f i gure 2.1: e xa m pl e of di s pl a ys a dve rt i s e m
TRANSCRIPT
1.0 Introduction
MATTA Fair is currently the largest and No.1 consumers travel fair in Malaysia (The Sun
Daily, 2018). MATTA Fair is an event that gathers tour and travel agencies across Malaysia as a
platform to offer their great deals of travel packages which does not only cover the local travel
packages but also various overseas travel packages.
The fair was organized by the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA)
which is held across different states in Malaysia, with the main location in Kuala Lumpur. The
three-day event includes promotion booths from the tour agencies, stage cultural performances as well
as lucky draws contest for participating customers. MATTA Fair aims at providing value for money
travel packages with exceptional travel opportunities as well as promoting the local tourism sector.
MATTA Fair Penang will be held in the upcoming month at SPICE Arena, Penang.
Therefore, representing as an events marketing consultancy, we will submit a marketing
communication plan about MATTA Fair with the aim of increasing the number of expected visitors
from the targeted audiences.
2.0 Marketing Communication Plan
The marketing communication plan will be proposed to attract more visitors from the target
audience group. Geographically, this event will be targeting those living in the northern region states
of Malaysia which consists of Penang, Kedah, Perlis and Perak. The target audience for the event’s
marketing would be working adults aged 25 to 60 years old, living alone or with families. As
Facebook and Google ads has the function of segmenting the target audiences into different interests,
our target audiences will be focusing those within travel interest.
2.1 Advertising
Advertising is a paid communication that uses mass media to persuade and reach out to the
mass target audience. It uses information about the products and interpret it based on customer
demand (Moriarty et al., 2015, 36). Advertising’s information can be delivered through online forms
such as social media, influencers, content marketing or through offline forms such as radio, print
media and vehicular advertising. As most of the advertising strategies are uniquely different from each
event, therefore, below are the online and offline advertising strategies which is recommended for the
upcoming MATTA Fair Penang. The main objective of the proposed advertising strategies is to
improve event awareness and increase traffic into owned media such as websites and social media
channels.
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2.1.1 Google Ads
Google Ads is an advertising platform that requires marketers to bid their ads in order to
appear on the search results and relevant websites in Google (WordStream, undated). As current
MATTA’s website is lack of engaging content and difficult to navigate, MATTA is encouraged to
redevelop their website into contemporary website design in both user experience and appearance for
their MATTA Fair. Display ads campaign in Google Ads is recommended to increase the upcoming
event awareness as illustrated in Figure 2.1. The advertisement will be displayed across travel
websites such as travel blog, Tripadvisor, Trivago and Expedia. As shown in Figure 2.2, the RM500
daily budget for 30 days and RM1.50 cost per click bid, the advertisements will be displayed an
average of 1.235 million times and will receive around 9,850 clicks daily within the target location.
Figure 2.1: Example of displays advertisement in a travel blog websites.
Figure 2.2: The estimated impressions and clicks daily.
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2.1.2 Social Media
Social media channels allow communication between businesses and their customers online,
by providing promotional information or get reviews from other consumers’ experience which
benefited both parties (Dwivedi et al., 2015). Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and
YouTube enable MATTA to promote their event and target specific audience by selecting the
audiences’ location area, interest and demographics. According to the Malaysian Communications
And Multimedia Commission (MCMC) Internet User Survey 2018, 73.8% of Malaysians uses social
media to share any beneficial content to their intended recipients. Furthermore, it is estimated that
97.3% of Malaysians owns a Facebook account, followed by Instagram which has 57% and YouTube
with 48.3%.
Social media platform have the options for advertisers to post pictures, links, videos and even
create advertisements and fan pages (Curran et al., 2011). MATTA should focus on engaging content
development to increase the number of engagement and shares on their Facebook and Instagram
pages. In fact, AdEspresso (2018) stated that 75% of Instagram user will visit the website after
looking at the post on Instagram. One of the content ideas is to create a travel log which features
popular destinations based on customers’ preferences from previous events. Travel log such as
creating blogs about food and interesting places to visit can stimulate the target audiences’ intention to
travel. Furthermore, MATTA can post promotional content such as lucky draws and buyer’s contest
prior to the event to attract more potential customers. Example of the content are depicted in Figure
2.3 and 2.4.
