Philip Khor

Ok, I’m now gonna act as if I know everything about advertising and TVCs. So please bear with me.

I just watched the Lenovo laptop ad

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=249247918041

I must give credit to the camera work. It was well shot and directed.

As for the concept, the voice overs. ALL RUBBISH! Looks like they took it out of an outdated Marketing textbook! I’m betting the director is a middle aged balding dude who just hired a freshie with textbook ideas.

An example of a good advertisement in my opinion is by

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sPvLRVrvC8

DIGI Telecommunications on their 3G service.

Easy to understand, clear message on what it’s all about and something we can relate to. Not some crazy story line about creativity and attempted collaboration! Pe-tuui!

BOTH are technology companies and it is really shocking how one can get it so wrong while the other hits the nail!

And if you want to be wow-ed, just check out Apple’s theme for all advertisements on their products. [at Apple.com of course]

Inherant disorder amongst good looking men!

The term originated in an article by Mark Simpson (“Here come the mirror men) published on November 15, 1994, in The Independent. Simpson wrote:

“Metrosexual man, the single young man with a high disposable income, living or working in the city (because that’s where all the best shops are), is perhaps the most promising consumer market of the decade. In the Eighties he was only to be found inside fashion magazines such as GQ, in television advertisements for Levis jeans or in gay bars. In the Nineties, he’s everywhere and he’s going shopping.     ”

The term greatly increased in popularity following Simpson’s 2002 Salon.com article “Meet the metrosexual”, which identified David Beckham as the metrosexual poster boy. The advertising agency Euro RCSG Worldwide adopted the term shortly thereafter for a marketing study, and the New York Times published a Sunday feature, “Metrosexuals Come Out”; the story trickled into local news outlets across North America.

Simpson’s Salon.com definition is more nuanced than the term’s common use today.
“     The typical metrosexual is a young man with money to spend, living in or within easy reach of a metropolis – because that’s where all the best shops, clubs, gyms and hairdressers are. He might be officially gay, straight or bisexual, but this is utterly immaterial because he has clearly taken himself as his own love object and pleasure as his sexual preference. Particular professions, such as modeling, waiting tables, media, pop music and, nowadays, sport, seem to attract them but, truth be told, like male vanity products and herpes, they’re pretty much everywhere.

For some time now, old-fashioned (re)productive, repressed, unmoisturized heterosexuality has been given the pink slip by consumer capitalism. The stoic, self-denying, modest straight male didn’t shop enough (his role was to earn money for his wife to spend), and so he had to be replaced by a new kind of man, one less certain of his identity and much more interested in his image – that’s to say, one who was much more interested in being looked at (because that’s the only way you can be certain you actually exist). A man, in other words, who is an advertiser’s walking wet dream.[3]

in short, its gay, but less gay lah.

I wonder if girls like metrosexual men, or soft men? Feel free to comment!

[end]

Happy Birthday Juan!

Whoa… Facebook REALLY know my needs. Guess what I found while browsing some pictures!!!!

I tried Facebook Ads before. They were SUPER strict while selecting and approving advertisements. I guess these dating sites were paying a premium. I keep advocating for businesses to advertise on Facebook. Its like US$0.15 per 1000 impressions… like to get the same effect on newspaper, you’ll be paying US$40 per 1000? Yeah, that’s how cheap FB is. And it is TARGETED.

Bottom line is, yeah, I know and HOPE you Christian girls are like her ;) *wink*

New apple iPhones VERY SOON.

But definately new Macbooks, cheaper, better, faster, stronger.

Had a good time with Melvyn, Yang Wei and Patrick at Club 9. Wasted 5 hours of our lives (and wads of cash) waiting for the lucky draw. We humans need hope. The little hope that we might win the Toshiba Laptop and 32″ LCD tv was good enough for us to stick around, despite being tired.

Learnt shitloads in marketing and business and psychological terms from yesterday’s experience!

