Steven Johnson, vice president of marketing for Union Board, said all of the committees have united to increase student awareness of the event.
Union Board has been advertising during its other events, including setting up information tables and using on-screen advertisements before its weekly movie in Whittenberger ?Auditorium, he said.
“We have done a board-wide effort to table to get physical, kind of person-to-person contact,” ?Johnson said.
Union Board also launched a contest on Twitter, #LetsGetWeird, to ?promote the show.
Participants who tweet with the hashtag will be entered to win two free tickets to the show, which are normally $22.50 to ?$32.50 for students.
The contest ends Feb. 18, one week before the event.
Johnson said promoting the event on social media allows for a more organic form of advertising and caters to a specific audience of DeVine’s fans.
“Basically, it focuses on that group we really want to hit, which is people who know about Adam DeVine,” he said.
Union Board is shooting for at least 2,000 tickets sold, Johnson said. They would break even at ?1,900 tickets sold.
“We want all of our big shows like this to at least break even, if possible,” said Union Board Vice President of Finance ?Adam Fialkowski.
Johnson said he would ideally like to see ?2,800 tickets sold.
The collaborative marketing efforts of the entire Board are necessary in meeting its goal, ?Johnson said.
“We made it clear to the Board that if you want a budget to program your own events, you have to help market Adam DeVine,” ?he said.
The Board entered the semester with some deficit from previous events and hopes DeVine’s show will help balance them out, Johnson said.
“A lot of events went over in their expenses, so that cut into our rollover budget,” Johnson said. “Adam DeVine is how we’re going to recoup that.”
Many of the larger events planned by Union Board have “frozen funds” programmed into the budget, Johnson said.
Frozen funds are used to compensate if the event did not break even.
Johnson said the use of these funds would leave less money to go back into the budget, and the Board would have to shift into “passive programming,” events that do not cost the Board money to host.
There is no certainty as to how successful the event will be, but Fialkowski ?is optimistic.
“As with any big show, there is risk involved,” he said.
“Some shows do better than others, and we certainly think that this one is one that can do very well if we market it correctly.”
While their efforts are focused on promoting DeVine’s performance now, Johnson said this would make way for stronger advertising efforts ?in the future.
“Adam DeVine just happens to be the event that the whole Board can get practice uniting behind,” he said.
“Now the Board knows what it takes to market every event like this.”
