Rock and Roll - PR in the Music Industry

I am into my second week at my internship for PR 393. I was lucky enough to secure a placement with Zaccaria Group - a Western Australian market leader in the music concerts, touring and event management industry. Zaccaria Group is comprised of Zaccaria Concerts and Touring - the music management branch, and House of Zaccaria - the fashion label, which is great for me because I happen to love music and clothes! Zaccaria also has offices in Hong Kong and Nashville, USA. Zaccaria Group also runs a not-for-profit organisation called Strike A Chord. For my internship, I am primarily involved with the marketing, communications and public relations activity for Zaccaria Concerts and Touring, and so far it has been really exciting! Zaccaria's portfolio of clients to date includes Stevie Wonder, Tina Arena, Duran Duran, Michael Buble, Sting, Kate Ceberano, Santana, KD Lang, "So You Think You Can Dance"and Tears For Fears, to name a few. To see more about Zaccaria Group, check out the website here.

I am completing my internship two days a week for ten weeks, and am currently onto my second Monday. My duties so far have mainly been related to marketing and communication strategy, including updating and evaluating concert marketing budgets - at the moment I am working on Kate Ceberano and her four concerts coming up in October in Perth, Mandurah, Bunbury and Albany. When a concert is in the planning stages, we evaluate and produce marketing and advertising activity suitable for the desired target audience. This includes securing 15 second advert spots on radio (usually Mix 94.5 and 92.9) and 30 second advert spots on television - could be any station, depending on the target demographics. For Kate Ceberano, we are using regional television station WIN (Channel 9 equivalent) and using Mix 94.5. To secure spots with these advertising mediums, we have to liaise with the production team, who will send us a proposal report outlining the potential spots we can secure - for tv it is usually 20 x 30 second spots in a week for the duration of the campaign (usually 2 - 3 weeks), and will occur during peak times. We then compare the proposal to our marketing budget to ensure the forecasted cost is not exceeded by the proposed cost provided by the tv or radio station.

With the production of such television and radio adverts, we have to first secure with the artist's management the materials we are allowed to use. For example, Kate Ceberano is touring to promote her new album, so we were told by her management to use mostly her new songs and one or two of her old songs (which the public would recognise) as well as only the new album artwork, head shots and themes, to align with Kate's new image. We write the copy and scripts for the adverts (what we want the radio stations to say) and prepare the 15 second sound-bed (the music and sound effects in the background) by liaising with a technical producer/graphic designer, get it approved by management and CAD (television governing body that classifies commercials before they are broadcast), then send it off to the radio or television station to confirm the start of the promotional campaign. The idea is to align the start of the advertising campaign with the announcement to the public of the touring artist. We then track ticket sales and determine the correlation between when the adverts air and the spikes and troughs in ticket sales (which we monitor by logging onto a program called InSight, which is linked directly to Ticketek). By doing this, we can determine if the campaigns are effective. See below television advert that has just been approved by CAD and is going to air this Wednesday.

I have also been involved in reviewing the CMS for all recipients of e-mail direct marketing (eDM). Zaccaria has a total database of over 40,000 customers, which is then broken down into different sub-databases so we can target different demographics depending on the type of artist and concert we are promoting.

Zaccaria is currently in the process of reviewing the feasibility of bringing an exciting and well-known artist to WA towards the end of the year. I hope it happens and cannot wait for the announcement - at the moment I am not allowed to say anything! For determining if a project is feasible, management will have to review how much to price tickets at, which venue to use to host the artist (Perth Arena or Sandalford Winery - Zaccaria's competitive advantage over other players in the industry!), which ticketing website to use, which communication and promotional platforms to use, decipher the probability of a sell-out show and if not a sell out then how can we make it one (secure an exciting support act), review how "big" the artist is in Australia compared to the rest of the world, and the list goes on. I have just sat in on a marketing and finance meeting with the directors, which was really interesting to observe. I have realised that finance and marketing in this type of industry go hand in hand - forecasting, budgeting and reporting is so important to continually be working away at and allows the marketing team to plan campaigns according to statistics compiled by the finance team. The meeting reminded me of the unit Business Capstone - think lots of spreadsheets, talk of ROI, graphs, and numbers, numbers, numbers aka my worst nightmare! It is cool to be able to have a real life comparison to the things we learn at uni, and definitely makes all the theory come to life and just click like it usually doesn't in the classroom!

