Thedailytitan

Daily Titan California State University, Fullerton

DAILY TITAN’S HALLOW’S EVE FESTIVAL

The DAILY TITAN

at the

ad u Q l a r t n e C Best Event Plan/Promotion

Daily Titan California State University, Fullerton

Hallow’s Eve Festival The Daily Titan held its annual Hallow’s Eve festival in the Fall of 2013. The Hallow’s Eve festival was created to promote the Daily Titan’s awareness on campus and to allow our clients a unique opportunity to reach our students in person, which no other event or contest could offer. The festival allowed several clients to come to our campus and set up their booth in our central quad from 11am - 1pm on October 31, 2013. Our goal was to create more of a presence on campus and to sell as many booths as we could. We had clients ranging from Subway to a housing complex to local juice bar giving away free food samples and promoting their businesses. We also had a Cal State Fullerton pop/folk band play live at our event. The band was a huge hit!

Students came up to the band to ask them who they were and asked if they’d be playing elsewhere. During the event, we were raffling off prizes that ranged from Universal Studios Tickets to Angel’s baseball tickets to free pizza vouchers. To enter the contest, we gave our attendees raffle tickets and as long as they had stayed there until the end, they could pick up their prize. This was an incentive for our students to stay for the entire duration of the event and it worked wonderfully.

Promoting the Hallow’s Eve was different than promoting a contest or giveaway. The hype had to be much more exciting because this was the biggest event of the semester the Daily Titan offered to the students.

We wanted to brand ourselves to those students who didn’t yet know who we were and that we aren’t just the university paper, but the student voice of Cal State Fullerton and an organization that wants to bring the community together. Promoting this event well in advance would contribute to the success of this event. We did so by promoting this event through fliers, the essential utilization of social media, and placing print ads in our daily paper. We had fliers we passed out to students at our annual club drive, Discoverfest, towards the beginning of the semester. This flier was one of a many things the Daily Titan promoted at Discoverfest. With the ever-increasing use of social media, Facebook and Twitter immensely boosted our audience. We created a flier that we posted onto our social media platforms so people could simply share the photo to promote

Daily Titan California State University, Fullerton

their excitement for the event rather than sharing a densely worded post. Print ads were also a medium we utilized in promoting the Hallow’s Eve festival. The audience we reached with social media may have differed from the audience we would reach with our newspaper itself. We wanted to make sure we reached as many people as possible so print ads were just as important as any other platform.

Promoting the event itself was a challenge in the fact that we were promoting free food and free music, but students wanted to know what kind of food vendors would be served and what kind of music would be playing. Until the date came closer, we were just promoting the mere fact that there would be free food and music. But once clients began purchasing booths, we had put together an online flier promoting the event and all its clients that would be attending. We also promoted the bands website to get the students excited to see the band in person, posting a few songs by the band. The clients arrived on time and were all given free parking passes for the day, courtesy of the Daily Titan. Given the day and time and our audience, we were not worried about attendance at the event. We ended up having nearly 2,000 students show up during the event.

The Daily Titan’s Hallow’s Eve festival was a tremendous success. Not only did we receive positive feedback from the students but the clients had great reviews of the festival as well. We raised our Facebook likes number and gained more followers on Twitter after the event. Other on-campus groups and organizations also promoted us, from our Titan Pride Center to our clients themselves. We definitely made a larger presence on campus. Those who passed by the event stopped by because the lines for the clients drew them in. The Daily Titan earned $1,200 from the clients buying booths. By continuing this semesterly event, we will gain a broader and larger audience as time goes on.

Daily Titan California State University, Fullerton

Schedule

8am - 10am: Begin setting up chairs and tables in main quad 10am - 11am: Help clients set up booths 11am: Welcome students and clients to event on stage 11am - 1pm: Give away prizes every so often 12pm: Band begins to play 1pm: Event clean-up

Daily Titan California State University, Fullerton

ADVERTISEMENTS USED This Halloween

CSUF

is your Business’ Hallow-Scene!

October 31, 2013 11am~1pm central quad $150 Participation Fee =

Access to 2,500+ Students Table in our Main Quad in the HEART of CSUF Costume Contest Live Music

DAILY

(top left) Promotional Facebook post (top right) Promotional Flyer (bottom left) Facebook Cover Photo (bottom right) Promotional ad in Coupon Book

TITAN