Public Notification & Road Closures
Using social media to promote the RWC proved beneficial. The Rugby NZ 2011’s Facebook page generated 1.5 million friends and followers, the REAL New Zealand Festival online marketing campaign accumulated approximately 1,300 Twitter followers and 4,500 tweets. It also had around 11,900 Facebook followers (60% of these were based outside NZ) and nearly 5,800 blog views. TNZ’s social media campaign recorded over 134,000 views on the NZ 100% Pure YouTube channel indicating that the planning involved with social media was a huge success. “The World’s Here to Play” (WHTP) was the theme of Auckland’s Rugby World Cup marketing campaign for residents and visitors. The WHTP campaign was primarily used to notify the public about the RWC and had four key components: to market events and activities such as Opening Night, FanZones and the Fan Trail to ensure that visitors and residents had knowledge of and enjoyed the programme of activity; to keep residents and visitors informed about ways of finding signage through a mobile website and visitor and residents guides; to decorate Auckland with banners, bunting and flags; and to inform both residents and visitors about getting around the city through the use of public transport, how to get to the games and other signage.
To accommodate the crowds gathered at the Viaduct and Queens Wharf on Opening Night, road closures were put in place. These closures affected Quay Street, Lower Albert Street and Lower Queen Street as well as Tyler, Galway, Commerce and Gore Streets, many of them taking effect from 10pm on Thursday 8 September. Road closures surrounding Eden Park stadium were also put in action for the Opening Night and came into effect from 3pm to midnight. Major roads that were closed include Sandringham Rd (between Kenneth Ave and New North Road) from 3pm to midnight and then from 9pm Sandringham Road (between Aroha Ave and Kenneth Ave), New North Road (between Morningside Drive and Porters Ave) and Bond Street was closed until midnight. These road closures were advertised to the public through the WHTP campaign and in a guide for Aucklanders, which was distributed on 26th August, that also included information on key events, transport and information about ‘what’s on’. The police were employed to man these areas where there were road closures and were also involved in assisting with pedestrian flows and illegal parking. The event organisers for the RWC were required to apply to the Auckland Council for road closures at least 8 weeks prior to the event. A temporary signage programme was developed to provide consistent and integrated operational signage to meet the demands of Auckland’s RWC 2011 programme. The programme consisted of three types of signage: directional and site specific signs were used to provide directions along pathways from arrival points to destinations e.g. along the Fan Trail walking route; functional signs were used to describe the instructions, rules and guidelines to abide by in certain places e.g. no smoking, photo identification required for entry; identification signs were used to clearly identify all rooms and spaces to constituent groups e.g. Site Manager’s Office, and waste compound. Overall there were 1,992 signs.
Evaluation:
The planning involved with the Police was successful as their response was good and their presence proved invaluable. New Zealand Police Superintendent Brett England described the crowd as “exemplary” with no serious injuries and no increase in crime or disorder beyond a normal Friday night – an extraordinary achievement in terms of crowd control given the number of people present and lack of space. The guide for Aucklanders and WHTP campaign served its purpose in reassuring people about the city’s preparedness, and proved useful for providing details to help with people’s individual decision-making and planning around events. However, not all research participants recalled seeing campaign communications, some believing that the guide had failed to be delivered to them. Despite this, post event research found there was a general sense that necessary transport and other information was available and people felt that they ‘knew what they needed to know’. The size of the WHTP campaign was unprecedented and the numerous media outlets meant that a large team was required to manage it. It also became clear that work around the marketing campaign should have started significantly earlier (at least a year in advance) to allow sufficient time for planning, selection and set up with advertising and production agencies and for managing delivery methods for the campaign. The late start to the campaign added extra pressure to the marketing team, this added room for potential error and little time to review work. |
Improvements:
An improvement for the future could be for the campaign to start earlier (at least a year prior to the event) as this would allow for the highest quality of work to be achieved and relieve the stress of workers. |