Event Planning and Marketing at PMU

Introduction
Our event company is called – “In-EVENT-tation” which is a play on the word – invitation.
Our company’s expertise is in the modern day and creative events area, where we bring
innovative themes to life for our client’s idea no matter how outrageous or un-heard of they
may seem. We aim to work with our client’s preferences and execute flaw-less events
ensuring their needs are met and are delivered within their budget ranges. Through our time
we have delivered large-scale organizational events and also intimate gatherings. Our
company takes pride in personalization and professionalism in our dealings with all our
clients.
Our event idea pitch for Prince Mohammad Bin Fahad University is an event titled – “Stress-
less for Success” – the concept behind the event is that university students often deal with a
lot of stress in their lives – be it due to academic pressures and managing their touch study
schedules with personal commitments. Thus, it can be a good idea for university
administration to assist students with their stressful routine by giving them a day to set-back
and relax and learn how they can sustain and implement a stress-less routine within their day
to day lives. The event will also help bring together staff and students for a day of fun and
relaxation – outside from their roles and responsibilities.
The first step of the marketing plan will be to begin preparing for the event by looking at the
following questions:
1. Where is the event?
2. When will it be held?
3. What will it be called?
4. Who will be attending?
5. What is the budget?
As mentioned above, our event will be titled “De-stress for Success” as per the theme. It will
be held in the PMU campus as there will not be any extra incurred rent charges for that venue
and it will be most convenient in term of accessibility for all attending guests like students
and university staff.
The purpose will be to bring together students from all departments and university staff like
faculty for a day full of activities revolved around how to manage stress and practice
mindfulness in day to day busy schedules. Thus, they will be our target market – it will also
be a good opportunity to give students a chance to socialize among each other and with
respective faculty and to also bring together students from different departments and different
years who may not get a chance to interact in their regular returns. Following, the budget
needs to be allocated as per the university’s budget and this will be decided after meetings.
It will be important before the details and elements of the event are finalized – that our team
meets with the key players from PMU to discuss and incorporate any input the may have for
us. These players will be for example – co-curricular activities head, admin team, security
team, student representatives etc. who will provide their input as per the budget of the event,
activities of the day, elements of the theme to be added across the day in the activities and use
their input to then visit the campus and begin to visualize how the elements will come
together and what activities will take place where on campus
Once these details are decided, it will be necessary to bring together all these details together
so our team can effectively start planning and delivering on the events deliverable ahead of
time. For this our team plans to use a tracking tool – so different members of the team, each
of which will have differently delegated responsibilities can be efficiently coordinate with
each through the event planning and mark of deadlines and deliverables that are due. An
example of a tracking tool and timeline template is show below.
Our project plan will include the following details-
• Key tasks.
• Key dates and deadlines.
• Timelines.
• Status of the activity.
• Who is responsible for the task?
• A comment section
University representatives will help us form Key Performance
Indicators (KPI) that will help us measure the success of the event
before and after execution of the event. KPI’s are highly
customizable and based on the choice of those who set it – for
example, in this case, the university admin may decide that number of
students attending is a KPI such that high attendance will show
success of the event.
Agenda – Once initial meetings are doing with representatives and
stakeholders from the company it will be essential to draft an agenda
with the exact kind of activities and time and place for each of those
activities to be set after initial drafts of agenda is set and then
approved by the university.
Our company team and the stakeholders from the company must
work together to assess what are the goals of the event and what they
are looking to achieve and deliver to the attendees. This will help our
teams deliver on the event.
When deciding the activities we believe it is important to hear from
the target audience – primarily the students, which is why we will ask
the university to circulate an online survey among their students and
ask them various questions based on stress that they experience in
their day to day routines. We will also want to get their input on what
measures they take in their personal life to manage stress and also
what activities or hobbies they part take in that helps that alleviate
through stressful times or to find an escape from their regular
routines.
It might also be interesting to ask about their day to day routines and
receive more details about their day to day behaviour to assess
emotional drivers of our audience and ask the following questions
for example in the survey –
• Where do they hang out?
• Where do they shop?
• What do they read and how do they read it?
• What do they watch and how do they watch it?
• What do they listen to and on what platform do they listen?
• How do they get to work (car, bus, train, walk, cycle)?

