Social media vital to event organisation
Social media will play a vital role in the event organisation business this year, leading event organisers and marketing-communications agencies say.
Meanwhile corporate social responsibility activity assisting the country’s rehabilitation after the flood disaster will be key to strategies to create brand loyalty and will have a big impact on their marketing campaigns.
Last year many companies lost millions of baht because of the massive floods, but they should be able to retain customers through supportive campaigns including cleaning, laundry services and special offers.
Varrida Voraakom, chief innovation officer at McCann Worldgroup, predicted that this trend would continue into the middle of the year because flood-affected people need to repair or replace their damaged property.
Speaking as president of the Event Management Association, Kriengkrai Kanchanapokin, who is also co-chief executive officer at Index Creative Village, said that during the recovery phase in the first half, companies not directly affected by the floods would increase production capacity, coinciding with many marketing campaigns and promotions.
Among those unaffected by the flood, Procter & Gamble (Thailand), the country’s second-largest advertiser, will continue to invest heavily in its facilities this year.
“While product innovation and product-sampling campaigns to [attract] new customers should be key strategies to drive business in the new year, P&G will continue voluntary campaigns to aid flood-affected customers as well as to support Thailand’s recovery,” said Vorasit Turongsomboon, brand public relations manager at Procter & Gamble Trading (Thailand).
With these campaigns, Vorasit said P&G would focus on social media including Facebook and Twitter to communicate directly with customers and build brand loyalty.
According to McCann Worldgroup, last year there were 18 million mobile Internet users in Thailand. Of these, 33 per cent were smart-phone users and 44 per cent social-media users. There were also about 1.2 million YouTube viewers, 2.2 million logged on to Facebook, and there were a million tweets a day.
Underlining an increased role of social media, Sermkhun Kunawong, CEO of the CMO Group, said more than 50 per cent of social-media users had high purchasing power, and therefore were the main target of marketing-event organisers. Thus integration between traditional events and social media could increase the impact of each marketing campaign. This approach enables product owners to create brand engagement and customer loyalty.
“We expect to witness a 5-per-cent annual increase in events that companies design to link with social media,” Sermkhun said.
Currently such events are estimated at about 10 per cent of the total.
