Tour de Yorkshire - Direct Mailings

I signed up for Tour de Yorkshire's newsletter at the same time as I did for Tribeca Film Festival's, so again, 15 days have passed since April 12th, and I've received 2 newsletters. This is reasonable, as this has been a more-or-less weekly newsletter in the weeks coming up to the event. Both newsletters have been full of information - more information than photos, which I think is a lot better than the other way around - it is a newsletter, after all. Having the week's updates in one place is really handy, so having the newsletters every week instead of an alternative like 2 a week or 1 a fortnight is perfect.

This newsletter had lots of information, including the news from the press release I blogged about previously, news about TV coverage, and news about the event's official artist. It makes use of its blue coloured theme, reflecting the event's logo and their website. Tribeca's colours are white and yellow, but their newsletters were barely coloured at all, apart from images. Tour de Yorkshire's newsletter is much more striking in not only colour but use of visuals, and lengthier captions explaining briefly some news articles. I much prefer Tour de Yorkshire's approach to their direct mailing with newsletters. 

Tribeca Film Festival - Direct Mailings

I signed up for the Tribeca Film Festival newsletter on April 12th, and since then, 15 days have passed and I've received 13 newsletters via email, most of them being sent to me during the festival. I found the newsletters I was sent before the festival were a bit pointless. They didn't tell me anything new, or anything I couldn't have found on the website on the way to signing up for the newsletter. It seemed to comprise of half content, half information about the event's sponsors. 

The format of the emails isn't great. It's mostly just big photos with a small caption, and lots of white space. It doesn't provide much information about anything in particular and doesn't excite me or encourage me to follow any links. It does include links to their social media which is good promotion for them. I've received emails from companies who includes lots of moving images (videos, GIFs), colour, and generally are just more appealing to look at and therefore I'm more likely to take an interest in what the email is showing me. Tribeca could use the opportunity they have here with their direct mailing to perhaps do some competitions or giveaways to newsletter readers to entice them and get them involved.

Tour de Yorkshire - PR

Tour de Yorkshire has released 23 press releases so far regarding this year's event - slightly more than Tribeca Film Festival. Released on 15th April 2016, this press release from Tour de Yorkshire is announcing some famous names who will be cycling in the event. 

Unlike Tribeca Film Festival's approach to their press release, Tour de Yorkshire got straight to the information the press release promised. With a small introduction to what the document will be about, the press release stated the big names in a few paragraphs, with their names in bold to draw attention to the main purpose of the press release. The cyclists aren't introduced as such, they're just mentioned as though it was a standard news article. Press releases need to have exciting lexis, and this one provides, with words such as "electric", "strong" and "champion". The press release also details a brief overview of 2015's Tour de Yorkshire's success, perhaps boasting to readers that this year's event will be worth turning up to. The document ends with a list of statistics for some of the cyclists taking part, confining this into one section at the end, drawing more attention to just the big names in the main content. I think this is a really good way of presenting the press release - the readers will clearly receive the information they came there for, and they any additional information about the cyclists at the bottom of the press release, should they need it. Tribeca Film Festival's press release was very busy with information, and could've been difficult to extract the main article-worthy content from. Tour de Yorkshire got straight to the point and kept it brief.

BBC News reported on the press release on the same day, which you can read here. They condensed the information to the extreme, taking what was a 3-page document and turning it into a few

sentences. The article details a few participating riders (focusing on Sir Bradley Wiggins), with a very brief explanation on what the event is about. This substantial editing from the original press release questions whether all the information provided was actually of much use. BBC omitted much of the release but the important content is there still, so perhaps Tour de Yorkshire didn't need to go to such lengths to explain who's racing at the event, and instead could've simply listed the riders.

The press release got quite a bit of press coverage from news outlets such as BBC, The Northern Echo, and Eurosport, but it wasn't reported for long - all the coverage on this seemed to be over by the 16th, a day after the release. Still, it seemed to gain more coverage than the news of Tribeca Film Festival announcing their jurors, so overall I would say that Tour de Yorkshire's press release was more successful, in terms of content and media outreach.

Tribeca Film Festival - PR

Tribeca Film Festival have released 18 press releases for the 2016 event, starting from August 2015. Released on the 6th April 2016, this press release is announcing the jurors for the festival's awards, including categories such as Snapchat Shorts, Feature Film, and World Documentary. 

