Marketing event outcomes: from tactical to strategic

The paper aims to introduce a framework within which to interpret and manage organisational events that have marketing significance. It also seeks to introduce associated concepts to further this area of study and practice.

The paper introduces and appraises the marketing event landscape and goes on to examine the unique DNA of marketing events evaluating their specific relevance and role in the contemporary marketing environment. The final section of the paper explores a range of strategic event objectives as the starting point for event design, delivery, and evaluation. Couched between the author's previous and future (ongoing) empirical work in this area, this article provides much needed conceptual development.

The framework provides a structured approach through which practitioners and academics can interpret and realise the value of marketing events. The discussion demonstrates that there exists a wide and rich array of organisational events that have marketing utility, marketing events is therefore an inclusive term. Underpinning the framework, and associated discussion, is how the marketing events feed into a wider marketing strategy. The connection between event objectives and marketing strategy is therefore pivotal, and is a prevailing theme of the paper.

The paper demonstrates how the inherent qualities of marketing events are very relevant given the contemporary marketing environment. Despite this, there is a lack of academic literature and events remain a poor relation to other forms of marketing communication. This detracts from them realising their potential as a relevant and high impact marketing delivery method. The models, concepts, and ideas in this paper are original, inspired by a range of fragmented literature relevant to the topic of marketing and events.