Go Racing Marquee at National Ploughing Championships

This is the front on the "Go Racing" Marquee at the Ploughing Championships in Tullamore this year (Sept 25th - 27th). This photo was taken on Thursday just after the front had gone up, so still plenty more to be added!



This is HRI's fourth Ploughing Championships and we'll be following a similiar tried and tested formula to that of the previous years. Hector O hEochagain will host on the Tuesday and Wednesday and we have Brendan McArdle for Thursday. We'll be following the same format of three workshop events each day at 11am, 2pm & 4pm part of which will be interviews with the country's top trainers and jockeys; confirmed so far we have Ruby Walsh, Mouse Morris, Frances Crowley, Davy Russell, Jimmy Mangan, Pat Smullen, Eddie Harty, Robert Power, Paddy Flood & Garret Cotter (-many more to confirm over the weekend).



With over 40,000 people from all over Ireland attending the Ploughing each day this is a great opportunity for the racecourses to promote their winter meetings, and most will be in attendance providing information and offers to the public. We'll also be joined by Tote Ireland, the Irish National Stud and RACE (Racing Academy & Centre of Education), who will be on hand with their race simulator giving race riding demonstrations to budding jockeys.

It's a hard few days but well worth the results - let's hope it stays dry!!!

Engaging Consumers Through Social Networking

Social networking sites (SNS) such as MySpace and FaceBook are growing at an incredible rate, with a huge number of consumers having set up profiles on one or more of these services. But this Web 2.0-based phenomenon is yet to be fully understood or leveraged by most marketers, according to advertising trends publisher ConnectThru.

According to Forrester Research, 69% of 18-21 year olds, along with 47% of teenagers and 20% of adults, have a profile on a social networking web site. Recent research has also shown that these online community members also want to engage with brands through this channel. For example, the movie 'X-Men: The Last Stand' connected directly with more than 2 million users through MySpace.

What's most valuable? To help maximise the marketing impact of social networking campaigns, viral downloadable elements tend to achieve the best results as users often view these from their friends' profile pages. If they like what they see, they will tend to re-post the same element on their own profile pages, and the viral process continues.

A recent Marketing Evolution study found that over 70% of the marketing value of SNS campaigns comes from the momentum of the viral impact that these types of campaigns inherently possess. Along similar lines, according to Microsoft, 64% of Europeans surveyed said they had visited a web site because a friend linked to it through their social networking profile.

The HRI Racing Group on Facebook

Encouraging brand engagement As ConnectThru reports, a brand must use this approach to inspire communication or action on the part of the end-consumer - which means that a brand that consumers feel passionate about will succeed more easily than one that does not invoke real emotion.

It is vital to have a clear objective and strategy when marketing through social networking sites, such as a focus on encouraging brand loyalty or customer retention. And marketers need to make sure that it is incredibly easy for consumers to join the brand's social network, which means cutting down on the number of data fields to complete initially. In cases where people are less inclined to feel passionate about the brand, incentives or awards may also have to be in place to encourage people to engage with it.

Horses for Courses
In cases where a brand has profiles on several social networking sites, ConnectThru recommends that each site should be treated differently, according to the target market of consumers being reached there. For example, Pontiac has a "Pontiac Underground" network on Yahoo!, while the brand caters to a much younger audience with its "Friends with Benefits" campaign on MySpace.

This article is copyright 2007 of http://www.thewisemarketer.com/

Second Billboard Campaign for Dundalk Racecourse -Floodlit Racing

The latest poster for Dundalk sells night-time racing with an eye-catching visual and copy line - 'No More Dark Horses'. The first two evenings on Sept 27th and 28th are ticket-only following the sell-out the opening day on Sun 26th August

This campaign includes a 6 sheet execution (left) and a 48 sheet poster (below-click to view large format )- both posters are concentrated in urban centres from Newry to North Dublin.This covers two 'cycles' running from Sept 10th to the 1st October

Press coverage of the opening day at Dundalk was overwhelmingly positive and it will be interesting to see how far the momentum will carry. The facilities are among the best in racing anywhere but the task now is to devise a longer-term marketing communications strategy to keep the demand going through the winter months.