OK, I’m done with Rawanaz Hosting. I’m moving to EasyNet as we speak. So if this post doesn’t show up, then its stuck with Rawanaz. If it shows up at 4pm today, that means the guys at EasyNet are very very good at doing their job! Let the record show that the current time now is 1:50pm, just minutes away from my Advertising & Promotion tutorial.

Here’s something to read while we wait for the server to refresh!

From: Dr. Patrick Zuma

Audit Department

Africa Development Bank

TEL: +27-73-986-3114
EMAIL: patrickzuma2009@gmail.com

ATTN: Sir/Madam

I am Dr. Patrick Zuma, a senior staff of African Development Bank of South Africa {ADB}. I have an urgent and very confidential business proposal for you. An American Gold consultant/contractor with the South African Solid Gold Corporation, Mr. W. Ali. Bryant made a numbered time (Fixed) Deposit for twelve calendar months, valued at (Fourteen Million Five Hundred Thousand U.S. dollars) in my branch. Upon maturity, I sent a routine notification to his forwarding address but got no reply. After a month, we sent a reminder and finally we discovered from his contract employers, the South African Solid Gold Corporation that Mr. Bryant died in a plane crash in Alaska Airlines Flight 261 On further investigation, I found out that he died without making a WILL and all attempts to trace his next of kin were fruitless.

I therefore made further investigation and discovered that Mr. W Ali did not declare any next of kin or relations in all his official documents, including his Bank Deposit paperwork in my Bank. This sum of US$14,500,000.00 is still sitting in our Bank and the interest is being rolled over with the principal sum at the end of each year. No one will ever come forward to claim it. According to Laws of Republic OF SOUTH AFRICA, at the expiration of 7 (Seven) years, the money will revert to the ownership of the South African Government if nobody applies to claim the fund. Consequently, my proposal is that I will like you as a foreigner to stand in as the next of kin / business associates to Mr. A. Bryant so that the fruits of this old man’s labour will not get into the hands of some corrupt government officials. This is simple, I will like you to provide immediately your full names and address so that the attorney will prepare the necessary documents and affidavits that will put you in place as the next of kin. We shall employ the services of an attorney for drafting and notarization of the WILL and to obtain the necessary documents and letter of probate/administration in your favor for the transfer.

A bank account in any part of the world that you will provide will then facilitate the transfer of this money to you as the beneficiary/next of kin. The money will be paid into your account for us to share in the ratio of 70% for me and 30% for you. There is no risk at all as all the paperwork for this transaction will be done by the attorney and my position as a prominent senior official of ADB guarantees the successful execution and immediate conclusion of this transaction. If you are interested, please reply immediately via the private email address and telephone number above. Upon your response, I shall then provide you with more details and relevant documents that will help you understand the transaction. Please send me your confidential telephone and fax numbers for easy communication. Please observe utmost confidentiality, and be rest assured that this transaction would be most profitable for both of us because I shall require your assistance to invest my share in your country.

Awaiting your urgent reply.

You can contact me at all times.

Best Regards

DR. PATRICK ZUMA

I got a brochure from this company selling WiMax in Klang Valley.

P1 Wimax, is it REALLY 42 times faster than dialup?

Ok, as we know, dialup is 56kbit/s, that is theoretically 8KB/s maximum. But lets put it at a real world 6KB/s performance. How does P1 WiMax stack up against good ol’ dialup!

Test A: Loading Google

Google is about 15KBytes of data. Simple maths would stipulate dial up can download it in under 3 seconds. Can P1 do it in 0.07seconds? Even to ping to google (malaysia) it would take about 0.07 seconds already, thats excluding downloading anything at all. I think we’re looking closer to 1.5 seconds. In which case, P1 is only 2 times faster than Dialup.

Test B: Loading CNN.com

CNN do not have local servers, but MIGHT have mirrors in Hong Kong. But lets say we’re connect to their server in the United States. And the site is 100 KB worth of images and media.

Dialup would take 17 seconds. Can P1 load it in 0.4 seconds as claimed by their brochure? Again, ping to USA would take 0.2 seconds, just to “find” the server.