The document is 6 pages long and is very content heavy. Press releases should generally get a lot of information into a small amount of text. Reading through it, the document starts with three roles, the prizes, and the date of the award announcements. It then goes on to list the award categories with the respective jury listed underneath. Each entry and juror have a few sentences acting as a short biography. After all this, there's then about half a page explaining the types and prices of available tickets, and where to purchase them, and then a few paragraphs about the festival itself and the sponsors, concluding with the contact details of press contacts. I definitely feel like this could've been cut down. The information about the jurors could've easily been cut down to three pages, leaving one page for a smaller introduction to the press release and extra information about the festival. This press release feels more like a persuasive advertisement than it does a press release. I understand the need for a bit of information about the juror, but it almost starts to sound like the event is persuading the reader that the jurors are good enough.

Deadline, an online entertainment magazine, wrote a report on the press release the day of release which you can read here. The article is pretty much just a comprised version of the document, bringing together the information that the public needs. The start of the article is practically a copy and paste of the press release's introduction, perhaps proving that this information is necessary to readers. They have then listed all the jurors, removing the additional information about each person, cutting the content down by quite a lot. I think this was a good idea - the public doesn't really need to know (or care) about these juror's life achievements - they just want names. The article hasn't really changed much from the press release apart from that, so I think this means that the press release was pretty effective in its information communication. There wasn't a great deal of coverage concerning the announcement of the festival's jurors, so this isn't great, but a few names in the press release are sure to have fanbases based on social media, such as DJ Khaled, Chloe Grace Moretz, and Steve Aoki, so word about the jurors would've spread this way too, so I think the press release overall was sort of successful. I think with less unnecessary information it would've been better.

Tour de Yorkshire - Sponsors

The only official sponsor that's been announced this year for Tour de Yorkshire so far is Yorkshire Bank. When I first read this on their website here, I thought it was a bit of a vague, unrelated sponsor. I was expecting something like a sports brand, or a healthy eating brand. When I read further into it here, I learnt that in December 2014 they launched the Yorkshire Bank Bike Libraries initiative. The aim was to get more people on Yorkshire active and cycling, so the library offers bikes that people can borrow for free. Yorkshire Bank's passion for cycling makes them a really good sponsor for Tour de Yorkshire. The bank name also feels more like so it brings that sense of community. I haven't seen Yorkshire Bank on any of the event's logos, and it's not on the event's official cycling jersey so the bank doesn't have naming rights. It wasn't immediately obvious who the event's sponsor was - it took some searching through the website to find it, so it doesn't seem that the bank has much influence or presence on the event as of yet.

I think Yorkshire Bank being a sponsor says that the demographic of people attending Tour de Yorkshire is generally adults. A child won't think twice about a bank sponsoring an event, but if an adult who has an account with Yorkshire Bank sees that they're sponsoring an event, they're more likely to take an interest. It's crossed my mind that if you can trust a bank with all of your money, you can probably trust them to sponsor an event that'll be worth your time. I think this particular sponsor suits both the event and the demographic of who's attending the event. 

There's no more information on who's sponsoring this event this year, but previous sponsors have included ASDA, P&O Ferries, and JCT600. I will update as soon as more sponsors for the event are announced.

Tribeca Film Festival - Sponsors

Sponsors can play a very important part in events. They can often fund the event in return for certain rights e.g. naming rights, pouring rights etc. so it's important that the event has sponsors that are a good brand fit. 

Tribeca Film Festival has a lot of sponsors, but its 'presenting sponsor' is AT&T. They are a worldwide telecommunications corporation who supply wired and wireless connection, phone networks, broadband, and more. The Tribeca Film Festival logo will always be found to include the 'Presented By AT&T' because they have naming rights of the event. This means that throughout the venue and Tribeca attendees will see this brand name all over the event, which can only bring good to AT&T.

I think AT&T is a really good fit for the event. The company is the second largest phone network in America, so out of the 400,000+ attendance, a large group of these people will recognise the company as a brand they can trust, so will, therefore, have trust in the event because AT&T wouldn't invest their money into an event that isn't any good. 