Images from the opening day :

Billboard Campaigns for Dundalk and Listowel Racecourses

We are running two poster campaigns at present as part of our Racecourse Marketing Support for specific meetings.Dundalk and Listowel Racecourses were ideal candidates for this type of campaign with long lead-in times which would benefit from extended exposure in their catchment areas. We looked at the databases for greyhound customers at Dundalk and our own racing database for Listowel to concentrate the campaign in areas where the existing customer base lives .The posters are part of a campaign featuring PR activity, Radio advertising, Promotions and Direct Marketing activity, in varying degrees, for each racecourse.

DUNDALK POSTER

First up was the Dundalk poster ' Its a Breakthrough ' to announce the opening of Ireland's first all-weather track. The sunshine through the rainclouds has more resonance than usual this 'Summer'. This is a ticket only meeting which has sold out already. Dundalk are still inundated(!) with calls for tickets and are taking the opportunity to build a customer base for the first evening meetings on September 27th and 28th.

The design incorporates the sponsor's logo , which was an important part of the overall sponsorship deal for them, and HRI's logo, which reflects our significant involvement with, and support for, this new venture.

( Picture left shows bus shelter 6 sheet execution )

It will be interesting to see if they sell out those evening meetings as well and whether substantial advance ticket sales will become the norm for Dundalk - which will give them another layer of weather-proofing . The posters are concentrated around the urban centres between Newry and North Dublin. The second burst of this campaign - ' Dark Horses' will be a poster for the first night -time races which we will post to this blog at the time.

LISTOWEL POSTER

The Listowel poster - 'Listowel - Serious Fun,Serious Racing' says it like it is. The picture shows an actual site posting in the Dublin area.We used an illustration in this instance to capture the Festival feeling and gain 'stand out' for the poster. The initial poster cycle was timed for Galway Race Week and the Dublin Horse show with a selection of sites in each area. The second cycle will cover the South West in a September campaign. There is a large format goracing.ie logo to direct traffic to our site .

Keep your eyes peeled for sites around the country and let us know if there are any damaged or badly posted cases to be dealt with

GORACING WEBSITE

It looks like the new website has made its mark with double the number of visits to the site per month over what we had with the old hri.ie site . Apart from the great new look and feel of the site it makes just about every stat from our digital vaults available for users.We now need your views on what should be done to improve it further and push the ratings even higher.

In a first upgrade of the site we added two major new features : the daily PA racing news feed and the At the Races video archive and track flyover sequences for each racecourse which really makes this the portal site for all tracks.

It's now time to plan for Phase Two with enhanced content and more features . The trick here is not to fiddle endlessly with the site but to introduce changes in single steps at reasonable intervals, so we'd like to review all possible ideas and then launch the next phase with one click of the mouse.

The site development so far has been the result of a collaboration between IT,Marketing and the Racing Dept and as that collaboration proved so successful everyone is now invited to become involved.

We know some of the fixes that are needed and some new ideas have been floated already,such as photo archives,racing podcasts - particularly for big race previews and 'learn about racing' items.More interactivity is a must ,particularly with competitions and polls but should we go further, with a Racing Forum on-line? What else will educate,entertain and inform site visitors?

How do we get the balance right for heavyweight racing fans,lightweight racing fans , social racegoers , corporate racegoers, business customers, tourists, student researchers, job seekers,etc etc ?

Take another look at goracing.ie

Have your say about what should change for Phase Two and what new features would enhance the site. Use this blog to float your ideas and comment on the ideas of others . Just hit the comments link below and a text box will open up for you .

Marketing to Digital Natives

This is a set of notes drawn largely from sessions at the Public Relations Institute of Ireland Seminar in May 2007 ( Jury's Dublin) and added to and re-worked in terms of HRI's Marketing task. The essential task for racing is to become a credible communicator to digital natives.


Digital Natives

Digital Natives are those born 1980 and after - people for whom digital technology is not new or strange. Daily web users. These are our ‘20 somethings’- the main target of our advertising. Fail to recruit them and the business will fail...eventually.

