THE EVENT
VENUE LOCATION
Canadian University Dubai is located in the heart of Dubai. We believed that it was the best place where to host our event; in particular, in the Red Theatre because it would look more professional. In order to book the theatre, we communicated with the CUD event management department and filled up the documents for the booking.
In the papers, we had to include the purpose of the event and all the details of what we needed (photography, videography, microphones, chairs, tables, lights, etc.).
For the approval of all these documents, the group had to go to the chairman and the dean of the communication department in Canadian University Dubai to explain the event and how it will take place.
At the beginning, we considered to host the event outside; however, since the event will take place in winter, specifically in November, we did not want to cancel it in case of bad weather.
For our design, we have chosen to use a backdrop that we will place in the entrance of our university, so as soon as our influencers and our guests will step inside the university the eye catching will the backdrop outlining the event theme.
The white backdrop also included not only the logo of the event,but also the logos of the sponsors.
Secondly, we decided to put the red carpet to make our event look more royal and unique and to show our guests that they are warmly welcomed. The carpet will be centralized from the backdrop to the main entrance of the theatre. We have used bakhoor, which it is frequently used in Arabic society and in different types of occasions, in particular special events. It is often associated with its ability to bring calmness, and it will leave the rich smell all around the university, so that all our influencers and guests will enjoy the aroma.
For the food that was bought by our sponsors “Nice” and “Wow” we decided to have a white table covers to highlight their colorful design. We have set the tables near the entrance of the theatre, so our influencers and the students that support our event can enjoy the food and sweets after the end of an event.
On the stage, there will be six chairs positioned in the center on the stage in order to show our influencers at the best light. We also used a glass table to place water and a flower composition by our sponsor “Bliss”. At the end of the event, we will welcome Dr. Ghada Abaido, supervisor of the event, to thank our influencers with university certificates and flower bouquets offered by our sponsor.
PROMOTION
During the Pre-Event stage, we decided to use:
-
Instagram (Appendix 6):Posts of the event will be published to grab attention of the viewers, either actual students of the university or externals follow the Canadian University Dubai account and are interested in the university itself. This will help attract an even bigger audience to the event.
-
CUD Website (Appendix 7): information and posters will be published about the event on the website to attract bigger audience, including potential students through the promotion of student activities on campus. Such events, which are being prepared by students themselves, will encourage people to choose CUD as it promotes and supports student creativity and ambitions as well as for future visions.
-
SMS & Email (Appendix 8):an invitation will be sent to professors and students as a reminder of the event taking place, and a special invitation will also be sent to our influencers providing them with details on the event.
-
Digital Screens (Appendix 4): information about the event will be published all around university on digital screens.
-
Influencers (Appendix 6): the invited influencers will also announce on their social accounts that they are going to attend the event with the assigned hashtag. This will help attract external audiences to our campus and mainly to our event.
During and after the event we will be using:
-
Photography & Videography (Appendix 9):while the event is taking place and is in action, photography and videography of the event will be rolling the whole time to capture and keep in memory the event and its special moments, such as the discussion with the influencers, our team work, how the event is taking place, how it started till how it ended. Everything will be documented on video and images.
Social Media (Appendix 10): These pictures and videos will be posted on the universities social media to show how students apply their knowledge gained in classes, as well as for showing and promoting the university’s vision that supports student ambition and hard work and effort.
BUDGET PLAN
The budget plan includes the catering (food and beverages) that are offered by our sponsors Wow! Sweets and Nice.ae. On the other hand, Bliss Flowers offers 6 bouquets of flowers for the influencers and two flower arrangements to put on the tables in the Red Theatre (one on the stage, two for the audience).Moreover, since our event is related to beauty, we decided to offer a make-up session by Riham Omar, an alumna of Canadian University Dubai and a beauty enthusiast. Riham (riribeauty) is our sponsor for the make-up session.
Furthermore, our five influencers accepted our invitation to attend the event for free in order to promote their own images, but also to help us raising awareness about the importance of the influencers’ role in society.
Finally, we also decided to have a backdrop for the event where the audience can take pictures and share them on social media with our hashtag. On the backdrop, there is printed the logo of the event, together with the logo of the universities and of our four sponsors.
LIMITATIONS
The event had two mainly limitations: the low budget and the number of participants at the event.
In order to succeed with the event and overcome our limitation of the low-budget available, we decided to have some sponsors that could provide food and flowers; whereas, the university offered the beverages.
Furthermore, the number of participants at the event was another limitation due to the timing of the discussion panel. In fact, from 3 to 6, many students have classes; therefore, it was not easy to promote the event.
POST-EVALUTATION
Overall, the campaign was a success. The event met our goals and expectations due to the hard work of the whole group. We did not find any inconvenience during the event; in fact, we overcame our limitations and threats in a successful way by promoting the event by word of mouth to professors and students that were in the campus during the day of the event. The sponsors and the influencers were on time and everything was perfectly ready as planned.
The feedbacks (Appendix 10) form the students, the influencers and the sponsors were positive on the social media. We were able to discuss about the main topics of the discussion, how social media influencers affect consumer behavior, and through this discussion, influencers themselves as well as students admitted to had learned new concepts related to the importance of the role of influencers in the marketing.
This event resulted a success not only among communication students, but many business students attended the event willing to learn how the business in changing due to the presence of influencer on social media.
Approval from the Event Management department in CUD.
Approval from the Marketing department in CUD.
Scenes from the Event
