Ascot Report To

Ascot & Royal Ascot Report To:

Vicky Paton, Marketing Manager, High St, Ascot, West Berkshire SL5 7JX. INDEX

1. Process Map 2. Executive Summary 3. Company History 4. The Problem 5. Client’s Agenda 6. Target Audience 7. Competition 8. Primary Research 9. Other research and evidences 10.Content Marketing Matrix 11. Creative Brief 12. Strategy 13. Media 14. Budget 15. Conclusion 16. Research and Resources 17. Appendix Research

- Inbound tourism (UK) - What Ascot offers - What can we use to attract tourists

Target Audience

International tourists in the UK looking for an experience that’s more than just sightseeing

Creative brief

Ideas - Ascot is an unmissable attraction - Various activities for all ages - Poster with a horse having a manicure? - “Of course, come to the racecourse” - “Not just racing” - “So much more” - “Of course, it’s British” - “Go Ascot!”

Finalising the ideas - “You know it’s Ascot” - Play on the fact that Ascot is a tourist attraction and a typical British experience that tourists have to visit - Use poster, print ad, app, web, social media, brochures - Media: tube/bus/airport, travel agencies, travel websites, hotels, appstore, travel magazines - App layout: group deals, info, pimp your suit, create your hat, tamagotchi horse

Pitch Executive summary

This is a plan for Ascot and Royal Ascot. According to Mintel, horse- racing outperforms its overall ‘any interest’ ranking of eighth on three speciﬁc measures, among all spectator sports. (Fig. 1) This includes paid attendance (in which it is second only to football), looking up online (fourth) and following via newspapers (ﬁfth). In television viewing terms, it ranks ninth. (Mintel, 2012)

Fig. 1: Interest in Horse-racing, 2008-12. Source: Mintel, 2012.

This plan takes you through the client’s agenda, our proposed plan to advertise Ascot and Royal Ascot and how we intend to implement the same. Company History

Ascot Racecourse was founded by Queen Anne in 1711 and since that time, a further eleven monarchs have leant their patronage to the Royal race course (The Ofcial Website of the British Monarchy, 2013). Today, Ascot Racecourse is visited by over 500,000 race goers a year, accounting for 10% of all UK race goers. It was the ﬁrst racecourse in Europe to reach the 500,000 race goer milestone (Ascot, 2013). Ascot’s facilities are available for hire throughout the year for a variety of purposes: conferences, banqueting, exhibitions, dinner dances, product launches and weddings and they have more than 100 bars and food outlets around the racecourse and 247 private boxes. Sodexo Prestige, operating as Ascot Hospitality has been the sole catering contractor at Ascot since 1998. Royal Ascot is Britain’s most popular race meeting, welcoming approximately 300,000 visitors across the ﬁve days and it is viewed in over 200 countries (Ascot, 2013). The Problem

From a survey conducted on survey monkey, the main problem that arose is the lack of awareness. People are generally unaware of Ascot or they associate it with only horse racing. Thus, we want people to know that Ascot is more than horse racing. It is an unmissable British attraction and an experience, more like a great day out (Survey Monkey, 2013). Client’s Agenda

To think of Ascot as a special event experience. The target audience must think of Ascot as a great British day out. It should be popularised as a yearlong series of great days out, without losing its aura of being a special event. (Client brief, 2013) Target Audience

According to the Ofce for National Statistics, holiday visits to the UK were up 5% in the three months April to June 2013 compared with the same months a year earlier (Ofce for National Statistics, 2013). The Government of the United Kingdom website states that the positive results from the ofce for National Statistics conﬁrmed that in the ﬁrst half of 2013, Britain attracted 15.2 million visitors (+4%). Over 2.89 million overseas visitors were welcomed in June alone, up 12% compared with last June (Gov.UK, 2013). Tourism is one of the largest industry in the UK and there were about 31.1 million overseas visitors in 2012 itself (Visit Britain, 2013).

Fig. 2: Headline trends in inbound tourism to the UK. Source: Visit Britain, 2013.

Due to these above ﬁndings, we decided to target the overseas visitors or international tourists and create a campaign to attract them to visit Ascot. Competition

Fig 3: Percentage share of attendances of leading racecourse operators in 2011. Source: Mintel, 2012.

