Where it all began for Virgin Atlantic

The application of the approaches of project management in developing and organizing an event of various scales is called event management. In this segment there are a number of events included like, weddings, parties, festivals, fairs, conventions, conferences, concerts etc (Morgeson et al. 2015). For example: A rock show, in order to organize a show in a large scale there are a number of aspects that has to be planned and organized apart form managing the crowd and hosting the event. This industry has provided people with job opportunities which not only cater to the basic requirement of a manger but also requires creative skills and innovation. In this assignment the case study of Virgin Atlantic will be discussed to understand some of the basic concepts of event management.

The fact that differentiates in between an event with a special event is the host. When the host of an event presents the guest with something that is out of the usual business or activity, the event can be termed to be Special (Matthews 2015). The scale of an event does not have to be based on which the specialty is described it is based on the way the host wants it to be organized and the reason for the event. A special event can be a fair, conference, convention wedding etc. Usually the nature of such an event is mostly social than serving the purpose of business (Getz and Page 2016).  However, the objective can always be business as various such events are held for the purpose of marketing, advertising, promotion, and sales. An example of a special event is when a medicine company organizes a conference for the doctors for a social cause like breast cancer etc.  This is a special event as the doctors are invited to the event in order to listen to he lectures of some of the key note speakers in the subject and to gather knowledge and information, in the process the company may put up standees and have other promotional aspect to the products of the company in a subtle form (Van der Wagen and White 2018).

When the company was established the funds that the organisation owned did not have the potential to compete with the other major players in the industry like British Airways, thus the Virgin Atlantic took upon a personality in order to stand out of the crowd (Virgin.com 2018). In order to do so the company has always been looking ahead to organizing events, this would draw the attention of the media and thus use it as a platform in order to reach out to the target market. The objective of marketing in the earlier days was to establish the brand and let the people know that there is also another option for them to while booking a flight ticket (Virgin.com 2018). As the company grew the objectives changed and events in the process played a very important role.

The Role of Event Management for Virgin Atlantic

Organizing over-the-top events set the image of the brand being the “fearless leader” characterized as adventurous, fun and cool much like the target market (Virgin.com 2018). The target market of the brand is explained as mavericks, adventurous, and pioneering thus the brand image is aligned with the interest of the target market. The rule of marketing that is observed by the company is to communicate the values and principles in the simplest way. The events that are organized help the company establish their core value and also reach out to the customers in the most effective ways (Virgin.com 2018).

Marketing mix is the most common tool which is used to design the marketing plan of a company. The elements of the mix are discussed below with reference to Virgin Atlantic (Khan 2014).

Product or service: Virgin Atlantic is an international airline which is based in the UK, the company provides the customers with highly quality low fare air tickets. However, the services are divided in sections The Company offers the customers three options of services these are: 

• The Economy Class: This is like any other economy class at par with other competitors.
• The Premium Economy Class: here the customers get a few more features than the normal economy class with more leg space and priority while boarding. The seats in this class are also wider than the normal economy class.
• The Upper (Business Class):  The seats in this class are convertible to bed and there are other premium services as well offered by the airline.

Apart from these services the company pioneered in providing the customers with personalized entertainment during the trip and also have a number of lounges which are known as club houses all over the world which the customers can use as a waiting space (Shaw 2016).

Price: For the company the customer service is the most important aspect that is being focused while drawing the marketing plan.  Richard Branson is of the view that the price of the service is secondary, thus keeping the rates of the tickets reasonable. The strategy that the company follows is competitive in order to list the price lower than the other competitors (Shaw 2016).

Promotion: With the help of promotional events, Public relation strategies and brand image the company reaches out to the target market.

Place: The tickets can be easily booked with the help of the official website and the company’s official application. The airline has expanded to over 30 destinations thus providing a larger opportunity for the people (Shaw 2016).

The scenario that has been shared explains that the company is organizing an outdoor event.

