Comparing the effectiveness of the two websites, and their online presence.

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The two websites have very different intentions.

 For the travel show there is a clear singular aim which is to gain attendance to the show itself. As for the Florence and the machines site, it is a different case altogether.

The TNT travel show is an event that happens once year and the webpage’s sole purpose is for that event however, with F&TM the website is a general source for everything regarding Flo. This includes her tour dates and information about the specific events such as Alexandra Palace, but as the tickets were already expected to sell out it was thought unnecessary to have a specific website dedicated to each event with information specifically about the world tour.

Both of these events need to use different ways to promote there event which leads me to talk about the communication process, when getting the promotional message across.

The communication process/Schramm

 [Source: A linear model of communication Fill C, Marketing Communications, contexts, contents and strategies, Prentice Hall, 1999, p24]

 The first part is the source; In the case of the Travel show it is the company providing the event which is TNT and in Florence and the machines case it is them as they are the ‘product’.

Encoding is all about how the message is delivered; for example if it was an TV advertisement, there would be a different angle used when selling a skin cream to selling car insurance.

It is the same with these two events. As The Travel show is attracting those who are thinking of going on holiday as well as company’s who want to place stands at the event, there website is very professional in its appearance but also uses colours that relate to fond memories of sunshine and blue skies.

In complete contrast to Florence’s website is a place for her fans to find out more about all the aspects of her tour, her music and latest news. Therefore for the site the design is artistic as it is promotion for an artist and also almost looks as though it reflects Florence’s image with the colours used and the style the pages are laid out in.

However the message given, which is arguably the most important point; For Flo’s website which promotes the tour I feel is not as clear as the basic approach of TNT’s.

Arguably it was not important for there to be a huge promotional campaign about the tour because the tickets sold out without this, however I think it could have been a beneficial to have a specific separate website for all the tickets and information about the tour rather than it being a page on Florence’s main website.

I think looking through the information on the webpage there just isn’t enough information about the tour as it simply gives a venue and a date. There could have also been better utilisation of the information they have, and set up better links to buying official tickets as I often found myself on sites re-selling tickets when looking for the official ones.

Going back to the point I made about there not being enough information, I had to use other websites to find out who would be the supporting acts for the tour and a few said three different artists which were not correct.

When I finally found it on the official site I thought to myself no one else is going to want to look this hard to see who is supporting, why is this information not clearly advertised?

Then there is the receiver, this is the part where it shows whether the right media choice has been made and how effective the encoding was as to whether the message reaches the target market it needs to reach; Florence and machines website is an easy example of this. They never really needed to worry about the website flashing up to their target market as it is the fans that will search for it.

TNT however have a harder task, but by optimising their presence when searching the web it makes the page easier to find and also subscriber’s to the TNT magazine may be pulled in and look at the travel show as it is advertised across their website.

As for Secondary statistics, looking at the stats of Flo’s official Facebook group there is a whopping 2,443,836 likes and a further 55,018 talking about her.

Whereas TNT Travel show is not as much about their online presence and there show is listed as a Facebook event with 241 people attending Earls Court Travel show.