Test C: MSN test

To send a message to a friend via MSN, it takes dialup exactly 1 second from pressing enter to appearing on a friend’s PC. Can P1 wimax make it 0.023 seconds? Faster than the speed of thought?

Test D: The 100 MB test

Downloading a 100MB file from a fast server. Ok, here, P1 might excel. My calculations show dialup will take about 5 hours. If P1 Wimax is able to deliver 2.4mbit full speed then it will only take 7 minutes. And yes, that makes it 42 times faster than dialup.

Ok, the speed tests are estimates but it does give a good idea on how fast the actual performance gains you will see.

In summary, P1 is not lying. They’re bloody fast.

But what does the number mean to you? Well, the above will really explain the TRUE picture.

On another note, I am designing and maintaining www.petroleo-services.com .. too bad my energi.my domain is not used. Any takers?

I enquired about Masters programme in UTAR a year ago, and am in their mailing list.

Ok, firstly, its bad enough I’m receiving SPAM from you, but that I can filter and tolerate.

What I CANNOT tolerate is that you release my e-mail address to hundreds of people on the interweb. SCREW you UTAR. So in revenge, I hereby post out UTAR’s mailing list for the whole world to see.

I’m selling this list to TARGETTED SPAMMERS for RM 2 per active e-mail, I’m rich!!!!

Read the rest of this entry »

Progress Report – Fibernet Malaysia Sdn Bhd

Fibernet Malaysia is a brand new player in the already-packed and competitive broadband industry in Malaysia. We are a wireless Internet Service Provider employing the next generation of WiMax technology covering strategic and profitable market segments and geographical areas around the Klang Valley. In the future, we plan to expand to densely populated areas in major towns such as Ipoh, Penang and Johor. Our aim is to provide first class services while maintaining profitability. To achieve this, we need to provide Business broadband on top of serving the higher end consumers who require fast and stable broadband. This company is fictitious but this report can also serve as a Business Proposal.

Introduction

Fibernet Malaysia offers one single product; that is broadband internet services.

Many other competitors and big players like Telekom Malaysia and Maxis has a wide portfolio of product offerings for different markets. By simplifying our product line-up, we can concentrate on providing what consumer and business customers need the most; fast and reliable internet access.

For businesses, we offer unlimited internet access with no restrictions. The only thing companies have to decide is how much they want to spend and what the speed requirements are.

For home users, we offer flexibility in choice of plans. You can go for “Speed” or “Volume” or “both”. To explain further, refer to the table below.

Options

For 2 mbit, additional 10 GB block of data allowance: RM 10

For 5 mbit, additional 10 GB block of data allowance:  RM 12

What happens when you “exceed” the quota allowed?

The bandwidth will be throttled. This means the connection will slow down to 10% full speed until the next quota cycle. You will still be able to surf the internet and do almost everything. It will be slightly slower, but tolerable.

Managing the Campaign

We intend to hire an external team to handle the advertising and promotional campaign. Being a new company and having little experience of this nature, it is best to look for professional help from people who have done it before.

Target audience and Reason for Advertising

Our general goal is to raise awareness of the availability of such a service. Being a new player, it is important that word spreads out to as many people as possible about the existence of our company. The course of action will be described in the final report.

The campaign will last 2 months (8 weeks)

The campaign will be ready when the technological infrastructure, the backend support as well as the employees have been well training and prepped for the launch.

The best time to start with the teaser ads is the 3^rd week of May. By the time the informational ads in week 2 start to appear, it would be almost the end of the month. Consumers would have more spending power and it might psychologically influence their decision.

Situational Analysis

[Direction of the campaign: Very simple, concentrate on one area at a time at most employing 3 media options at one time]

About the Firm

Fibernet Malaysia was fortunate to receive a RM 1,500 million investment from a oil-rich Arab investor to set up an ISP. The current broadband market is dominated by Telekom Malaysia with their huge international computer network infrastructure, so any new players would have to have huge financial backing to get started.

