THE EVENT
Jamie Oliver, better known to the public as "The Naked Chef", is the number one chef in
England. He began his cooking career at the age of nine along side his father, who owns
a restaurant near Cambridge, England. Jamie later moved on to work at one of London's
most famous restaurants, The River Caf�. It was while working at the River Caf� that a
British television station aired a special about the celebrated restaurant, that the BBC
approached Jamie to do his own cooking show on the network. The Naked Chef was
born. The name sums up the entire concept behind Jamie's cooking, as he put it himself,
"It's basically stripping back to the bare essentials."
With the recognition and success of his television show Jamie landed a publishing deal,
which had been a dream of his ever since leaving Cambridge for London. By the time he
was 17 Jamie's first cookbook was published. At age 25, he now has three books on the
market and a CD with "music to cook by" (various artists), along side his cooking show
being shown across the world. In New York, you can catch his show on the Food
Network.
On February 15th, at 7:30pm, Jamie Oliver came to Barnes and Noble in Union Square to
promote and sign his first book which has just been released here in the U.S. and to tell
his story of success. When we got to the event, which was being held on the top floor,
about 15 minutes early, it was already quite crowded. However, we were able to locate a
few seats in the middle, so we sat down and started looking around at the audience.
THE AUDIENCE
TRAFFIC/LAYOUT
SUCCESS
POST-EVENT PUBLICITY
There were mainly women between the ages of 25 to 45 with the occasional men
scattered throughout the room. It seemed as though the crowd was mainly made up of
people with avid interest in cooking, and interest in books. But then, somewhat
surprisingly, there were several small groups of giggling girls who seemed to only be
interested in the cute and charming Jamie Oliver.
Barnes and Noble took out advertisements in the New York Times and Time Out New
York listing the events that was upcoming in throughout their stores citywide. When we
first walked into the store we also noticed that there were posters displayed with the same
advertisement of the upcoming events as found in the New York Times. However, the
posters did not highlight the event of the night, nor did it state where in the store the vent
was being held. Had we not known that the book signing was taking place, we would
have missed it. We had to ask the somewhat confused security guard at the front door
where in the store the event was being held.
Barnes and Noble was quite busy on the lower three floors. But on the 4th floor a crowd
of over 150 people had gathered awaiting the start of the event. There were no empty
seats left by time the event got on its way. There were people standing against the walls
surrounding the stage and people sitting on the floor. The only negative things about the
layout was that there was a huge speaker right in front of the center of the stage were the
speakers chair was, and the fact that there were poles on both ends of the stage. The
employees in charge of the event, with some help from Jamie, did try to adjust the height
of the speaker once the discussion started but even so, it was still blocking people's view
of Jamie. The interruption caused by the moving of the speaker, delayed the event to
some extent.
As you approached the stage area, before reaching the chairs there was a display table
with copies of The Naked Chef Cookbook on it. Everyone attending the event had to
pass by the table in order to get to the seating area, so it became a natural thing to grab a
copy before sitting down. This was an intelligent way to increase sales. The book was
made very easily accessible for those who wished to buy the book and have it signed by
Jamie after the discussion. However, the employees of the store should have kept the
supply of books on the table constant, and refilled the table as the discussion progressed,
because by the time we were leaving the table was empty and people were clueless as to
where to find extra copies, and everyone kept asking the employees for copies of the
book.
From asking the employees we were able to find out that the sales on the evening of the
event did increase because of the interest in Jamie Oliver. Not only is he a great chef, but
he is also a clever and witty speaker, which made the discussion fun and interesting.
Everyone there seemed to enjoy his discussion and asked many different types of
questions. Some asked about recipes in the book, some asked about his television show,
and some asked personal questions. As we made our way through the crowd at the end of
the event we also heard people talking about how much they had enjoyed the discussion.
We spoke to one employee and she told us that this event was very successful and that
they couldn't have asked for a better turnout. Her opinion on the success of the event
was that it was because Jamie Oliver has a lot of charisma as a person, that comes
through in his television show, but even more so in person. She also told us that
fragments of the people in the audience included people who just stumbled upon the
discussion by chance, but then had enjoyed it so much that they ended up buying a copy
of the book.
There was press at the event, taking photographs during the event, but we did not find
any post-event publicity. We did check all the papers for the next few days, but did not
find any reviews.
CONCLUSION
There were many things that contributed to the success of this event including the fact
that it was a fairly warm evening so people did not mind coming out of their apartments,
or swinging by after work. The location was great (this particular Barnes and Noble is
usually busy). The time slot for the event, 7:30pm - 8: 30pm. And most importantly, the
"star" of the event, The Naked Chef. Some things that could have made the turn out a
little larger would be if the advertisements had run more than one time. The ad was in
the New York Times one week prior to the event and in Time Out New York on the very
day of the event. The event was not the only one listed on the ad; instead it was the last
one in a group of three that were taking place during the course of the same week.
Because of the limited publicity, there were probably a lot more people that would have
attended if better notified.
The layout of the stage could also have been better thought out. The speaker was in the
way, making it difficult for many to see and it was also very disruptive to try to rearrange
it during the discussion. There were also not enough chairs for the number of people in
the audience, although this was uncontrollable because of the unknown turnout of the
event. Overall, we would have to say this event was great success, even with the few
suggestions we made.
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