Figure 2.3: A preview of Facebook Ads Figure 2.4: A preview of Instagram Ads
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As Instagram owns by Facebook, all of the posted content in their pages can be boosted to the
targeted audiences by using Facebook Ads. Facebook page campaign will have a daily budget of RM
750, which is estimated to reach 64,000 to 186,000 target audiences in Figure 2.5. We suggested that
MATTA should advertise their event for 30 days before their event with the total cost of RM 22,500
and expected to reach around 3.750 million out of 6.539 million audience at the end of the campaign.
For Instagram, the daily budget will be set at RM 500 which is estimated to reach around 43,000 to
124,000 target audiences. It is suggested that MATTA should advertise their event in Instagram for 20
days before their event with the cost of RM 10,000 and expected to reach a total of 1.670 million
audiences as shown in Figure 2.6.
Figure 2.5: Estimated daily reach on Facebook Figure 2.6: Estimated daily reach on Instagram
YouTube is a platform that allows businesses to attract new audience by advertising their
video in various format illustrated in Figure 2.7 (YouTube, 2019). MATTA can advertise their event
using the display and overlay advertisements format which will only be shown in relevant travel video
channels as depicted in Figure 2.8. We plan to set a daily budget of RM 200 to create event awareness
which is estimated to display around 535,000 times daily presented in Figure 2.9. Furthermore, we
suggest MATTA should advertise their event for 20 days with the total cost of RM 4,000 and
expected to reach around 10.7 millions targeted audiences.
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Figure 2.7: Types of YouTube Advertising Format
Figure 2.8: MATTA Fair advertisement appears on the relevant travel video.
Figure 2.9: The estimated impressions with a daily budget of RM 200.
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2.1.3 Radio advertising
Radio advertising is an effective tool to spread information with wide coverage and cost
effectiveness (Mihir & Prithvi, 2013). Based on a recent survey by MCMC (2017), 75% of Malaysian
were radio listeners which the common listening hours are between 6 am to 10 am and 4 pm to 7 pm
as where most people spend their time commuting between home and work. Furthermore, based on
Astro Radio survey (2019), there were 6.7 million, 3.0 million and 2.4 million listeners in ERA FM,
Hitz FM and MY FM respectively. Hence, we suggest MATTA to broadcast their advertisement
during the peak hour for a month in three different main language radio channel to gain more
audience. The content should be focusing on event details such as date, time, place, promotions and
prizes highlights. The cost of radio advertising in the northern region is shown in Table 2.1.
Table 2.1: Summary of radio advertising cost calculation.
Radio Advertising Rate per spot Spot per day Days Cost (RM)
Radio Channel 1. ERA FM 2. Hitz FM 3. MY FM
190 170 280
5 5 5
14 14 14
13,300 11,900 19,600
Total cost 44,800
2.1.4 Outdoor Advertising
According to Lee and Cho (2017), the audience that gives more attention to the digital
billboard advertisements tend to have higher levels of advertising recall and more favourable attitudes
towards the advertisements. One of the digital billboards which is suitable for MATTA Fair is at
Komtar area as shown in Figure 2.10. This area is a prominent landmark in Penang as locals and
tourists walk through the area frequently. It is surrounded by companies such as banks, government
offices, hotels, shopping malls, entertainment, bus station, etc. The package to run advertisement on
four digital billboards during peak hour for a month is depicted in Table 2.2. The advertisement will
appear 576 times for 8 hours per day (MagnumLed, 2019).
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Figure 2.10: Example of Digital billboard Komtar area that can display Matta Fair Ads
Table 2.2: Digital billboards package cost.
Outdoor digital billboard Cost per unit (RM) Quantity Cost (RM)
Digital Billboard (Komtar area) 3,750 4 15,000
Total cost 15,000
For the bunting and temporary billboards as illustrated in Figure 2.11, a local manufacturer
will be appointed to provide services of designing, printing and license permit application from the
local authorities, Penang Island City Council (MBPP, 2019). The detailed cost which includes
installation and dismantling the 500 units of bunting and 25 units of temporary billboards around
Butterworth and Penang area for a month is summarized in Table 2.3 and 2.4. The cost of the deposit
payment for the bunting and temporary billboard will be reimbursed by the city council after the
advertising period ended if fulfils all the rules and regulation requirement by them.
