Event Marketing: How to Successfully Promote Events, Festivals, Conventions, and Expositions, Second Edition

Chapter 11

Event Marketing Case Studies

In this chapter, we will examine successful examples of event marketing including

• IMEX and EIBTM
• Malcom Forbes' Birthday Event
• The Olympic Games
• Sports Illustrated Magazine
• Starbucks
• The Gap and (Product) RED
• Coca-Cola
• Virgin Galactic
• The Professional Convention Management Association
• The NFL Fan Fest
• The Fjällräven Classic
• The Jewish Museum
• The Edinburgh Experience

To conclude our exploration of strategic event marketing, it will be useful to look at some case studies that demonstrate valuable examples of event marketing in action. We will begin with a case of two competitors in a specific and specialist sector of the events industry that manage to coexist through positioning.

IMEX Versus EIBTM International Business Tourism Trade Show

The EIBTM is the exhibition for “Incentive Business Travel and Meetings” that is held every year in Barcelona, Spain, in late November or early December. EIBTM claims to be “the leading global event for the meetings and events industry.” EIBTM is produced by Reed Travel Exhibitions, which also organizes sister events of EIBTM in the Americas, China, Australia, and the Gulf region, as well as many smaller tourism industry events.

IMEX is the International Meetings Exhibition that is held every year in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and more recently in the United States. IMEX America is held in October, IMEX Frankfurt in May. IMEX sees itself as “the essential worldwide exhibition for meetings and incentive ...