Figure 11: Paul-Alain Hunt. ca. 2021. Wall street sign
Week 6
Events are always organized for a reason, they are means to achieve a goal, either this is to raise money, to boost sales, to bring people together, or to provide entertainment. This means that they hold some value and there is a certain worth attributed to them. I don’t think that it is always easy to measure what is an event worth, as this depends on its purpose and is not always tangible. A characteristic example of that, is what Getz and Page call ‘bequest value’, ‘option value’ and ‘existence value’ (Getz and Page 2016: 373). All three terms describe how people feel about events. ‘Bequest value’ has to do with the contribution of events in passing traditions from one generation to another, ‘option value’ reflects the belief that events provide alternatives to where people could spend their time, and ‘existence value’ relates to the benefits that events hold for the environment, the society, the culture, etc.
However, as stated by Bowdin ‘events are an expense’, (Bowdin 2011) and thus it is expected that they bring some economic value, in a short or long term. So, a major part of their value has to do with their economic impacts, which generally refer to money being spent in a certain economy because of the event (Getz and Page 2016: 364). The economic impact of events is often identical to ROI, especially for private investors, who are interested in what the event they have invested in, is going to give back to them. When it comes to investing money for social or cultural reasons, ROI can’t be measured in terms of money gained, but in terms of changes that occurred in how people think, feel or act.
Having marketing events in mind, I wonder how their worth could be measured. In my first year at the company that I am working for, we held a PR event for the brand Flocafe Espresso Room, where we introduced our new Christmas brunch menu to influencers and media. We then did a post-event analysis in order to measure the PR value of the event, by estimating the amount of money that corresponds to the publicity gained by the event (the influencers’ stories, the media coverage, etc). In other words, what would be the cost of an equivalent paid advertisement?
Of course, such ways of measuring value are not sufficient and totally reliable. According to Getz and Page, measuring media coverage value has some limitations, as it doesn’t take into consideration that paid advertising includes targeting in specific audiences, as well as that it happens with consistency and not only once (2016: 373).
Also, in product launch events, the main purpose is to create awareness around a new product. In this case, the calculation of ROI relies on how much awareness the new product has gained, but it is true that the long-term purpose is always to generate sales. But how is it possible to measure the sales generated specifically by the event?
It is true that measuring economic impacts is not always an easy process and there are many ways of addressing the question of what is an event worth (Getz and Page 2016: 372), which I think depend mostly on the type of the event.
References
BOWDIN, Glenn. 2011. Events Management. Burlington: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann
GETZ, Donald and Stephen J. PAGE. 2016. Event studies: theory, research and policy for planned events. Oxon: Routledge