New Event Trends as a Tool of Digital Marketing Communication

Introduction

Nowadays, where changes and developments are an inevitable necessity, even people at the back of beyond can be aware of all developments thanks to the transformation of communication channels with the internet. The increasing complexity of consumers, the dynamic nature of the market, broad marketing communication tools, and the consistency and reliability of messages first of all required companies to turn to the digital marketing communication approach in the face of achieving competitive clarity towards the target audience (Kehinde, 2009: 204). The main reasons for businesses turning to digital marketing communication and gaining importance of this type of communication in today's competition are seen as the decrease in the power of mass marketing and mass communication, the increase in advertising costs, the inability to create messages that will affect consumer behavior and the difficulties in conveying them (Bozkurt, 2002: 139).

With the increase in digital environments and thus the developments in communication technologies, changes in marketing communication are also occurring. Today, thanks to digital media, marketers can create close ties with consumers by implementing effective communication activities. In this way, businesses can affect consumers’ purchasing orientation with the content they offer to consumers (Çelik, 2014: 29). Apart from that, reaching the target market, obtaining the optimum mix of digital communication elements, creating consistent brand messages from digital channels and helping communication marketers can be realized more easily through this communication type. (Valos et. al., 2016: 22) The diversity of growth and technology has also brought extraordinary opportunities to event applications. As a matter of fact, the importance of event applications in digital marketing communication is increasing day by day and for this reason, it has been used more frequently.

Event can be defined as all activities carried out at a specific place and time where a message is conveyed to the target audience or their attitudes and behaviors are tried to be changed on a particular subject. (Eckerstein, 2002). Event marketing is the process of creating a marketing mix to achieve organizational goals by creating value for employees and customers. Event marketing is a tool that exists to create an emotional and rational holistic experience that focuses on consumer experiences (Schmitt, 1999). Event marketing helps the consumer and the brand come together actively. Event marketing are activities such as public sporting events, public fairs (e.g. garden show), association events and franchise organizations to persuade participants with active participation. (Tinnish and Mangal, 2012: 233). The fundamental aims of event marketing are to market the event without making people noticeable to them when they are resting and having fun and ensuring that they participate in the events again and again with their experience and satisfaction from this experience. Marketers look for ways to give messages and experience without consumer noticing the messages, instead of squeezing customers by sending them a message bombardment, as traditional marketing does. Therefore, event marketing has been a marketing strategy that businesses use a lot. Meeting the expectations of those who want to enjoy the event, especially by creating free time, and even providing them with an unforgettable experience, making them loyal participants towards the event has become the main goal of event marketing (Yürük,2015:40). Event marketing in the digital environment has an important contribution to the creation of positive emotions in the digital environment, the promotion of the event to a wider audience and the attention of the event (Horo, 2015: 54).

In the light of the benefits discussed above, the main purpose of this study is to try to comprehend the new event trends as a digital marketing communication tool. For this purpose, a literature review was made in the study. Accordingly, it can be argued that the new event trends used in digital marketing communications consist of real-time events, social events, storytelling, virtual reality and augmented reality applications, influencers and virtual communities. These trends were examined in detail in the study and evaluated on the basis of efficiency.