Private information is going public now: Bebo, My Space, UTube, Facebook, Blogs, Vlogs,Twitter. Even the most popular new platforms will change, mutate and be replaced. There is no customer loyalty. Functionality is everything.

50% of virtual dwellers - people with an identity in 'Second Life' for instance, value that life equally. Second life now has over 8m ‘citizens’.

Peer Trust is the most significant motivator of young people -Social Peer Groups andOn line Peer Groups

TV viewing is actually growing, but it is fragmenting. This is the move from Prime Time to ‘My Time’ – people choosing what and when they will view or listen.

Citizen Journalists are everywhere – some just for a day on a single issue. Anyone can now publish their views using any number of Peer to Peer Platforms.


A Blog is becoming a standard accessory for digital natives and evolving rapidly, with Twitter (text based) – micro blogging, the next big thing. Corporate blogs are becoming a useful tool for internal and external communication.The corporation used to have one voice, now it has many

How do we market to Digital Natives?

We need to know what digital natives are saying

- about brands
- about racing
- raceday experience

Listen, prepare internally and engage! To market digital natives we must be willing to live in the same digital spaces.

Learn about Google Grid, Google Base and the convergence of super sites like Google and Amazon. Map the social networking landscape for our target market.

BEBO has 32 million users wordwide. There are over one million users already in Ireland 92% of whom are under 35, and average stay on-site per visitor is 22 minutes plus. Seven hours a week in not unusual. This time is coming from somewhere - TV most likely.

In approaching Bebo or any Peer to Peer site remember : Functionality beats brand loyalty, irreverence helps viral spread of marketing messages, and above all don’t ‘sell’ the Bebo community. It doesn’t work. Creativity Content and Communication is all that works.

Youth asks: · Who is giving me this information? · Is it relevant?· Does my peer group endorse it? People trust each other not institutions. Social networks will increasingly move online.

How did Bebo grow? Via DJ’s and musical artist mentions on air. No advertising.

Actions

Own a space on Bebo.
Get Blogging
Skins - create a viral skin.

Can we build a ‘Young Racers’ Club using peer to peer platforms? Use Video - we have got so much unused or under-utilised content. Bring the digital natives into our space. For instance, have a competition to ask Digital Natives to create an ad for racing – upload to goracing page and the winner gets €1,000! or... careers are always interesting l - how about ' win a work placement in racing'!

Digital Capability in HRI and Irish Racing

Digital Capability Counts for Ad Agencies and PR companies but most are not up to speed. The web allows for segmentation to one and this level of segmentation (of audiences) leads to questions re the right message to the right audience via the right channels. Advertising and PR convergence is happening, particularly in digital communications.

The Future – Questions and Next Steps

What is the brief for racing’s on-line presence?

Who will write it up?
Who will own the process?
Who will implement it?
Who will measure it?
How much will it cost?
Who will pay?

How will we service racecourse needs online?
Where do we go to get up to speed with digital marketing ?

Actions

Audit marketing team and other in-house capability for digital marketing. Assign responsibilities. Identify skills groups. Train to fill gaps. Identify third party supports and get suppliers such as Ad agency, PR company and Direct Marketing suppliers to integrate digital communications into campaigns.

What are 20-somethings like?

Our key target market for recruitment . Post - education,pre-marriage,loadsamoney and rarin to go . Spenders on all kinds of consumer goods and socialising - having a good time . A day at the races should be just the ticket.

WELL ..... the Bank of Ireland reports today ( Irish Times July 17th ) that their survey of 600 22-28 year olds shows that they are self-reliant savers after all - putting an average €200 pm into savings . If they have mortgages they are spending €900 pm on that although most wait till 31 to buy first time.

They still BET however - with men spending €110 pm and women just €26 - the rest goes on clothes,toiletries,hair and beauty. What does the Tote make of that I wonder ?

questions arising :

Should we target MALE 20 somethings more than, or instead of, all 20 somethings?
Should the betting experience of a day at the races be more to the fore in our advertising?

next .... Bank of Ireland advice week for 20-somethings July 23 - 27