How NOS ALIVE is Branding Portugal?

infocul.pt

So we are getting again to the festival cycle. I want to start this paper saying that as a music and marketing passionate it was a pleasure doing my master thesis research at NOS Alive last year. I used to call this exercise as “the best thesis in the world”, for me of course.

Traditionally companies and cities organize events to withdraw economic benefits, and many times, we see them falling as quickly as they are build. An event or festival should be perfectly aligned with the ambience that surrounds it. They can bring more than economic benefits, they can be used to brand and to improve destination image. NOS Alive is one perfect example on how things are done, but we will get there.

So in my pursuit of the best thesis in the world I collected more or less 400 answers in 3 days from people attending the festival, which allowed me to corroborate my investigation model.

To make things interesting, I purpose to study the mental journey of the NOS Alive participant, from the moment he hears about the festival, the experience itself and the moment before he returns to his country. In order to do that I built a model, having the consumer based brand equity of the event (Divided in Brand Salience, Perceived Quality, Brand Image and Brad Loyalty) in the middle of the investigation, with its antecedents (event image, experience and satisfaction) and its consequents (destination image, intention to revisit and recommend the country)

Therefore, my study gave some insights on how to engage an event with the city or country, depending on the size of the festival. An event like NOS Alive planed in detail for their audience has the power to promote itself and the destination, this case being Portugal. It can be a tool to promote, position and shape the image of a country.

For all the event planners a word of advice: Forge a personalized path for your audience and give them the opportunity to absorb everything the event has to offer, this way you are giving them a vehicle for them to do the mental connections between the event and the destination.

In my many adventures talking to participants of NOS Alive I was often surprised, I met people from literally all around the globe, they told me that the reason they are in Portugal is just because of the festival, but after that they would stay a bit longer.

This study showed that events can be a solid alternative for a sustainable tourism, the event planner and the destination accountable have to be aligned in order to maximize the journey of the participants. As a rule, tourists have stereotyped images of the different destinations they know. Most destinations are sold in the same way, and their image revolves around the same icons, such as nature and the sun, sea and beach. Messages tend to be generic. NOS ALIVE is providing a new way of doing it, they focus in the experience of the tourist and the outcome is:

The destination to be perceive as desired and irresistible!

I will release the final version of my paper to share with you my conclusions!

Vítor Hugo Marin Roque

Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft

https://www.linkedin.com/in/vhmarinroque/

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