Figure 2.11: Example of temporary billboard and bunting advertisement.
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Table 2.3: Detailed costing of bunting advertisements.
Bunting Cost per unit (RM) Quantity Cost (RM)
Bunting 1. Printing including PVC pipe (2’x 6’)
15
500
7,500
One time additional cost : 1. Standard design cost 2. Local authority approval
● Deposit payment ● Licence approval ● Bunting sticker Permit
3. Installation and Dismantle charges
30
30 20 2
10
1
500 500 500 500
30
15,000 10,000 1,000 5,000
Total cost 38,530
Table 2.4: Detailed costing of temporary billboards advertisements.
Temporary billboard Cost per unit (RM) Quantity Cost (RM)
Temporary Billboard 1. Printing including stand (6’x 10’)
75
25
1,875
One time additional cost: 1. Standard design cost 2. Local authority approval
● Deposit payment ● Licence approval ● Billboard Sticker Permit
3. Installation and Dismantle charges
50
300 50 2 20
1
25 25 25 25
50
7,500 1,250
50 500
Total cost 11,225
2.1.5 Vehicular Advertising
Vehicular advertising is an advertising tool used to share product’s information on the public
vehicles to pedestrians and road users by advertising. The aim of vehicular advertising is to gain as
much benefits as possible by advertising to the road user (Jia et al., 2015). We suggest that the
MATTA Fair can be advertised using RapidPenang as depicted in Figure 2.12. The full wrap
advertisement for RapidPenang will last for three months (Rapid Penang, 2019) and we will employ 3
buses for the advertisement campaign. The total cost of vehicular advertising is shown in Table 2.5.
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Table 2.5: Total cost of vehicular advertising.
Buses Cost per unit/month (RM) Quantity Cost (RM)
Bus Rental (3 months) 2500 3 22,500
Full Wrapper (1 time payment) 2750 3 8,250
Total cost 30,750
Figure 2.12: Example of vehicular advertising on RapidPenang.
Overall, the total advertising cost will be RM 191,805 as summarize in Table 2.6 and the time frame
for each of the advertising campaign will be shown in the Gantt Chart in Figure 2.13.
Table 2.6: Total advertising cost.
Advertising Campaign Cost (RM)
Google Ads 15,000
Facebook Ads 22,500
Instagram 10,000
YouTube 4,000
Radio 44,800
Digital billboard 15,000
Bunting 38,530
Temporary billboard 11,225
Vehicular advertising (Rapid Bus) 30,750
Total Advertising Campaign Cost 191,805
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2.2 Discounts and Promotions
Promotion is an added value to the basic offering with the intention to encourage the customer
to buy the product immediately. In other words, promotions are used to accelerate sales (Fill and
Turnbull, 2016). According to Park and Yi (2019), free gifts are attractive deals for customers and
able to induce negative reasoning in customers’ minds. Furthermore, discount promotions are
attractive towards older customers to compile information and increase their knowledge on getting the
most reasonable price for themselves (Fam et al., 2019).
We proposed that MATTA can request The Travel Store, a travelling goods store to sponsor
three set of branded luggage for the daily lucky draw prizes and in exchange, MATTA would print
their logo to be advertised in the sponsor section. All visitors are entitled to participate in the lucky
draw without any purchase required which the lucky draw forms will be distributed to the visitors
Furthermore, MATTA Fair’s Buyers’ Contest, which is only entitled to shoppers can potentially
convert more visitors to buyers. MATTA should approach the participating travel agencies to sponsor
the prizes for the buyers’ contest. Various prizes will be offered such as tour packages, flight tickets,
entrance tickets, cruise trips and hotel stay.