Fig. 4: Turnovers and attendances of leading racecourses operators, 2010-2011. Source: Mintel, 2012. From the above charts from Mintel, it is evident that the major competitors for Ascot are Jockey Club Racecourses, Arena Leisure and Chester Race Company.

• Jockey Club Racecourses own 14 tracks across UK and in 2013 it will comprise 24.6% of the British racing calendar (Mintel, 2012).

• Arena Leisure is the result of merging two companies – Northern Racing and Arena Leisure Plc. As of September 2012, Arena Racing Company owned 16 racecourses and managed one another, making it the largest operator in the UK (Mintel, 2012).

• Chester Race Company reported a turnover of £ 21.7 million, up from £20 million in 2010. Revenue generated from racing increased by 8.1% from £12.8 million to £13.8 million (Mintel, 2012).

The above racecourses are some of the competitors for Ascot that hold a high market share when it comes to horse racing (Mintel, 2012). Primary Research

From a survey conducted on Survey Monkey, we found out that the major problem when it came to Ascot was that people were either: • Unaware of what Ascot is. • Associated it only to horse racing • Thought it was expensive.

Ascot racecourse has been redeveloped twice during The Queen's reign: the ﬁrst redevelopment was completed in 1964 and the second in 2006, when Her Majesty formally re-opened the new complex. During the second redevelopment, the 2005 Royal Meeting was staged at York Racecourse (The Ofcial Website of the British Monarchy, 2013).

On TripAdvisor, Ascot Racecourse has the certiﬁcate of Excellence, 2013 and is ranked number 1 out of 4 attractions in Ascot. Some of the testimonials from international tourists include “Wow, this was such an amazing experience. It was my ﬁrst time at such an event, the dressing up was epic and the whole environment was great. Felt I experienced a full old English life that one day! Will go back there again, even if to show of my newly acquired love for hats :)” and “Loved the whole atmosphere of this amazing week! Seeing the queen and Royal families was wonderful. The fashions and especially the amazing hats of the women, just superb!” (Trip Advisor, 2013) Other Research and evidence

• In 2010 the most number of overseas visitors to Britain came from France, Germany and the USA, accounting for one in three tourists (Kennedy, 2011).

• In the ﬁrst half of 2013, tourists’ spend in Britain was a record £8.7 billion (+11%) (Gov.UK, 2013).

• Expenditure over the same period saw overseas visitors spend a total of £1.84 billion, an increase of 13% from June 2012. This was also a new high, up 8% on the existing June record set in 2011 (Gov.UK, 2013).

• Tourism contributes £96.7bn to the economy in England (8.6% of GDP), £11.1bn in Scotland (10.4%), £6.2bn in Wales (13.3%) and £1.5bn in Northern Ireland (4.9%) (Visit Britain, 2013).

• One in twelve jobs in the UK is currently either directly or indirectly supported by tourism (Visit Britain, 2013).

• Many of horse racing’s major festivals and race days – such as the Cheltenham Festival, Grand National, Royal Ascot, The Derby and the new Flat season ﬁnale Champions Day – are among the UK’s most attended sports events and are watched by millions on TV around the world (Mintel, 2013). Content Marketing Matrix Creative Brief

Based on the research and the content marketing matrix, the following is the creative brief:

Client: Ascot and Royal Ascot

Account Manager: Alisha Attarwala

Creative Team: Joseﬁn Lundahl, Rebecca Armitage, Joe Walsh, Jessica Gastaud

Overview: Going to Ascot is more than just horse racing. It is an experience and it is an iconic British day out.

Objective: To encourage people to visit Ascot and Royal Ascot.

Target Audience: International Tourists/ Overseas visitors

Creative: Create a campaign using the following media: • Print • Posters • Brochures • Mobile App • Website advertising

Budget: £400,000

Due date: 18th October 2013. Strategy

Based on the content marketing matrix and the creative brief, our strategy is that Ascot is “an unmissable British attraction.”

The strapline of our campaign is “You know it’s Ascot.” We realise that the problem is lack of awareness, but when people see the posters and see the people on horses or the association to horses, they realise Ascot equals horse-racing. However, we also intend to make people aware that Ascot is more than horse-racing; it is an experience, a great day out and is a great way of knowing more about the British heritage, as Ascot has been around for over 300 years now.