I am excited to be here to keep learning new things. I have realised that public relations is largely a very broad profession and can be applied to almost any job, so I am enjoying the fact that my internship has a strong marketing foundation. I also am well aware of the fact that it's so important to have contacts in an industry if you want to be a leader and succeed. The number and calibre of contacts and talent that Zaccaria has is overwhelming and exciting to be able to experience.

That's all I have time for today, but will keep updating as the weeks go by.

Delta

Follow Your Gut Feeling.....

I had known I’d be doing this unit for nearly 3 months, I had all of the 3 month University break to look into different placements and what I wanted to do but, being my ‘ill find something, it’ll be fine’ leave it the last minute self, I found myself in a panic and absolute chaos trying to find a placement. The panic started to set in the first week leading up to the start of semester I eventually started sending out emails and calling places that I really had an interest working with however, there was no answers immediately and I started thinking that I was not going to find a placement. Everywhere I contacted had seemed to already have interns or didn’t need interns at this stage of the year. As I got desperate I frantically ‘googled’, emailed and called any places not minding where my placement would be, just anywhere so that I could graduate this semester. I eventually found my self with an offer from Momentum Events, which sounded like a great placement, but I just had a gut feeling that there was something else that I was meant to be doing. I emailed a few more places that I was highly interested in and what I want to pursue after graduation, in the areas of fashion, events and music. I was extremely excited to find an email the following day from Sunset Events, one of the places I was extremely interested working at. Madi, the Admin and Events Coordinator said that there may be a position available for me as the ‘Groovin’ the Moo’ festival is coming up and help would be needed on the event. I was extremely enthusiastic about getting this position and I think that’s the reason that Madi ultimately offered me a position.

As I rocked up at their ‘office’ I was slightly confused, in my nice business wear, expecting to be interviewed in an air-conditioned office I had found myself in a large misplaced shed in a backyard in Fremantle. The girls were all nicely dressed, but not in business clothes but, rather casual trendy clothes, feeling totally uncomfortable in my outfit and out of place. However, Madi was extremely nice and at the end of the interview I asked her ‘ so I’m assuming I don’t come dressed like this to work’? She answered saying that if I wanted to I could wear my pajamas to work because she certainly does half of the time! After that I couldn’t wait to start the following week!

On my first day I was set to work on some basic tasks as Madi had said there was not much preparations for me to do for Groovin’ the Moo yet but, when it came time there will be a lot of work and I will be not only doing public relations but a little bit of everything as well as attending the festival with the rest of the team! My first task I was given was to create excel spreadsheets for up and coming artists who were emailing Sunsets, interested in getting exposure and playing at events. The spreadsheets were also used to keep updated with who Triple J was featuring on their station and up and coming artists they were also playing. Lastly, I used the spreadsheets to record artists that played at Sunsets 2013 festivals and whether they were local, national or international artists. The reason for the spreadsheets is so that Sunsets can stay up to date with trending artists, who plays where on what stages and what artists that are trying to break through the music scene are extremely imminent on getting their music out there.

On my second day, I rocked up to find a list of things on my desk to do. Some were PR related items; others were admin types of jobs. One of my tasks was to set about writing out answers for the Fremantle Chamber of Commerce Business Awards 2013, which Sunsets was entering. This was challenging as I had a small amount of background knowledge of Sunset Events, but I was surprisingly able to write a fare bit with success and also learning a lot more about Sunsets. Secondly, I was asked to change the ‘about’ section on the Sunsets website as the last person who had done so was not so literate and there was many grammatical errors and inconsistency’s. I enjoyed doing this task and using the first paragraph with persuasive and emotive language to encourage people to keep on reading, which I felt what was missing from the previous ‘about’ section.

Lastly, I was asked to compare survey results from 2012 and 2013 about the 2013 Southbound festival. The data collected needed to be analyzed to understand any trends or large differences between the festivals in the previous year. It was interesting to see the changes in responses one year on and one highly notable trend was that in 2013 people were much more environmentally conscious, which I think Sunset will notably take into consideration for Southbound 2014.