Once the target audience of the event has been set and researched upon. Specific goals must
be set as to what the event is trying to achieve. Goals should follows the SMART framework.
That is, any set goal must be:
1. Specific
2. Measurable
3. Achievable
4. Realistic
5. Timely
If clear goals are not set for any event – it can get confusing early on as to what direction the
event planning should go into. In this case, maybe the university wants to equip students will
certain tools and techniques to manage their stress which can be assessed through a survey
conducted among students before and after to compare results quantitatively. For e.g – after
the event, at least 25% of the attending student body should feel more equipped to deal with
stress in their lives.
Marketing Content – We will then design content for marketing to the target audience
before, during and after the event. We will use an integrated marketing campaign to combine
online and offline mediums. We plan to make use of the following marketing content:
 1. Facebook event page – to post details of the event. This can also help to track those
students who are attending and reach out to those who do not confirm attendance
ahead of time.
2. Posters – Creative posters across all platforms
3. Digital Invites – to be emailed to all attending students and faculty
4. Physical posters – across the campus
5. Campus Newsletter – to post about the event in summary once executed
6. University newspaper – to create hype before the event
7. Pre-hype competitions – make
students guess the theme and award
prizes to create hype
8. Student representatives – to
encourage attendance of the
campaign

Partnerships – Create meaningful

campaigns with vendors and other brands
to sponsor the event to reduce costs.
Sponsors may be monetary – which involve
cash sponsorship which our company can
use to finance the events costs or non-
monetary. For example distributing
products of a brand. These partnerships are
typically done with the intention of brands
to gain marketing or other incentives.
We can incentivize these brands with space
to market their brands to the student bodies
by especially reaching out to brands whose
target market is the young adult age group.
We can offer brands a workshop,
presentation space, or event research opportunities to circulate any surveys from our student
body for feedback purposes or even opportunities to conduct product testing or a focus group
among our student body. Below are some visualizations of how brands can conduct rand
activations on campuses.
Activity ideas – Following are a list of activities we plan to propose to the university.
1. Yoga session – any image of stress-relief is related with yoga. It is a practice that
instil values of breaking away from stress and practicing peace. We can partner with
local yoga studio or any local yoga instructor to come in to do this session.

2. Aroma Therapy – We plan to bring in an expert in aroma-therapy. Students will

have the change to smell through different sorts of scents and understand both
theoretically and practically how scents impact the human mind and body and can be
a major source or relief from stress.

3. A session
on
mindfulness – We plan to connect student body and faculty to an expert to teach
them the science of mindfulness and introduce and practice with them various
activities on mindfulness which can help them ease on out stressful days.
4. Music Meditation – This is also a concept to practice stress-relief. We will conduct a
practical workshop with students and a session host on how different types of music
and alleviate your moods.

5. Comedy Session – We will ideally like to partner with Saudi comedians and let them
host a session during this day.
6. Musical Open Night – During this session, the floor will open up to students and
faculty who can take chances to sing to the crowd, do karaoke or play any instruments
they know.

7. Art Therapy – Through this session, students will be introduced to an interesting

concept of art therapy through painting.
 8. Dance/Movement Therapy – A dance therapy session to connect students with the
idea that how certain movement can alleviate stress from the body.

9. Closing Bonfire/Dinner – The day will close with an early catered dinner and a
bonfire on campus where students will get the chance to share their thoughts on the
day and feedback on which sessions they enjoyed the most with closing words from
the university faculty and chair.

Before the event

Keep up with all team deadlines and vendors deliverables. Show samples of vendor work and
any visuals being designed for flyers etc to university representatives through out to
incorporate their feedback and make changes accordingly.
Conduct a pre-event assessment of the event to see who is responding to the event and who is
not and take in those insights to see how you can increase attraction of the events to all those
attending and make changed beforehand.
On the Day
We plan to have student volunteers from the campus to assist us through the different
activities and different places on campus where the activities will be held. All attendees will
be given out printed agenda of the day with place and time of each activity so they know
exactly where they must be at what time to keep coordination. Meanwhile, our team will
constantly be coordinating with all brand and food vendors who must arrive on time to their
location on campus, keep in check their security clearance and double-check if they have all
the equipment needed for the day. We will also keep check on the photography team who
will capture the event.
Use social media hashtags to celebrate the day and popularize it across the area.
After the Day
Send out thankyou emails to the attendees and university heads and administration for their
cooperation. Set up follow up meetings with them to take insight from our clients – the
university coordinators and admin on how they liked the event, their insights from student
feedback of the event and what could have been improved. This will be important to maintain
long term relationships with our clients.