Perfect creation for a win-win situation : Four case studies of corprate events

Abstract: It is becoming increasingly difficult, although very important, for companies to reach out to its customers and differentiate themselves in the market place. The main reason is that the competition is extremely intensified and customers can quite easily switch between suppliers. Focusing on relations is a way for companies to overcome some obstacles of competition that is evident in today’s market place. One way for companies to reach its customers, strengthen the relation, and meet them face-to-face is to create events. How-ever, finding the target group and motivating individuals to attend events is an important issue for the companies arranging events. There has to be a match between what the company arranging the event want to communicate and what the invited individual expects to gain out of attending the event. It is further important to direct the event towards certain individuals and also to make sure that the invited people actually attend the event. The purpose of the thesis is to explore how companies can arrange meaningful events to a targeted audience and examine what factors motivates the individuals to actually attend these events. An inductive approach is mainly used since it allows for flexible structure where empirical data is collected and before applying appropriate theoretical framework. The authors have further chose to collect data in a qualitative manner as this allows for open ended inter-views which can generate in deeper understanding of the reasons for individuals to attend corporate events. The primary data was based on interviews related to four corporate events previously taking place. The authors found that there are numerous reasons for creating corporate events mainly because events are a platform that naturally integrates many marketing activities. When targeting individuals a personal contact can increase the likelihood that the invited people will attend an event. The reason is that through direct communication a person has the opportunity to tailor the invitation by explaining the reasons for why this particular person should find the event important and interesting to attend. Corporate events should offer valuable information for the attendees otherwise there is risk that invited individuals will not attend an event. Individuals attend events for the purpose of interacting with representatives from the arranging company as well as people from other attending companies. It can be concluded that a corporate event should be work related in some how and include new information and/or offer networking possibilities.