I can’t wait to see what the next few weeks bring, especially leading up to the festival and what other tasks I will be instructed to do. But, for now I am glad to have found a placement and finally on the pathway to graduation.

Speak soon!

The view from the eyes of the promoter

My internship is slowly coming to an end, and the last couple of days here I have been exposed to different activities which has been pretty awesome.

As we have recently begun festival season, one of my tasks I was given was to compile a publicity folder that required me to select photos from each Sunset Event from the 2011/12 season that could be used to showcase the event at any given time upon request. I found this activity quite fun and interesting, not only getting to look through some amazing photographs, but getting to select photos which grasped the feeling of the festival and really seeing how so many people are affected by music was intriguing. 

One of the main tasks that every practitioner will be exposed too within their career at some point is writing a media, or press release. Janelle gave me the task of constructing a media release for an upcoming Sunset activity. To be honest, it was quite a daunting task to be given as it had been a while since I had constructed a media release and not to mention Janelle is an excellent writer. This would be one of the tasks that I enjoyed the most, but I was a little disappointed with myself with some silly errors made through it. I guess it is a learning curve, and one lesson I learnt through this task was YOU MUST PROOF READ. Such small grammatical errors could have been avoided if I had proof red more efficiently than I did.

Southbound is one of the most popular music festivals held at the beginning the year and the Sunset team is hard at work at promoting the event. As Sunset is located in Fremantle, they formed a partnership with Notre dame student chapter. They joined forces were Notre Dame where they were launching their mezzanine area; this opened up the opportunity for Sunset to do a southbound promotion which gave the students who attended a chance to win tickets. It was my job to compile a music playlist that included 2 tracks from each artist performing to play at their launch. As I am not very familiar with many of the artists performing, I really enjoyed this task because it allowed me to listen and be exposed to a different genre of music and other artists that I am unfamiliar with. Once I had finished the playlist, Maddi (another sunset intern) and I were sent down to set up some promotional material around the mezzanine.

The next upcoming event that festivalgoers are anticipating is Stereosonic 2012. I was lucky enough to sit in with the whole Sunset team, including the directors to discuss the progress and Stereosonic issues. I took in every moment of this meeting because it was really interesting to see the different aspects of business and how they assist or affect the planning of a festival. Stereosonic would be one of my favourite festivals, where each year I have thoroughly enjoyed myself so it was great to view it from the opposite side of the fence; through the eyes of the promoters.

Until next time were I will be wrapping up my blog!

Tahlia

Launching 2013

The week just passed saw the launch of WASO’s 2013 concert season and it was beneficial to see the many components of the company coming together from start to finish to ensure everything was ready to go on time for one of the year's biggest media opportunities.

This blog is dedicated to discussing some of the tasks I have been helping with in preparation for the 2013 season launch- and there are some great concerts to look forward to!

I sat in on a strategic marketing meeting for the 2013 season a few weeks back and it was interesting to see how ideas for promotion originate. Topics covered included social media, advertising and how to better engage with each target market. This is especially relevant as WASO has so many different types of concerts (for example, there is special popular events such as the Pirates of the Caribbean full feature film being played with live soundtrack accompaniment by WASO, as well as standard classic concerts featuring the works of Mozart, chamber music, kids concerts and more) I got to understand better how dynamic and targeted the marketing strategy for each concert series has to be.

A task that I recently undertook was putting together media kits consisting of a press release, season brochure, and media kit brochure. As media kits and press releases were a large focus of both the PR Media and Techniques units of my degree this task definitely was a reflection of university teaching and it was good to see how it is used in the real world effectively. 

Putting together 130 kits in two hours to make it for that day’s mail was a bit challenging (including during this time remembering how to put together the always tricky mail merge) but we got them all out on time! As I had also sat in on the media kit meeting between WASO’s Public Relations Coordinator and the Executive Manager, Artistic Planning (who heads the department which put together all the repertoire and artists for each concert) about how best to promote the 2013 season to the media a few weeks earlier, it was great to see the complete product and know prominent journalists around Perth would be receiving this to write their stories (such as The West’s seen here). 

