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SUMMARY OF MARKETING PERFORMANCE
Comment on Marketing SpendThe amount spent on Marketing is a considerable amount for NUTS. The marketing spend in the two productions that we looked at, was 95 pounds for Cabaret which was the second highest expenditure, and 261 pounds for the Panto. We question the return on that kind of spend, since the surveys we conducted indicated that only 19 % had even heard of NUTS let alone the productions and also that word of mouth seemed to be the best way for the seats being filled (Figures 2&3) .Reasons for Good Marketing Performanceaihuau.com8226; The artistic and inpidual nature of the productions comes across as the production directors are responsible for the creativity exhibited in the marketing material.8226; Student support of the society is very strong and word of mouth is a very powerful medium to promote NUTS, peers, friends, the student body do much to ensure that the productions do well.Reasons for Bad Marketing Performance8226; There has not been a strong image of NUTS portrayed in the marketing material which is created by the productions directors of inpidual plays, there seems to be just the promotion of the productions and not NUTS per se.8226; It was stressed by the NUTS management that each production’s promotion was the responsibility of the show’s producer. We would not want to impinge on this but feel that it would not be unreasonable for the artwork to be worked in to the pre-designed template.8226; Marketing has been very conventional with simply the use of posters and only recently flyers; this could be due to lack of marketing acumen within the society.8226; Our analysis showed that although much of the promotional material produced by NUTS was of a high design and quality specification, there was a distinct absence of brand uniformity. The result being consumers would be confused and would be unable to identify with the NUTS brand. Consumers would find it difficult to associate one production with another. Each production although an entity in itself with its own design carries no cumulative benefits from the value of that brand.8226; We would suggest that a “brand” be created, perhaps via a competition within a graphic design or marketing course. A template should be used for all promotional activity. This would help consumers to begin to identify with the brand and value would be created.8226; It could easily be seen that a conflict of brand exists. Newcastle University Theatre Society provides the most obvious value regarding the brand (see appendix), however the NUTS acronym is fun and provides a sense of ownership to the core market. We would therefore suggest that it be kept and used as the strap line as exhibited at the start of the marketing plan.We chose to highlight the following posters in order to summarize the way marketing has been conducted in NUTS so far.8226; The Crucible Flyer: No mention of NUTS, however the flyer does mention Newcastle University Theatre Society and the venue St Luke’s Church.8226; Road Flyer: No mention of the venue, dates or logo. Small mention of NUTS through the website address at the bottom.8226; School of Excellence Flyer: No mention of NUTS, however mentioned in the lengthened form of “Newcastle University Theatre Society”.8226; Seb Lime Flyer: Much improved poster with lots of information, using the small NUTS logo in the corner as perhaps an after thought. Tickets not available as advertised, in our case tickets not available under four days prior to the performance leading to consumer disappointment and wasted advertisement spend.To summarize there is significant inconsistency of brand identity. Some of the promotional material is too “subliminal” which is fine to use once the brand identity is strong enough.Figure 1 –NUTS Promotional MaterialSummary of Marketing ActivityAt the start of any academic year NUTS do have a stall just like many other societies during induction week to create awareness of what NUTS represents. This activity is targeted towards people who are interested in theatre and can join the society for a fee of 7 pounds which is then matched by the Union to support the society. This provides important initial funding for the year ahead.NUTS before this year chose to advertise its productions by way of posters that were put up around the University Campus or selected Student Houses. From this season onwards have they started the use of flyers along with posters. Essentially these are the only two means of marketing that NUTS engages in for the inpidual productions.
The trend that emerges from the Marketing Activity so far is that, there is no trend. There is no consistency in the marketing material of NUTS, so much so that there is no recognizable logo that should symbolize NUTS. The posters, flyers and websites have conflicting images of the NUTS brand.Primary ResearchA survey was undertaken of a small sample of 50 students within the University to ascertain current views of NUTS and to assess the success of marketing efforts within the University to date.Figure 2 – Pie chart showing proportion of sample who were aware of NUTSOnly 1 in 5 people within our sample had heard of NUTS, which confirms our concern that the immediate market of students is not being targeted successfully. In particular our survey showed a substantially lower number of post-graduate and International students had ever heard of the society. Figure 3 – Bar chart showing how people had heard of NUTSThe small number of positive responses that had heard of NUTS tended to have heard of them via ‘word of mouth’ rather than any other advertising or media campaign. One person had found them on the Internet when searching under societies. This highlights the current lack of successful promotional material creating awareness about the society.