Here, Tribeca Film Festival explains the opportunities that companies are given when they sponsor their event. These include sponsorship of film programs and special events, customised programs tailored for specific brand objectives, hospitality packages and more. Tribeca makes it clear to potential sponsors what they'll get out of sponsoring their event. They also try to persuade them further by listing some impressive statistics about the event, including how it attracts 400,000+ people annually and how it had nearly 400 screenings and over 100 parties and events in 2014, further showing the potential sponsors how well promoted their brand will be over the course of the festival.

In terms of demographics, as AT&T provides network to phones, TV's, computers and more, a lot of people are going to have heard of it, especially in the U.S. where the company is based. In 2016, it would be strange to be over the age of 18 and not have a phone of some sort, no matter your age, or at least Internet on a computer, so most people will need a network provider. AT&T is a service that anyone from any demographic could utilise, making it a great sponsor for the Tribeca Film Festival because arts and cinema can be enjoyed by all demographics too because it's so broad and diverse. The sponsor and the event have the same sort of background of bringing and connecting people together, so overall I must say that AT&T is a perfect fit for the Tribeca Film Festival.

Aside from the presenting sponsor, the festival also has 25 signature sponsors, 6 industry sponsors, and 2 industry event sponsors, so they have a lot of support from lots of well known brands, like Chanel, Samsung, and Dolby. For the full list of Tribeca Film Festival sponsors, click here.

Tour de Yorkshire - Advertising

I must admit that Tour de Yorkshire's advertising campaigns have been difficult to track down. The event is on a much smaller scale than Tribeca Film Festival - by this, I mean that this year will only be its second year, and the event doesn't exactly attract A-list celebrities. I have found some promotional materials, but the fact that I can't find lots of solid examples of Tour de Yorkshire promoting themselves through advertisement could mean that they're only advertising locally, or they will maybe increase their efforts closer to the event.

I found 3 clips online relevant to the event - this is the first:

This is a promotional advert for Yorkshire itself. I believe it came out at the time of Tour de France when it started in Yorkshire in 2014, but Tour de Yorkshire have included a link to it on their website. The clip connotes Yorkshire with fun, happiness, love, and family, so it makes sense for Tour de Yorkshire to use it to promote the county their event is being held in.

This is a more educational clip to inform viewers of the route. I included it as an advertisement because I found the clip of Tour de France's YouTube page. This would mean that Tour de Yorkshire is working alongside Tour de France to bring the event to a wider audience. 

This video was uploaded by TV Yorkshire, doing exactly what is says in the title - telling the viewer everything they need to know about the event. The placement of the video on a YouTube channel like TV Yorkshire acts as a promotional slot for the event. In terms of moving image advertising, this is all I can find. With 12 days until the event I thought I'd find more clips and adverts promoting the event. 

Yorkshire has been preparing for the event by painting bikes yellow and placing them around the route the cyclists will be taking. While this isn't a specific advertising campaign by the event planners, the yellow bikes made national news, bringing awareness to the event. Yorkshire's community is coming together to paint the county blue and yellow - the colours of the event. Here you can find children painting bikes, and here you can read about Scarborough train station turning blue and yellow for the event. This is free promotion for the event because the community is doing all the work! The yellow bikes first made an appearance in 2014 when the Tour de France started in Yorkshire, so they've become a tradition now. The bikes and the colours have become a symbol for the event, and I believe that the event should be encouraging this more so that the event itself becomes as popular as Tour de France.

I haven't been able to find any print advertisements for the event. I've got friends in Yorkshire who are on the lookout, but as of yet I've not been able to find anything on the Internet/social media. This is a far cry from Tribeca Film Festival, whose advertising campaigns were all over Instagram and Google Images. I hope to be able to find some form of print advertisement or posters between now and the event, of which I'll post if I come across any. There's obviously a great difference between Tour de Yorkshire and Tribeca Film Festival's advertising techniques, and this may just come down to the fact that Tribeca Film Festival is more well known worldwide than Tour de Yorkshire. However, I do still believe that Tour de Yorkshire is slacking in terms of TV adverts. There's no official advert for the event yet, something I think they should've done by now. Overall, I do think Tribeca Film Festival's advertising attempts have been a bit higher than Tour de Yorkshire's, but they've still got the time to push some advertising before the event!