Segmentation: The target market that the company caters to can be segmented on the basis of their psychographic segmentation. The idea of choosing this segmentation is based on the idea and the frequency as well as the objective of the travel (Pyo 2015). This segment will help in connecting the interest of the customer with the objective of the marketing plan. Another segment that is important for the company to consider while formulating the event is the demographic as well as geographic, the age of the customer is important depending on the nature of the event and the area is also important as it is an outdoor event (Pyo 2015).

Marketing Mix of Virgin Atlantic

Targeting: The psychographic segmentation of the customers are explained to be mavericks, adventurous, and pioneering, thus the event should be organized in the way which caters to the interest of the customers who are adventurous as well as fun loving.

The age group of the people should be from 20-55 and the geographic location should be associated with the place where the event is going to be organized (Schlegelmilch 2016).

Positioning: The product or the service is the ticket of Virgin Atlantic and it is positioned in a way which is hassle free the process of getting the ticket is easy. The idea of having a boring trip from one part of the world to another is absent with the services of Virgin Atlantic as the company gives importance to the entertainment of the customers as well. The company recognizes the fact that the clients are bored on the flight and thus pioneering on the entertainment aspect. The events of the company are also based on entertainment thus emphasizing on the position (Schlegelmilch 2016). 

Some of the risk management decisions that the company should take while organisation the event are:

Crowd management:  Based on the invitation of the event the crowd has to be managed and organized. If the crowd is not managed then there can be risk of security of the other guests and also ruckus in the event can negatively impact the image of the company. There is also risk of intervention from outsiders, people who are not in the guest list (Piekarz et al. 2015).

As an outdoor event the company has to consider the kind of weather that is furcated during the time and then take measures accordingly.  Weather is a risk that is always associated with any event management.  Thunder storm, hail storm or just rain can ruin the objective of the marketing strategy.

Managing the press, the idea of any event is to communicate with the customers with the help of the press; this has been the strategy of the company from the initial times. Thus it is important for the company to manage the press accordingly. There is a risk of not achieving the objective if the press is not managed carefully (Raj et al. 2017).

Conclusion

It can be concluded form the above discussion that the Virgin Atlantic has a string marketing strategy. The company is usually used as an example while studying marketing. Event plays an important role in establishing the brand Image, the company focuses on planning such events that will capture the attention of the press and thus reach out to the customers accordingly. The events are usually extravagant and are characterized with features of entertainment. One of the major marketing strategies of the company in terms of deciding the price of the service is that are offered, competitive pricing has helped the company to maintain the brand identity of being fearless.

Reference 

Getz, D. and Page, S., 2016. Event studies: Theory, research and policy for planned events. Routledge.

Khan, M.T., 2014. The concept of’marketing mix’and its elements (a conceptual review paper). International journal of information, business and management, 6(2), p.95.

Matthews, D., 2015. Special event production: The resources. Routledge.

Morgeson, F.P., Mitchell, T.R. and Liu, D., 2015. Event system theory: An event-oriented approach to the organizational sciences. Academy of Management Review, 40(4), pp.515-537.

Piekarz, M., Jenkins, I. and Mills, P., 2015. Risk and Safety Management in the Leisure, Events, Tourism and Sports Industries. CABI.

Pyo, S., 2015. Integrating tourist market segmentation, targeting, and positioning using association rules. Information Technology & Tourism, 15(3), pp.253-281.

Raj, R., Walters, P. and Rashid, T., 2017. Events management: principles and practice. Sage.

Schlegelmilch, B.B., 2016. Segmenting Targeting and Positioning in Global Markets. In Global Marketing Strategy(pp. 63-82). Springer, Cham.

Shaw, S., 2016. Airline marketing and management. Routledge.

Tafesse, W., 2016. Conceptualization of brand experience in an event marketing context. Journal of Promotion Management, 22(1), pp.34-48.

Van der Wagen, L. and White, L., 2018. Event management: For tourism, cultural, business and sporting events. Cengage AU.

Virgin.com., 2018. The golden rule of marketing. [online] Virgin. Available at: https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/golden-rule-marketing [Accessed 13 Aug. 2018].