Bandwidth comes primarily from Singapore. The biggest internet “pipes” in this region is in Singapore. They are well connected to over 50 countries around the region with dedicated access to vital internet hubs in Europe, Japan and America. All that Fibernet has to do is to pull a fiber line to Singapore and connect to other Tier 1 ISPs including Singtel’s rich network to provide connectivity to the Internet.

Strength

1. We have the financial muscle to explore new technologies which might be costly
2. We are new, so we can learn from other competitor’s mistakes
3. We can meet customer’s demands for better reliable connections.

Opportunity

1. Current broadband (in our market) is either too slow (either pure speed, or latency), too expensive for what they offer, and only available in selected areas.
2. Our competitors “piggy-back” on two major networks, either Telekom Malaysia or Jaring. This means they’re merely resellers of bandwidth. We bring in our own bandwidth to the Internet.

Weakness

1. Our prices are higher than competitors
2. We are unsure whether customers are willing to pay for a better service
3. It will take at least 10 years to recoup the initial investment

Threats

1. Government regulation on new ISPs entering the market
2. Foreign investment might be limited. The government might want to protect the local industry and investors
3. Licensing of WiMax technology is based on bidding style auctions. It is difficult to obtain.
4. The nature of running a business in Malaysia is questionable (especially having to deal with big government projects)

Fibernet Malaysia’s Internal Factors

The management team makes decision with the help of advisors from different fields and specialties. The company structure is divided into teams with a Project Manager in charge of a specific task.

The firm has no past promotional campaigns, but the marketing team has experience with advertising. We will employ external help to kick start and help to plan our campaign.

In general, WiMax is viewed by the public as “overpromise, under-deliver”. The technology has the potential, but the implementation is very weak. The name has been tarnished by the constant delays in roll-out as well as the paltry bandwidth limitations. Investment cost is high, which is one of the factors to the failure and the bad image of this technology.

We plan to change all that with our new Service.

How are we to change the status quo? Well, we solved one problem by having a big financial advantage, so making full use of our resources would be key to success. Implementation of the technology is important, but it must be backed up with competent staff, promotional team as well as great advertisements.

External Influences

Our target customers are dissatisfied customers of current wireless broadband connections. We must admit that we cannot directly compete with fixed line products like Streamyx or Jaring’s Wired Business broadband. However, there is a lot of room to improve on WiMax implementations.

Our major competitor is P1 WiMax. The good thing is that they have cocked up and tarnished the WiMax name.

As described earlier, there are various legal and political issues involved in setting up the service. We have to bid for government license. The process is non transparent and often dubious.

Competitive Advantage. In this business, there are only 2 measures of success: Speed and Stability. That’s it. If we can achieve that at a reasonable price, then we would be successful.

Sales Objective. We intend to make a good impression to the Innovators and Early Adopters of the service. The way we are going to do that will be described in the final report.

Budget

We will refer to the “Media Guide” to see how much full page Ads will cost. Our advertising partner will guide us with the Billboard Ad as well as the Website. We intend to spend prudently, using the bottom-to-top. We would concentrate more on providing a good service. We do not want to over-promise and under-deliver.

The prices below are quoted from an Advertising Agency, TPMG.

RM 50,000 – Billboard Ad for billboard, half a year.

RM 88,000 – Online Campaign a website will cost up to RM80,000, but if to implement  banner ads like msn those type, maybe around RM8,000. This figure includes the promotion of the site through various online channels.

RM 24,000 – Newpaper ad, one week twice will cost around RM3 to 4k per month. This number is for 6 months.

RM 10,000 – Direct Marketing (Booths, etc). small direct marketing booth cost is low, maybe RM1k including promoters for 3 days.

We are planning to give “free trials” to bloggers / Tech review people as well. In order to save promotional cost, we plan to use cheap media blogs and social networking sites. 

Target Audience

Since this is a high end product, we will target the KL business district and the City Centre at first. The second phase will be the high class residential areas like Sierramas, Shah Alam, Damansara and Hartamas. Thirdly, we target the upper-middle blue collared workers demographic.