In addition, MATTA should make a partnership with the participating agencies such as
Malaysia Airlines to give special discount on their air tickets purchased during the event as shown in
Figure 2.14. Furthermore, MATTA should introduce alternative payment methods such as 0% interest
rate monthly instalment plan to ease the customer’s financial burdens which can be done through
collaboration with multiple banks as depicted in Figure 2.15. Moreover, MATTA can cooperate with
Hop-On Hop-Off Penang and Grab by providing discount and promotion codes respectively which
can encourage more visitors as it reduces their car parking problems in Figure 2.16.
Figure 2.14: Malaysia Airlines special discount promotion during MATTA Fair.
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Figure 2.15: Example of a monthly instalment plan by Maybank.
Figure 2.16: Hop-on Hop-off Penang discount.
2.3 Event Sponsorship
Meenaghan (1983) defined sponsorship as providing support in either financially or
non-financially form by a company with the purpose to achieve their objective of increasing brand
awareness. Sponsorship is a win-win strategy for both the company and the event organizer as it can
attract the audience to attend the event if they are familiar with the product (Horowitz, 2012).
Furthermore, collaboration with popular brands can improve the event attractiveness towards the
audience.
Travelling is considered as a privileged only for people who can afford it. Therefore, MATTA
Fair was held to encourage people to travel more by offering great deals to make travel affordable for
all. In order to achieve that, they have to partner up with the participating tour and travel agencies to
get their support and sponsors, especially in terms of prizes. MATTA Fair’s official airline is
Malaysia Airlines which mainly sponsors the prizes and the official money changer is Merchant
Trade. The prize sponsors for buyers’ contest are made up mostly from hotels company such as
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Vistana, Avani and The Webley. Lastly, the lucky draw prize sponsor is The Travel Store, a travelling
goods store. Table 2.7 shows the list of sponsors that will involve in the upcoming event.
Table 2.7: List of sponsors for MATTA Fair.
Sponsors Descriptions
Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG) is a global aviation
organisation with subsidiaries and equity investments
organised into four distinct business segments: Air
Transportation Services, Ground Services, Aircraft
Leasing and Talent Development (Malaysia Airline,
2019). Malaysia Airlines will be sponsoring a few flights
tickets to various destinations for the buyer’s contest.
Penang Hop-On Hop-Off is a double-decker bus that
offers sightseeing tour around Penang (Penang Hop On
Hop-Off, 2019). It provides RM 10 discounts for people
who took the city tour package to MATTA Fair.
Furthermore, they also advertise the event on their bus
which can help to gain more people to visit the fair.
MerchantTrade is the first-in-the-market cross border,
multi-currency payment solutions by leveraging on
cutting-edge technology and an innate understanding of
the market & the fast paced environment we operate in
(MerchantTrade, 2019). As travelling overseas require
travellers to exchange their currencies, MerchantTrade
can offer great deals for people who sign up their
MerchandTrade Money which allows them to pay
multi-currency with just a single card.
Hotel is an establishment providing accommodation,
meals, and other services for travellers and tourists.
Therefore, by having hotel to sponsor accommodation
for winners for the buyer’s contest, it can provide an
opportunity for people to travel domestically.
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The Travel Store focus on meeting customer's
expectations and consistently becoming travel goods
provider of choice (The Travel Store, 2019). Travelling
sometimes requires travel accessories to make the
travelling journey more comfortable. The Travel Store
will be sponsoring luggage set for the lucky draw prizes.
2.4 Direct Marketing
Direct marketing is one of the promotional methods which involves showcasing information
regarding the company and their service or product towards the targeted customer without involving
any advertising middle person. One of the direct marketing tools that can be used for MATTA Fair are
direct short message service (SMS) marketing. According to Duzgun et al. (2017), SMS is used as a
mobile marketing to create brand awareness, promote sales, create a customer database, and spread
the word-of-mouth towards other consumers. Besides, SMS marketing is an ideal way to target certain
audiences, especially to young individuals in conveying advertising messages (Awan, 2015).
MATTA is recommended to use SMS marketing as a reminder for the targeted audience
which will be sent three days before the event starts. The cost for SMS marketing is RM5500 which
covers 100,000 SMS to be sent towards the targeted audience which cost RM0.055 for each SMS (360
Interactive, 2018). MATTA can target their previous customers who attended their event before which
the data can be gained from the sign-up contest collected during MATTA Fair event previously. The
targeted audiences then can spread word-of-mouth about the upcoming event to their friends and
families.
