by MICHELLE SPRINGER

THEY SIZZLED, rocked and bombarded the airwaves throughout the entire Crop-Over Festival and were in their own rights "hits" of the six-week summer season.

With 51 fêtes – up from 40 last year – competition was tight for "coppers" from prospective fêters.

Promoters, therefore, had to seek innovative strategies to woo patrons.

And it all boiled down to marketing.

Joel "Signal" Morris, head of Trinidadian-based Noise Productions Limited, the brain behind the Wet Fête franchise of parties, said a good marketing and advertising strategy is vital to holding such an event.

"We did about ten different jingles alone for the fête. Our advertising budget [including adverts in the print media] could easily have crossed BDS$100 000," he said.

Morris, who is the creative director of the team that oversees event planning, marketing, production and promotion services, said devising ideas for the jingles called for in-depth preparation.

"I do a lot of research around the events and this process is the most time-consuming. After that, it depends on whether the ideas flow freely or not.

Characters

"If they do, I can write the script in one night and the following day go into production," he said.

"Sometimes I try to incorporate characters that are familiar, such as The Flintstones, and fun-like."

Morris said the event targeted multiple age markets, and the political Barack Obama theme appealed to a more mature audience.

Although less sophisticated, Wadadah's jingles were appealing, largely due to the popular personalities who voiced the adds.

Additionally, Wadadah, like the now defunct Paling, has been an institution in Crop-Over for decades and already had a staunch following.

The group staged five weekly Wednesday night theme fêtes during the Crop-Over period in addition to their Foreday Morning fête.

"We try to come up with different themes, so there would be no repetition in the market," said spokesman Ryan Walters.

For each theme party Wadadah chose the voice that would best portray the atmosphere it was trying to capture.

"For our VIP fête we went with Wayne "Cool" Simmons because he has that nice voice that says 'elegant', and for out Back-to-School fête we had Li'l Rick to voice it as we tried to create a 'bashy' kind of event," said Walters.

Jingles

"We give the [deejays or talent] the information on the ad and they basically come up with the script," he added, highlighting that in so doing Wadadah circumvented the step traditionally filled by advertisers.

They worked with an estimated marketing budget of $70 000 – a cost offset by sponsors this year: 500 jingles and 16 half-hour programmes on popular radio stations.

Richard Haynes explained that working with jingles as opposed to print ads was preferential for events put on by Baje International masquerade band and South Central event planners and artiste management company.

"The message and medium of the radio are tailored for my niche market. We save some $9 000," he said.

While expenditure for marketing is steep, Morris noted, there is no guarantee of a generous profit margin.

"The returns are minimal or zero," he laughed. "[Nevertheless] we continue to invest in our product.

"We're confident that in the future we could establish a Caribbean product that we could market to the international world."

Global inflation impacted on the marketing campaign of at least one of the major events for the festival, the 10-To-10 fête.

"This year was a bit different in that Crop-Over followed after the oil hikes and an increase in the cost of living," said Al Gilkes of FAS Entertainment, co-promoter of the event.

Before the marketing plan was implemented, the stakeholders conducted a survey.

"It was to determine how the average party- goer would respond to the fêtes, given the increase of expenses in food, gas and so on," he explained, adding the increase in the number of parties was an important determining factor for consumers.

Subsequently, print ads were run in black and white as opposed to colour, more early bird tickets at reduced cost were available for clients, and one radio station was targeted.

Gilkes added that a significant reduction in sponsorship was another reason for the more frugal marketing campaign for the event. (MS)