We position ourselves to be the BMWs and Mercedes of Internet Service providers.

Communication Strategy

We want to distinguish ourselves from P1 WiMax, who is well known for their dirty marketing tactics and the smearing of the Wimax name. We want to compete with Time, Jaring Business Broadband is Telekom Malaysia in terms of Quality of Service.

Among the strategies we use are:

1. Simple message. We fulfill two requirements of a good broadband service: Fast and Stable.
2. Our webpage loads fast through clever methods of optimization.
3. For our Promotional Booths and Demonstrations, we instruct our salespeople and agents to do real world, no gimmick tests and benchmarks of our service. P1 WiMax employs dirty tactics to make their service “seem” fast. After sign up, the customer satisfaction level is very low.

Creative Strategy

Yes, we do provide a huge distinct competitive advantage due to our huge investments.

[copy platform?]

[advertising execution?]

Draft Advertisements [note: attached]

Media Planning

Newspaper & Magazine. Newspaper has huge coverage and reach. Computer magazines have a specific target.

Scheduling, as above.

[end]

Philip Khor

philip@taylorians.com

Ok, here’s a sensitive issue so if you disagree, please comment.

Taken from an old lowyat.net post:

[intro giving background of MLM]
These information are meant for you to know and warn your family members and loved ones before they become victims.

“People got victimised by scams because they don’t know about it and they don’t know about it because those who knew about it did not share it”

Here are some hot scams(new scams no.16 down below) in Malaysia, briefly, (I will elaborate more if you contribute):

Read the rest of this entry »

Introduction

Integrated Marketing Communication is a management concept that is designed to make all aspects of marketing communication such as advertising, sales promotion, public relations, and direct marketing work together as a unified force, rather than permitting each to work in isolation.

David A. Aaker of UC Berkeley argues that “the internet is the glue that holds IMC programs together”. It is a tool to use alongside traditional elements of IMC.

A typical fast-food restaurant would employ several media channels to convey their marketing message. The backbone and glue that holds all of this is a corporate website with an easy-to-remember domain name. This is the point where customers obtain further information about the company.

Big corporations such as Mc Donalds would fire in all fronts, so to speak. For smaller companies like Burger King where resources are more limited, they have to seek alternate ways to raising the same amount of industry buzz while spending a fraction of the cost of the big giants.

Advertising in social networking websites.

Facebook is a free-access social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.

Marketers and advertisers have trying for months on how to tap into Facebook’s Applications feature to use as an effective IMC tool. Even big companies like VISA tried their Visa Business Network program to provide a platform for businesses to exchange contacts. It failed miserable and was abused because it offers free US$50 advertising credits upon signup.

About The Internet

The internet is the largest network of computers in the world. As of December 2008, there are about 1,574 million active users worldwide. That is roughly one in four of every human being alive.

Most households in Malaysia have a personal computer capable of connecting to the internet. For those who do not, there are countless Internet Cafés in many major cities and towns that offers access for as low as RM 2 per hour.

The future is exciting for internet advertising. As more mobile phones are internet capable, the reach and coverage is growing wider. At the same time, the target audience is specific. This is possible through various technologies to track user location and demographic.

Imagine a scenario, walking down a busy shopping mall. You see an indoor poster saying “Are you hungry? Mc Donald’s ahead”. 10 seconds later, your handphone beeps. It plays a video advertisement by Mc Donalds, followed by a coupon to redeem free items with every purchase. The technology is already there, it is just a matter of time.

Internet advertisements get published quickly withstanding location and time. Advertisements can be customized to reach the specific target audience.

• To Disseminate Information
• To Create Awareness
• To Gather Research Information
• To Create an Image
• To Stimulate Trial
• To Improve Customer Service
• To Increase Distribution

Other examples of internet advertising include banner advertisements, in-game advertisements and ad links.

Not only does Facebook store your personal information, it links you to other friends that you might have. Advertisements on Facebook are targeted based on location, age, gender and likings. Consider the real-world situation of 3 friends I know.

