During my first internship with the marketing department at Colonial Life Arena I learned more than I could have imagined. With it being my very first real world experience in the sport and entertainment industry I was extremely nervous. I think it was a great place for me to start my career because Colonial Life Arena is a smaller market venue. It definitely was not nearly as intimidating as walking into Lincoln Financial Field for the first day of my second internship. Now while at Colonial Life I worked directly under the Marketing Manager, Chanell Thomas, and the Director of Sales and Marketing, Abey Foster. I assisted in the ‘day-of-event’ operations will all of their marketing events and shows which included the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, Monster Jam, Disney on Ice presents Frozen, Pearl Jam, and many more. This included performer transportation, handling of radio and television media personnel during events and early morning public relations with all four of our leading television networks (NBC, ABC, FOX, and CBS). I also helped brainstorm and create many public relations events, interviews with performers, press releases, media advisories, grassroots media events, and strategic social media engagement posts for all events that have been held at the arena. Below is an excerpt about a specific grassroots media event I assisted with for Monster Jam at the EdVenture Museum in Columbia, SC. We had a local radio station, Q93.5, broadcast live form the event as well which was great to witness in person. The site below portrays an idea of how we like to offer opportunities for the community to experience a little behind the scenes of the entertainment shows we host while also encouraging them to actually come and see one of the Monster Jam shows at the arena.
Monster Jam brings Higher Education to EdVenture!
Now when working on all of those tasks I had to be aware of our target markets for each individual show and/or event. It was kind of nice because with so many FELD Entertainment shows our target markets were all pretty similar. Monster Jam was targeted more to boys and their fathers where as Disney on Ice presents Frozen was marketed more towards girls and their mothers. In fact we held an event for local mom bloggers and their children to join us for some Elsa and Ana arts and crafts, build a snowman relay race, and a surprise meet and greet and photo op with Elsa and Ana. This event was so much fun because the girls were so excited and we were able to provide them with tickets to see the show on opening night. It was also very important for us to build relationships with these mom bloggers so that they will spread the word through their blogs and hopefully bring in more sales for the 6 shows we were putting on that weekend.
Taking classes such as Sport and Entertainment Marketing has taught me a lot in the sense of how to market for different kinds of events. Although most of the events were similar marketing styles at Colonial Life Arena it was still helpful to have that classroom experience of breaking down a marketing plan for a multitude of events. Below is one assignment I was assigned towards the beginning of my marketing class, it is crazy to see how far I have come since this class.
That brings me to something I have learned not only through my experience but all throughout my college career as well. It is very important to build and maintain relationships in this industry. Specifically when you work in marketing and public relations, a part of your job is to know and keep in contact with local news personnel, such as anchors for top networking programs, newspaper editors, radio personnel, local bloggers, and so on. The whole concept of marketing is to promote your product to the best of your ability. The most successful way to do this is to portray a positive message of the product across as many platforms as possible. Today we live in a world dependent on technology and the news. Without our local news anchors and bloggers our fans would never hear about the events held at their nearby venues.
Mackenzie Williams 