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.