oa ‘Where the action is’

‘Where the action is’: Events as a marketing communication tool

Despite the increasing use of event marketing in the field of marketing communication, the academia has paid surprisingly little empirical attention to this widely emerging phenomenon. In the present research we defined event marketing and explored consumers’ perceptions towards this relative ‘new’ form of marketing communication (in comparison with advertising and sponsorship). First, based on the literature and the results of interviews with marketing communication professionals, we arrived at a practical conceptualization of event marketing as a communication tool. Although different definitions are available, the results demonstrate that there is much agreement among professionals and researchers on the conceptualization of event marketing. Second, we created a questionnaire to measure consumers’ perceptions towards advertising, sponsorship, and event marketing. Results indicate that consumers have a more positive attitude towards event marketing than towards advertising and sponsorship. Furthermore, event marketing is seen as less misleading and more sincere compared to advertising.