pricing strategy where a seller sells optional add-on products along with the main product to a higher price (Kotler et al., 2008). Guests who wants to get into the festival can choose the entrance booking- packages, but then they have to pay more for their tickets. The Roskilde Road Trip packages is another add-on product which includes bus from several cities in Norden to the festival and back again (Festival, 2018d).

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Mikkelsen (2018) says that the booking of artists is the biggest cost affecting the ticket prices. This is due to that artists do not earn enough money on the recorded music because people nowadays can stream their music for a small amount of money or even for free (Mikkelsen, 2018).

Place Place related to marketing is often the distribution channel where people can access a seller`s good (Kotler et al., 2008). The Roskilde festival`s main ticket distribution is online through their webpage, and they use the ticket system Ticketmaster (Ticketmaster, 2018). When it comes to events, the place can also be seen as the actual venue or area where the event is held (Ferdinand and Kitchin, 2012). The most likely reason why the festival is located outside the city Roskilde is because the first festival was hosted by students from Roskilde (Mikkelsen, 2018). The number of attendees at a festival depend on the accessibility to the festival area (Bowden et al., 2006). The festival area is only three kilometers away from the city (Mikkelsen, 2018). People can either walk, drive or use public transport such as busses and the train which stops right outside one of the main entrances (Mikkelsen, 2018). The variations of transport options make it very easy for people to access come and leave as they want. Mikkelsen (2018) thinks it would be a better place strategy to move the festival to outside a bigger city in Denmark with more people, but because of all the positive outcomes the festival gives the community it has come to stay for many years more.

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Promotion The Roskilde festival has to promote itself, and advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, corporate marketing, direct marketing, public relations and sponsorship are all good channels for promotion (Morden, 1993). The Roskilde festival`s biggest platform for promotion is through social medias, such as Facebook, Instagram and Youtube, because these are the channels where they can best reach out to their audience (Mikkelsen, 2018). With 890 million active users, Facebook is now one of the social networks online where businesses can communicate with their customers directly (Scott, 2015). People`s ability to like, comment, tag and share the content on the Roskilde festival Facebook site, is a very useful aspect which cannot be done with the festival`s main web page (Scott, 2015). The Roskilde festival 2018 has launched the hash tag #RF18 that people can use on social networks such as the photo-sharing service Instagram (Instagram, 2018). A big part of the promotion takes place on the festival`s Youtube channel (Mikkelsen, 2018). This is an effective promotion channel because visual effects such as videos and pictures from the event, are often stronger evidence of how an event actually is than only the written reviews (Scott, 2015). Most of the videos are promotion of the artists and their music, but they also put a lot of effort to make videos from inside festival life that proves that the Roskilde festival is much more than just music (Youtube, 2018). Two of the employees in the festival are responsible for communication with the press (Mikkelsen, 2018). Since the festival`s own promotion is not enough to convince people to attend, it is essential to have a good reputation in trustworthy medias (Mikkelsen, 2018). The Danish beer producer Tuborg is the main sponsor of the festival (Festival, 2018f). The festival itself does not advertise through television or radio, but the festival has a deal with Tuborg and the other sponsors to include promotion of the festival in their own advertising (Mikkelsen, 2018).

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Brand and branding The American Marketing Association says that a brand can be seen as a combination of a name, a term, a design and a symbol where the purpose is to identify and differentiate a good, e.g. a product, from other competing products (Kotler and Keller, 2006). Branding is all about how an organisation, a product or a brand wants to be recognized by people (McDonald,2007). The Roskilde festival is now one of Denmark`s strongest brand, because when people think of Denmark as a country, the Roskilde festival often comes up in their mind (Mikkelsen, 2018). A brand can be formed by the six parts; physique, personality, culture, self-image, reflection, and relationship (Kapferer, 1992;2004 ). This report will only look the physique and the culture. The physique is the sensorial elements of the brand, such as slogan, colour and shape (Kapferer, 1992;2004). A brand`s logo is strong if people easy manage to describe it quick and easy when the brand is mentioned (Morden, 1993). The Roskilde festival has a simple logo of stage rig coloured in white and orange, which are the festival`s main colours. The logo represents Orange Scene, which is the biggest music scene at the festival (Mikkelsen, 2018).