Our plan is to target international tourists or overseas visitors, who come to visit England. Majority of them stay in and around London, yet they are unaware of what Ascot is or only associate it to being expensive or horse-racing. Our plan is to target such people and encourage and entice them to visit Ascot and ensure that the time they spend at Ascot is worth it.

Our aim is to get people or rather the tourists to know that Ascot is an iconic day out and that although Ascot is a great day out, it is a special experience. Through our campaign, we intend to maintain the aura of Ascot being a special event.

The campaign has been divided into four media:

• A mobile app • Print ads • Posters • Advertisements on websites • Brochures

The mobile app consists of various options such as a tamagotchi style horse, that can be fed or petted, options for booking tickets, group bookings and group discounts, a design your own hat feature and a design your own suit section. This app combines all the elements of Ascot and gives to the user the chance to have a sneak peek into what they should expect at Ascot. The app is designed in such a way, so that there is a feature for every age: the tamagotchi style horse app would be ideal for children, whereas the adults can have their share of fun, playing with the design your suit and design your hat features. The app will be available for free at the Apple app store and on Google Play. They could also scan a QR Code that will be present on the other adverts and will be able to download the app. The print ads will be seen in international travel magazines such as Food and Travel, Conde Nast Traveller, Travel + Leisure and National Geographic Traveler. It will be featured in the editions of all the international versions of the magazines so that we can reach a global target. The print ads feature a man and a woman dressed in typical British hats and outﬁts, upon a horse to depict Ascot. They are seen drinking tea, to add an element of humour and reinforce the Britishness. The print ad will also feature the QR Code to download the Ascot mobile app.

The posters will be similar to the print ads and will be displayed on major tube stations in London, bus stops and at the London Heathrow, Gatwick, and London City Airports. The reason to place the posters at these places is because Ascot is close to London, hence it will be more efective to place the posters in these locations as it will be easier for people to travel to Ascot from London.

The next set of ads that will be displayed on travel websites will be photos from Ascot, so that when people are planning their trip and researching on London or the UK and things to do when they are here, they can see Ascot and since these are pictures of Ascot, they, again, get a sneak peek into what lies there, if they decide to visit Ascot. These ads would be featured on websites such as TripAdvisor, Visit Britain, Green Traveller and Visit England.

Finally, the Brochures will be added information about Ascot, the diferent events they have and visitors information such as location, disability access, the map of Ascot and how they can get here. These brochures will be placed at the London airports, the concierge desks in chains of international 4 and 5 star hotels across the globe, as well as at international travel agencies such as Thomas Cook. Airports are the best places to put these brochures, as people can pick them up on their way into the city of London and can go through them and plan a trip to Ascot. The reason to place these brochures at 4 and 5 star hotels is because that is the crowd of people that are more likely to visit Ascot. The reasons to place them at the travel agencies is because they can then show them to people booking trips to the UK and can advise and/or suggest to them to visit Ascot. Media

As mentioned earlier, there are 5 media that will be used to run this campaign. They are:

•Print ads •Posters •Mobile App •Website Advertising •Brochures

The reasons to use the above media are as follows:

Print ads

The reason to choose print advertising was that the print ads give an unlimited exposure i.e. they can be viewed at any time and do not have a ﬁxed spot like a TV or radio ad. Print ads are also non intrusive i.e. they do not interrupt the normal magazine reading pattern, unlike TV and radio ads that interrupt normal programming (Joseph, 2013). Posters

According to Hint Media, one of the greatest beneﬁts of outdoor advertising or posters is that it is extremely large scale and can reach a large number of audiences. People are exposed to outdoor ads whether they like it or not and thus, these ads tend to capture the audience’s attention (Hint Media, 2013). Mobile App

The best way for marketers to communicate through mobile will be with apps. Apps will trump traditional ads in part because consumers don’t perceive them as advertising—they value them for their functionality and thus don’t ﬁnd them intrusive. For marketers, apps will also be attractive because they’re actually more cost-efcient than traditional ads, and they sometimes create entirely new revenue streams (Gupta, 2013).