I also helped proof read the season brochure and seeing that finished product is really nice. You can view it online here if you are interested. After working from the draft copy and using the pdf version as a reference when putting appropriate hyperlinks throughout the website in preparation for the online launch of the season it was lovely to see the brochure in print- nothing beats a hard copy!

Vanessa Costanzo.

Festival Season is upon us!

I was very much looking forward to writing this blog entry. I am about a quarter way through my internship and have thoroughly been enjoying every minute. Since it’s been a while since my first blog, I thought it was about time to update you on my time here at Sunset.

There is one thing that I have learnt, the general public does not know how much work goes into organizing an event, and the volume and quality of work that is undergone through the planning period is incredible. Recently, the team at Sunset travelled up to Port Hedland to host the inaugural Northwest music Festival. This festival featured such artists such as the hilltop hoods, the Living End and the cat empire. The event was deemed highly successful! One of the tasks I was given was to construct a publicity report to be presented at a debriefing of the event. I was to compile all the pre and post event advertising regarding the festival, and to label it accordingly. Such advertising included newspaper articles, magazine articles and online advertising. This publicity report can give feedback to the amount of coverage it was given in the lead up to the event, and can give an adequate response to see how the event was perceived by all involved. 

With the Northwest Festival wrapped up, it was onto the next! As we are approaching the busiest time of the year, festival season; planning was in full force for Stereosonic and Southbound music festivals. As there were numerous artists playing at Southbound my task was to research the particular artists performing to enquire on they had any upcoming single or album releases. By having an artist having an upcoming release it could be intertwined with the promotional and marketing activities surrounding a particular event. 

As a lover of music festivals myself, I can safely say that I give credit and respect to the Sunset team and other similar promoters for the amount of time and effort placed into organizing a one day event. Working at an events company such as Sunset, it isn’t your ordinary 9-5-weekday job and what I’ve learnt is the work never stops even! The environment at Sunset is such an easy going and comfortable environment and like angel said, “it has to be for the amount of time that we spend here".

Until my next blog!

Two completely different clients

 Throughout my work placement I have had the opportunity to work for two completely different clients, both of which are run by the same group of people. The two businesses Metric Promotions, and Pilerats differ greatly, and have allowed me to use a variety of skills that I have learnt over my studies.

Within Metric promotions, there are a number of events and promotional activities, which I have been able to assist in. One of the most notable aspects of the events industry is the amount of forward planning that goes into each event. For the monthly ‘Speakeasy’, an Australian musical act is brought to Perth to perform. One of my jobs has been to research bands or DJ’s that may be suitable for the event, and these acts are often booked up to six months in advance. This means that there is often a lot of research required to ensure that they will be suitable. For example, they may have recently released an album, or have gained media attention for playing at a festival. This research has also proved useful in preparing for another of Metric promotions annual events; Wonderland, a music festival that was run for the first time last year.

One of the more exciting projects that I have been working on is the launch and creation of Pilerats; an interactive iPad magazine. Pilerats is a relatively new project, and I have been lucky enough to be able to contribute ideas to assist in the promotion of the magazine. We are approaching the launch date for the magazine so there is a lot to be done in terms of promotion through many different avenues such as social media; which means refining the blog, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts. Content is also another area in which I have been able to help out, this is where I most notice the obvious crossover between public relations and journalistic skills. I have helped out in drafting interview questions for the magazine, which I did find a little daunting, as I have never conducted an interview before. Drafting questions for a real interview made me understand the importance of the sequence of the questions, as well as attempting to somewhat predict the answers before the interview takes place. After the interview was conducted, I was happy to hear that the subject of the interview enjoyed the questions, as they were things that he had not been asked before. I will keep you guys posted to the release of the iPad magazine and you will be able to see the interview that I helped draft when it is released.

Being able to work on both projects, which are completely different has almost given me the experience of working in a consultancy environment. I am lucky in the sense that the work I do in a day can be quite varied depending on the project I am working on. I think I prefer this variety in a work day in comparison to possibly working on the same client all day, although I have never exactly only worked for one client at a time. 