Figure 3 Logo of the Roskilde festival 2018

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Adapted from http://www.pranxer.com/Event/Details/4763

A brand`s culture is all about the culture it represents and the values it stands for (Kapferer, 1992;2004). The Roskilde festival represents a culture which wants to build awareness of the important values within equality, sustainability and ecology, through music, arts, debates and fellowship (Festival, 2017d). The self-image of a brand is related to people´s feelings of their use of a brand (Kapferer, 1992;2004). Ellen Marie F. Risbruna, former student at the University of Bergen in Norway, wrote a master thesis about the Roskilde festival seen from a participant`s perspective (Risbruna, 2012). Her interview participants who have participated at the festival, say that the festival community gives them a big feeling of freedom where they do not need to worry about how they look like, how they smell, how they dress and other typical everyday worries (Risbruna, 2012). Analysis of Customers A market consists of everyone who can be interested in a seller`s good (Kotler and Armstrong, 2004). A market can be dived into smaller market segments where each segment has different interests (Kotler and Armstrong, 2004). The Roskilde wants to be a festival for everyone, and they describe the festival as a land of opportunities where you can do many awesome things within music, arts and event within many different themes (Festival, 2018d). However, they mostly target subs segments within the music industry, because music and artists is what they promote most (Youtube, 2018). The festival has a wide selection of music content (Festival, 2018c), which means that they can attract many of the segments in the music industry. This way of targeting is an undifferentiated mass marketing strategy (Kotler and Armstrong, 2004). Based on the festival`s own videos on Youtube, it appears that people of all ages with the exception of children and young teenagers, are represented at festival (Youtube, 2018). Guests

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under 15 years old have to accompanied by adults, however, the festival tells people to be aware of that alcohol is a big part of the festival city (Festival, 2018d) Since the festival is located in Denmark, the majority of the attendees are Danish (Festival, 2018). However, most of the information is written in English, which means that many of the guests come from other countries (Festival, 2018). German is the only optional language at the festival`s web site besides English, which means that the Germans might be one of the biggest groups of foreign guests (Festival, 2018e).

Conclusion The Roskilde festival is a great festival with exciting history (Festival, 2018a). The festival represents a culture who stands for important ethical values such as sustainability and equality, and the fact that the Roskilde Festival Charity Society donates the profit to good purposes who really need the money, makes them good role models (Festival, 2018). Hopefully this will be a trend in the future where more festivals will follow after. Different people will have different expectations of a product based on price, reputation, own experiences and other elements and the marketing behind it (Ferdinand and Kitchin, 2012). Mikkelsen (2018) says that the festival manages to sell out most of the tickets almost every year. This is a good evidence that their marketing is effective and that the content in the festival satisfy the guests. Based on the festival`s after movies, people describe the festival as a break from a stressful and restricted everyday life, filled with a culture which enables people to be themselves during a magic and atmospheric experience (Youtube, 2018). The Roskilde festival will hopefully remain a success in the coming years as long as they continue to use their smart marketing strategies. If the Roskilde festival as a brand was not the strong brand it is (Mikkelsen 2018), it would be difficult to get all the many thousands loyal volunteers who is one of the main reasons why the festival is possible to run (Festival, 2018d).