Website Advertising

According to Nielsen, display Internet advertising, though measured in a smaller subset of countries, grew a significant 26.3 percent for the first quarter. Display Internet ad growth was particularly impressive in the Asia-Pacific (33.2%) and Latin America (48.2%). Internet even bucked the trend in Europe, boasting growth of 10.4 percent (Nielsen, 2013).

Brochures

Brochures will and always will be one of the most popular forms of marketing. With multiple size, shape and customisation options, brochures continue to inform prospects around the world. Like any other marketing piece in your company, keeping consistent branding is critical. People hold brochures for extended periods of time; they feel them and touch them, read them and keep them at their desk (Turner, 2011).

Budget

The proposed budget for this campaign is £400,000. The budget will be spent in the following manner:

Print:

To publish in Conde Nast Traveller, it is £9,959 for a full-page right hand side, run of page option, where the editor decides where the ad will be, depending on the ﬁnal edited book. This ad, featured into 9 international versions of the magazine would total up to £89,631, which can be negotiated to £75,000 or lower (Conde Nast Traveller, 2013). Food and Travel would roughly cost £35,000 to publish in the British and international versions of the magazine. Travel + Leisure is $131,820 or £82,501 but can be negotiated to £70,000 or lower. (Travel + Leisure, 2013) Finally, National Geographic Traveler charge $80,000 or £50,068 for a full-paged colour print ad and they have 4 international issues so that can be negotiated to £40,000 or lower (National Geographic Traveler, 2013).

Website:

Websites usually charge $5,000 or £3129.30 per calendar month and since we wish to have the ads for 5 websites over a span of 3 months, it works out to £46,938 which can be negotiated to £35,000 or less (Benchmark Communications, 2013).

Posters:

Roughly about £50,000 but we are still waiting for an exact quote from Out Of Home Media International.

App:

To develop an app, it costs $10,000 or £6260.17 and Apple charges $99 or £61.98 per year to keep the app in the App store. Google Play has no such charges mentioned. If we paid $10,000 as a total royalty to the two stores to keep the app on the front page of the store, the total cost of the app would be £12,582.94 for this year and an additional £61.98 every year (to be paid to Apple) (Thomas, 2013). Brochures:

Saxoprint charge £680.29 for printing 35,000 brochures (Saxoprint, 2013).

The remaining amount includes agency fees and other expenses that could occur while trying to produce the campaign. Conclusion

To conclude this plan, a good time to start working on this campaign is at the soonest so that we have a good and quality campaign produced in sufcient time. It would be good to run this campaign between the months of May, June, July and August. According to Mintel, horse- racing continues to draw its largest crowds in the summer months of June, July and August. The extent of the impact of the poor summer weather can be seen in a comparison of July attendances, which were almost 30% lower in 2012 than in 2011. (Mintel, 2013) June, July and August are usually holiday time for people across the globe and the chances of them booking a holiday to the UK are higher, as compared to the other months. The timeline to run this campaign are as follows:

May In the month of May, the travel magazines will publish the print ads and the travel websites will have the adverts up and live. There will be brochures in the ofces of the travel agencies and the concierge desks of 4 and 5 star hotels’ international chains. The app will be up and running and ready to be downloaded.

June In the month of June, the posters will be placed at ideal locations so that the tourists can see them. The brochures will be placed at the concierge desks of the 4 and 5 star hotels in London. The app would be downloadable and people would still be able to view the adverts on the travel websites.

July Similar to June, July would be all about the posters, the app, the brochures and the travel website adverts.

August In the month of August, the website adverts will be discontinued. The brochures would remain at the concierge desks and incase they run out of the brochures, more can be replaced. The posters would still be seen around the major locations and the app would be a thing to stay.