A look into the promotion of regular concert events

My placement is with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. While I have been employed with the organisation previously, professional practice is encouraging me to view WASO with greater PR perspective and to get involved with more PR activities.

For my first blog I have chosen to focus on what I have been doing in my role, as well as on the marketing and PR that goes into an average WASO concert. As the orchestra presents over 175 performances a year that is a little hard to define, however their main home base for performances is Perth Concert Hall and this is what I’ll refer to as ‘average.’   

Last week WASO held two performances of Tasmin Little Plays Bruch. I was involved in organising seat drops, posters, getting in touch with ticket competition winners via a Facebook promotion, and ensuring all correct WASO promotional materials are on display at the concert hall.

Until I properly scrutinised all that goes into the promotion of every single WASO concert, from getting the message out through the media and online to the amount of coordination at the concert itself, I don't think I fully appreciated the amount of targeted effort the marketing department undertakes.

In the lead up to an average concert there will be print advertisements in the West and various other publications, social media conversations about the performance including Twitter and Facebook. and e-mails or letter mailouts are sometimes also used to communicate any possible specials in ticket prices.

If there is editorial on upcoming concerts or interesting soloists that is due to WASO’s PR Manager, who also sees that all major newspapers list WASO events in their upcoming events sections.

I monitor press coverage by collecting all media clippings relating to or relevant to WASO and enter them into a database. I then keep the hard copies on file and a daily email is sent to all staff to keep them informed about press coverage. When a concert has concluded, any reviews are also kept and filed, as well as uploaded to the website.

In addition to WASO’s set out concert schedule, this week a quintet will travel to Geraldton for a free concert as part of their ‘on the road’ program which visits regional WA areas. This requires a different kind of promotion, including sending e-mails and posters with information to local governments, businesses, music stores and schools in the area. 

The main skills in my view that are required for this role (and is probably true for most students undertaking this unit) is the need for time management and organisation. Writing skills are also essential and it’s important to have the ability to not only complete a task well, but think about ways to improve the efficiency of tasks if you can too. As almost each week brings a new concert and requires a need to stay on top of everything happening, I think this is definitely relevant to the WASO office!  

Vanessa Costanzo

Curtin University

A first look at exciting opportunities in events management and promotion.

Initially struggling to find a placement opportunity that excited me, I came across an opportunity with one of Perth’s most successful and popular promotions and events organisations. Metric Promotions is one of Perth’s leading events promoters, who aside from their highly successful weekly club nights, also run monthly music concerts and events, and have recently begun their own festival in Perth. As well as this, they manage two local Perth bands, Stillwater Giants and Shy Panther.

Luckily, I have been fortunate enough to begin my placement at a highly exciting time for the promotions company. Aside from their music and entertainment events within Metric Promotions, they have developed a highly exciting business opportunity known as Pilerats. Pilerats was partly developed from the opportunities presented through Metric Promotions; constantly being in contact with various Australian and international musicians and artists has provided fantastic business contacts and exciting original content. This collaboration of content, and creative ideas is currently being adapted into a highly interactive iPad and iPhone magazine.

The launch of this iPad magazine provides a great platform for me to contribute ideas for the promotion and launch of the upcoming first, and following issues. To be honest, the idea in itself is highly overwhelming as I have little real-life public relations experience, but at the same time it gives me a great platform to express my ideas, and potentially be successful in my promotional endeavours. 

If you would like to check out the blog for Pilerats head here, there is some great content:

http://pilerats.com/

One of the most interesting things I have found whilst participating in my placement, is that everyone I am working with is self-taught. After initial success in running their events, they were thrown into promotions and events management. Being self-taught, everyone around my is a massive advocate of on-the-job learning, and preaches the benefits of work experience. 

All in all, my first couple of weeks at Metric Promotions and Pilerats has been really exciting.  I have had the benefit of being able to swap between doing completely different tasks for both Metric Promotions and Pilerats. I believe this is giving me the chance to have a vast portfolio of skills and given some more time I will really be able to settle in and find my place. I look forward to keeping you updated on my progress and some of the exciting, (and currently confidential) plans that are in place.