AZ Strong (Marketing Plan)

Apr 30, 2017
6 min read

The semester-long project in the Advanced Special Event Management course involved creating a Request For Proposal (RFP) for our topic: sports, health and wellness. I created the event name and motto: "AZ Strong: Strong Body. Strong Mind. Strong Community". My main responsibility included the goals, multimedia and marketing plan. I've attached these pieces below:

AZ Strong Marketing Plan

Mission Statement

The focus of the AZ Strong week is to encourage a healthy lifestyle for all members of the Tempe community through fitness activities, health facts and special performances.

Event Goals and Objectives

Who: This festival is non-exclusive— it can include everyone from the age of one to 100, big and small who wants to build a strong, healthy lifestyle. The audience includes sports fans, members of the armed forces and health enthusiasts.

What: AZ Strong is a festival geared towards those who already have a healthy style and those who want to start creating healthy lifestyle for themselves. The week’s major activities includes a glow-run at night, DIY gym day, a mental health day, sport day and a Health Nut Food Festival. Each day of the event is geared towards a particular aspect of a healthy lifestyle from the importance of sports to mental health because being strong is not just the amount of weights you can carry, there’s much more to it. The festival’s motto is: “Strong mind, Strong body, Strong Community”.

When: The AZ Strong festival will occur from March 12 to March 16, 2018.

Where: Phoenix, Arizona, United States of America

Why: Phoenix is one of the most physically active cities in the country yet there isn’t a health-involved festival. AZ Strong’s mission statement is to promote a healthy lifestyle for all citizens of Arizona through physical activities (as an individual and within groups), mental awareness and nutritional options. The idea behind AZ Strong is to live up to the motto and mission statement while also giving back to the community.

Goals & Objectives

Goal #1: Celebrate Armed Force individuals and families.

Strategy: Organize donation and incorporate some of the Armed Force activities.

Objective a— Conduct a Cadet training activity for civilians and children to try out.

Objective b— Utilize canned and dry goods as ticket able donations to the event.

Objective c— Illustrate PTSD and feature personal stories from Armed Force individuals.

Goal #2: Promote a healthy lifestyle.

Strategy: Have a week-long event that highlights different areas of health

Objective a— Have a day on mental health featuring counseling, anti-stress activities and informational seminars.

Objective b— Have a day of wellness from CPR sample classes and Do-It-Yourself gym.

Objective c— Have a food day featuring healthy, local restaurants and food trucks.

Objective d— Have a day dedicated to an evening marathon featuring local entertainment.

Objective e— Have a day for Arizona sports.

Goal #3: Facilitate mental awareness to the community.

Strategy: As a part of the health week, involve a day of non-visible health issues.

Objective a— Set up booths(s) featuring self-care and mental awareness.

Objective b— Include anti-stress opportunities by bringing in animals from the Arizona Humane Society.

Objective c— Provide a child’s demo to talk about emotions and stress through Disney’s InsideOut.

Goal #4: Facilitate sit-down interviews with special speakers.

Strategy: Share expert’s lifestyle activities

Objective a— Set up proper venue/security.

Objective b— Ask as many influential local health-promoting celebrities too come out and be a part of the events.

Target Market

The target market focuses on young families and college students. Families with young children are always looking for friendly, physical activities that meet everyone’s interests. This particular group would be looking for ways to improve the adult health as well as preventing childhood obesity. Based on the location, there would also be a higher attendance of college students looking to get fit. Tempe is keen about drawing the right crowd that this event would appeal towards. The future of AZ Strong could look into drawing the Baby Boomers by incorporating leisure activities like water aerobics, silver sneakers and an award-enticed walk-a-thon.

Marketing Strategy

Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC)

AZ Strong will center on three-forms of promotion strategies: public relations, social media and advertising. The objectives of IMC include establishing a positive exposure of the event, provide information of the event in advance and create a large attendance of participants and vendors. Overall, the message should be a cohesive execution of meeting a personal goal and forming a stronger community.

The objective of public relations is to promote a cause or an idea that is important to the organization and its importance. Our public relations will to be believable and dramatized while establishing positive exposure and create direct contact with the target market. Tactics used for public relations will include story pitches, media missions and press tour.

Social media and mobile marketing both represents the means of “conversational marketing”. A social media platform can include special-interest blogs, podcasts and other various types. The most popular sites are content-sharing like Facebook, Snapchat and Youtube. Facebook is the top platform that utilizes writing, video and photography to create a social-based profile. With a Facebook page and a scheduled week-long event, there would be connections to the official event website where attendees can be directed to the program plan and in-depth event information. Youtube will also be helpful by providing visual information to the public (a promotional video will be published) and detailing the events daily activities. Snapchat will help by adding a filter which can reach a larger audience while appealing to the college crowd. Utilizing these websites will assist in reaching out to our target markets of college students and young families.

Although advertising is expensive, the message can be repeated multiple times which allows a reach to a larger audience. AZ Strong will focus on using innovative, creative advertising that creates a “call to action”. The purpose of advertising is to build brand awareness and promote the event for college and the family market. The tactics used will consist of developing a stronger online presence by tracking click-thru rates (CTR) and attendance. The baseline plan will focus on key seasons and generate content to reach all targets during planning phase.

Timeline

The integrated marketing communication has been separated by season:

MAY-AUGUST 2017

In this timeframe, materials will be gathered to develop a website and application for AZ Strong. This would also be the prime time to gather a film crew and start filming a few promotional Youtube videos (at most, three). Collateral pieces will be ordered for the event as a marketing scheme.

SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER 2017

During this time frame the team with develop an engaging app that can incorporate the event tickets, health points and tips and tricks for a healthy lifestyle. The PR team will begin developing their press tours, story pitches and media missions. Advertising will also be communicating with the PR team to meet the media missions.

DECEMBER 2017

Publicly release all information about AZ Strong to the public including the launch of the website, social media pages and the application. The PR team will be pitching stories and starting their press tour around mid-December. The objective for the month is to begin connecting with the target audience.

JANUARY 2018

January will be about thoroughly engaging with the audience. Due to the New Year, PR and advertising will relate more to the idea of meeting a goal and attending the event to achieve the goal. Thus, promoting healthy lifestyles and what the AZ Strong event can offer to meet the goals. The PR team will get in touch with local newspaper, radio and television stations to grab their attention towards our event. The promotional Youtube video will be released at the end of the month.

FEBRUARY 2018

Recognize the AZ Strong app again and a stronger “call to action” from the advertising team will go into place during this month. Alerts from the app and social media platforms will be released, reminding the public of the upcoming event. Around this time, we’ll be releasing more details about guest stars and highlight the connection to Spring Training as well as releasing the second Youtube video. We’ll also be encouraging the hashtag “#AZStrong” to help promote the event through the platforms and app.

MARCH 5TH-9TH, 2018

The week before the event, a Snapchat filter will be developed and ready to go. The final Youtube video will be released and the app will connect ticket purchasers to their purchased activities. During this week, the media mission has to be stronger and more interactive than ever before. Finals reminders will be released this week.

MARCH 12TH-17TH, 2018

The Snapchat filter is launched, pictures of each day’s events (the best ones) are released and the PR team will be welcoming local media stations to the various events. Collateral pieces will be released the first night and continued to be released every day of the week. The idea is to continue to market towards the audience throughout the week. The app and social media platforms will encourage feedback for improvements on next years event.

Multimedia

To the right is the Snapchat filter we would use during the event along with #AZSTRONG. This would offer a great way to interact with participants and to promote the event.