If you decide to go forward and run this campaign, there will be a success guaranteed as people will be enticed by the campaign and will visit Ascot and Royal Ascot. The whole campaign is so well linked that it is bound to do well. RESEARCH & RESOURCES

1. M. Davies, P., 2012, Horseracing – UK- December 2012, [online], Mintel, available at: http://academic.mintel.com/display/590489/? highlight (Accessed on 27th September 2013)

2. The Ofcial Website of the British Monarchy, 2013, Royal Ascot, [online], available at: http://www.royal.gov.uk/ RoyalEventsandCeremonies/RoyalAscot/Overview.aspx (Accessed on 28th September 2013)

3. Ascot, 2013, Ascot Racecourse Facts & Figures, [online], available at: http://www.ascot.co.uk/facts-ﬁgures (Accessed on 27th September 2013)

4. Survey Monkey, 2013, Ascot and Royal Ascot Survey, [online], available at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BZ8XVQ6 (Accessed on 2nd October 2013)

5. University of West London, 2013, The Sport of Kings and Queens (Client Brief), [handout], September 2013.

6. Ofce for National Statistics, 2013, Overseas Travel and Tourism, June 2013, [online], available at: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/ dcp171778_320525.pdf (Accessed on 28th September 2013)

7. Gov.UK, 2013, UK Tourism sector boosted by latest spend and visitor statistics, [online], 15th August, available at: https:// www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-tourism-sector-boosted-by- latest-spend-and-visitor-statistics (Accessed on 28th September 2013)

8. Visit Britain, 2013, Insight and Statistics, [online], available at: http://www.visitbritain.org/insightsandstatistics/ (Accessed on 28th September 2013)

9. Trip Advisor, 2013, Ascot Racecourse, [online], available at: http:// www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g186416-d519589- Reviews-Ascot_Racecourse- Ascot_Windsor_and_Maidenhead_Berkshire_England.html (Accessed 28th September 2013)

10.Kennedy T., 2011, UK Tourism Facts and Figures, The Telegraph [online] 20th June, available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ environment/tourism/8587231/UK-Tourism-facts-and- ﬁgures.html (Accessed 28th September 2013)

11.Walmsley D., 2013, Spectator Sports – UK – April 2013, [online], Mintel, available at http://academic.mintel.com/display/638033/ (Accessed on 27th September 2013)

12.Joseph C., 2013, Print Media & Advertising Advantage, Houston Chronicle - Chron, [online], available at: http:// smallbusiness.chron.com/print-media-advertising- advantages-3393.html (Accessed on 10th October 2013)

13.Hint Media, 2013, Beneﬁts of Outdoor Media, [online], available at: http://www.hintmedia.co.uk/beneﬁts/ (Accessed on 10th October 2013)

14.Gupta S., 2013, For mobile devices think apps not ads, Harvard Business Review, [online] March, available at: http://hbr.org/ 2013/03/for-mobile-devices-think-apps-not-ads/ (Accessed on 10th October 2013)

15.Nielsen, 2013, Global Ad Spend: Display Ads see double-digit growth in Q1, [online], 25th July, available at: http:// www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2013/global-ad-spend-- display-ads-see-double-digit-growth-in-q1.html (Accessed on 10th October 2013)

16.Turner M., 2013, The Beneﬁts of Brochure Marketing, eZine Articles, [online], available at: http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Beneﬁts-of- Brochure-Marketing&id=6332674 (Accessed on 10th October 2013)

17.Conde Nast Traveller, 2013, Conde Nast Media Kit // 2013, [online], available at: http://dg9g3lm9lsog5.cloudfront.net/static/cnt/ CNT_Media_Kit_2013.pdf (Accessed on 15th October 2013)

18.Travel + Leisure, 2013, National Rates, [online], available at: http:// www.amexpub.com/online/travelandleisure/print.html#PrintRates (Accessed on 15th October 2013)

19.National Geographic Traveler, 2013, Media Information Kit 2014, [online], available at: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ mediakit/pdf/ng-traveler/Advertising.pdf (Accessed on 15th October 2013)

20.Benchmark Communications, 2013, Advertising on the Internet, [online], available at: http://www.bmcommunications.com/ int_ad.htm (Accessed on 15th October 2013)

21.Thomas C., 2013, How much does it cost to develop an app, BluecloudSoulutions, [online] available at: http:// www.bluecloudsolutions.com/blog/cost-develop-app/ (Accessed on: 15th October 2013)

22.Saxoprints, 2013, Folded Leaﬂets, [online], available at: http:// www.saxoprint.co.uk/shop/folded-leaﬂets (Accessed on 15th October 2013. APPENDIX

The following is the result of the quantitative primary research- the survey conducted on Survey Monkey. The people that took the survey were British and international tourists/overseas visitors or people that were planning to visit the UK.