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Bibliography  Bodwin, G., Allen, J., O`Toole, W. et al. (2006) Events management (2nd edition), Oxford:Butterworth-Heinemann.  Brassington, F. and Pettit, S. (2006) Principles of marketing (4th edition), Harlow: Prentice Hall.  Coachella (2018) Passes [online]. Available: https://www.coachella.com/guidebook/passes/ [accessed on 6th Jan 2018].  Doyle, P. and Stern, P. (2006) Marketing management and strategy (4th edition), Harlow: Prentice Hall.  Ferdinand, N. and Kitchin, P. (2012) Events management: an international approach, London: SAGE.  Instagram (2018) Roskildefestival [online]. Available: https://www.instagram.com/roskildefestival/ [accessed on 11th Jan 2018].  Jobber, D. (2007) Principles and practice of marketing (5th edition), Maidenhead: McGraw Hill Education.  Kapferer, J.N. (1992) Strategic brand management: New approaches to creating and evaluating brand equity, London: Kogan Page.  Kapferer, J.N. (2004) The new strategic brand management: Creating and sustaining brand equity long term (3rd edition), London: Kogan Page.  Kotler, P., Armstrong, G. (2004) Principles of marketing (10th edition), Harlow: Pearson Education.

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 Kotler, P. and Keller, K. (2006) Marketing management (12th edition), New Jersey: Pearson Education.  Kotler, P., Armstrong, G., Wong, V. et al. (2008) Principles of Marketing (5th European edition), Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.  Kotler, P., Armstrong, G., Harris, L. C. et al. (2013a) Principles of marketing, Harlow: Pearson Education.  Kotler, P., Armstrong, G., Harris, L. C. et al. (2013b) Principles of marketing (6th European edition), Harlow: Pearson Education.  Kotler, P. and Armstrong, G. (2017) Principles of marketing (17th edition), New York: Pearson.  McDonald, M. (2007) Marketing plans: how to prepare them, how to use them (6th edition), Burlington: Butterworth-Heinemann.  Morden, A. R. (1993) Elements of Marketing (3rd edition), London: D.P. Publications  Palmer (2007) Principles of service marketing (5th edition), Maidenhead: Mc GrawHill Education.  Pranxer (2018) Roskilde Festival 2018 [online]. Available: http://www.pranxer.com/Event/Details/4763 [accessed on 10th Jan 2018].  Ribruna, E. M. F. (2012) På Roskilde føler jeg meg hjemme. Master. University of Bergen. Available: http://bora.uib.no/bitstream/handle/1956/6290/Master %20thesis_Ellen%20Risbruna.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y [accessed 11th Jan 2018] (Report, written in Norwegian)  Roskilde Festival (2018) Say hello to our partners [online]. Available: https://www.roskilde-festival.dk/more/partners [accessed on 6th Jan 2018].  Roskilde Festival (2018a) About Roskilde festival [online]. Available: https://www.roskilde-festival.dk/more/about-roskilde-festival [accessed on 6th Jan 2018].  Roskilde Festival (2018b) We`re all Non-Profit [online]. Available: https://www.roskilde-festival.dk/more/non-profit [accessed on 6th Jan 2018].  Roskilde Festival (2018c) The Music [online]. Available: https://www.roskildefestival.dk/music/2018?view=grid [accessed on 6th Jan 2018].  Roskilde Fesival (2018d) Roskilde Guide [online]. Available: https://www.roskildefestival.dk/guide [accessed on 6th Jan 2018].  Roskilde Festival (2018e) Ticket for Roskilde festival [online]. Available: https://www.roskilde-festival.dk/tickets [accessed on 10th Jan 2018].

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 Scott, D. M. (2015) The New Rules of Marketing (5th edition), Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley & Sons.  Ticketmaster (2018) Roskilde festival [online]. Available: https://www.ticketmaster.dk/event/RFFULL18?language=enus&brand=dk_rf2&camefrom=rf18_web_links [accessed on 6th Jan 2018].  WordPress (2018a) The 4P`s and 4C`s of marketing [online]. Available: https://nitin1209.wordpress.com/2014/02/09/the-4ps-and-4cs-of-marketing/ [accessed on 10th Jan 2018].  WordPress (2018b) Product [online]. Available: https://getmerit.wordpress.com/2015/10/25/product/ [accessed on 10th Jan 2018].  Youtube (2018) Roskilde Festival [online]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/user/roskildefestival [accessed on 6th Jan 2018].

1. Appendices

Appendix A

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Adapted from a private email between the author of the report and Mads Mikkelsen. Appendix B

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Adapted from a private email between the author of the report and Mads Mikkelsen

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