Over Memorial Day weekend in 2014, my wife and I went to the Zac Brown Band concert at Hershey Park in Pennsylvania with a few friends. Hershey is a beautiful town, the show was in a lovely venue, and the crowd was a great mix of the American populous. When I walked around and did a bit of people watching, I soon realized that the crowd was a good mix of many diverse groups that could be marketed to at the show without coming off to intrusive:

• Farmers
• Yuppie
• Rednecks
• Typical Middle-Class Family
• Blue Collar Worker
• Pop Music Fan
• meat heads
• intellectuals
• People living within a 50-mile radius of Hershey PA.
• Etc.

As someone who spends a lot of time thinking about marketing, I was interested to see how the venue took advantage of its opportunity to reach out (and profit).

Photos of the Venue

Below are some photos I took of the venue and its advertising opportunities while at the event.  If you are looking for a sales job with big upside, I suggest reaching out to Hershey HR department and pitching a manager.

Here are just a few marketing and advertising ideas I had while enjoying the show:

One of the things that felt odd about the day was the lack of government sponsorship.  This was Memorial Day weekend one of the few times during the year when the public thinks about their government and what it means to be a citizen. This could have been used as a time to ask the citizens to sign up for public service or register to vote. During the downtime between acts, they could have had representatives from State organizations such as the State Parks Department or National Guard speak/educate the public of their needs or services. There were many missed opportunities that would have added to the value of the event and that would have benefited the venue.

Overall, I had a great time and left feeling very positive toward the bands that played and the Hershey brand. I would recommend this venue to anyone and will be back again. But I do recommend that Hershey’s marketing and sales departments consider opening up more ad space. There’s a good amount of money to be made, and people are used to ads in these types of spaces.  I know most people would say they prefer not to be advertised to at an event that they paid to attend, but I don’t think selling the space that I address above would be overbearing.

Being a successful marketer means looking for advertising opportunities wherever you go, understanding who you are marketing to, and thinking outside of the box. You can learn a lot about advertising, even on your days off.