2.5 Public Relations
As MATTA Fair is a reputational event with years of experience in organizing the famous
travel and tour fair, MATTA should consider retaining and further builds their reputations to receive
wider customers base. According to the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) (undated),
public relations (PR) is “the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you”
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which is all related to firm’s reputation. Furthermore, PR involves a process of strategic
communications between the public and organizations that focus on building a beneficial mutual
relationship (Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), 2019). PR are being done through unpaid
method like earned, shared and owned media.
● Media Relations
Media Relations involved communicating with media personnel such as news editors,
reporters and journalists (Theaker, 2012). MATTA can have a pre-event press conferences to
spread the news about the event in the local newspapers. Journalists and reporters are
considered as trustworthy third-party which can reduce the consumers’ scepticism about the
news. Furthermore, coverage from press media can amplify the event awareness which can
increase the event attendees and sales potential. Press conference are able to reach multiple
media and broadcasting companies all in one shot whereby their news reports can enhance the
customers’ anticipation about MATTA Fair. MATTA should use press conference to
publicize their event information, for instance, booth amount, promotions from participating
travel agencies, transportation advice, etc to gain attention from potential customers. The cost
to organize a press conference is RM 4,300 which is for the rental of the function room.
● Customer Relations
It has become increasingly important to create two-way communication with consumers
through interactive and experience rich contents (Theaker, 2012). Social media especially
Facebook can help MATTA to interact with customers directly. MATTA should update their
contents with honest and reliable information to get their customers’ trust. In addition,
keeping in touch with customers through updating interesting and high quality content can
increase customers’ engagement which brings up the company’s reputation and brand
exposure. Furthermore, to maintain the customers’ impression, any comments sent by
customers need to reply in good manner promptly as shown in Figure 2.17. Any
announcement that touches on public concerns can be made through Facebook in order to get
the public views about the company. Moreover, social media can help in managing crisis
response can help in gaining good PR as when the company are good in managing crisis, the
company will be deemed as having high reputations. Additionally, MATTA has the
opportunity to start a movement in societal development. This movement can be branded as
#Travel_For_A_Cause which encourages travellers in donating to those in need during their
journey.
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Figure 2.17: MATTA replied to their customer in a good manner.
3.0 Conclusion
In order to make the upcoming MATTA Fair successful, the proposed marketing
communication plan needs to be implemented as it covers various aspects to deliver the intended
messages which is mainly helping to increase event awareness to the targeted audiences and increases
the visitors amount. Table 3.1 below shows the total budgeted cost to implement the marketing
communications plan. The estimated sales revenue from booth sales is amounted around RM 900,000,
which is calculated from the average booth selling price and the total booth available for sales. The
total cost of the marketing plan for the upcoming MATTA Fair is RM 201,605. Hence, it is reasonable
and worth to execute the comprehensive marketing plan in order to attract over 50,000 visitors from
the targeted audiences in northern region.
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Table 3.1: Summary of total budgeted cost.
Description Budget Total budget (RM)
Advertising:
Google Ads RM 500/day for 30 days 15,000
Social Media ● Facebook
● Youtube
RM 750/day for 30 days
RM 500/day for 20 days
RM 200/day for 20 days
22,500
10,000
4,000
Radio advertising
● ERA FM
● Hitz FM
● MY FM
RM 950/day for 14 days
RM 850/day for 14 days
RM 1400/day for 14 days
13,300
11,900
19,600
Outdoor Advertisement
● Digital billboard
● Bunting
● Temporary billboard
RM 15,000/month
RM 38,530/month
RM 11,225/month
15,000
38,530
11,225
Vehicular Advertising (Rapid)
● Bus rental
● Full Wrapper
RM 2,500/per unit (3 unit for 3 month)
RM 2,750/per unit (3 unit)
22,500
8,250
Direct marketing:
Short Message Service (SMS)
RM 0.055/SMS (100,000 SMS)
5,500
Public Relations: Function room
RM4,300
4,300
Total budgeted cost: 201,605
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