A – Receive car modification advertisements always around the end of the month

B – Receive dating ads and cosmetic advertisements

C – Receive get-rich-quick schemes and “business opportunity” advertisements

Google employs another technology which is controversial for rights protection agencies. Their e-mail service, GMail scans each and every message for keywords. When reading the e-mail on their website, the ads on the right sidebar relates to the e-mail that you are viewing. Google claims that no real humans are reading through your e-mail, just computer programs. They then use this data for the Google Trends and sell this information for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The Advertisements

Burger King’s objectives are to get as many people talking about the Whopper as possible. The technology within Facebook allow for such comments to be made and viewed by friends-of-friends. This form of viral marketing catches on very fast and the effectiveness rivals television, billboard and print ads combined. The cost to create both advertisements varies according to existing infrastructure.

Below is a table comparing several aspects of creating and publishing the advertisements.

Advertisements are basically used to inform, persuade and remind. Most businesses use web-sites to provide a platform for the business’ online presence. This allows formal communication with other businesses and to their clients and customers.

In Burger King’s campaign, they managed to generate a buzz and got many news agencies talking about it. Their clever idea of making Facebook users “sacrifice” or delete their friends from their list not only promotes their brand name, but it makes consumers rethink who their friends really are.

There is lack of creativity on KFC’s part, but coupons have several advantages. In tough economic times such as today, consumers are more price sensitive. By giving coupons, it encourages trial and increase consumption of established brands, such as KFC.

Target Audience, Reach and Coverage

Within 7 days of launch, there were 82,000 users who installed the application sacrificing 230,000 friends. The best part is that, on average each friend has 100 other friends, and they all get notified of the sacrifice via the user’s news feed.

Both KFC and Burger King target college students & young working adults under 30 years old both male and female. This demographic typically consumes fast food at least once a week. Fast food is popular in urban areas especially shopping malls and business districts. The target audience is likely to be interested in trying new things and willing to spend on food.

KFC downloadable coupons have been and still are an ongoing promotion. The only difference from conventional coupons is the method of delivery or, the media selected. Coupons are traditionally delivered to your doorstep by mailmen or flyer distributors. Some are inserted alongside daily newspapers while some are given in-store.

Media Scheduling

As long as the company pays for the hosting services, the advertisements can be accessible for as long as you like. In this assignment, the placement of the advertisement is on relatively cheap media such as the company’s own website, YouTube or Facebook, the social networking site. There is no need to worry about airspace and airtime. The internet is available 99.9% of the time 24/7/365!

Comparing both advertisements

Message delivery success

The Facebook ad is more successful in creating awareness. To put it simply, both companies give out coupons in exchange for awareness and personal information. This is used to tailor their products to different markets and preferences, as well as to disseminate future promotions via e-mail or SMS messaging.

In Malaysia, coupons are a big hit amongst budget conscious consumers. They are often delivered along with the daily newspaper. The discounts offers by outlets such as Mc Donalds are up to 30% off list price.

Conclusion

The internet has huge potential. Since the dot-com bust, companies have been coming up with innovative and creative ways to advertise. Clearly, the future of internet advertising lies with the social network. How better to deliver a message than to deliver it to a known customer base and hope that it spreads virally through personal web sites and blogs.

The internet has no geographical boundaries. An advertisement can reach a wide audience immediately once it has been published. The start up cost is considerably less compared to newspaper and magazine advertisements which can cost an upward of RM 10,000 per day.

As described earlier, the internet works in tandem with newspaper, billboard, radio and television. Nike aired a 30-second teaser commercial on television with a hanging ending. To see what happens next, consumers have to visit their website.

Services like YouTube makes it easier for content publishers and advertisers to publish their videos online. If the ad is creative and eye catching, people would want to view it again and share it with their friends. Modern Web 2.0 technologies like Twitter, and the “e-mail to friend” function has simplified this process. In this case, the internet is used as a media for delivering TV and interactive ads.

This assignment raises the awareness that the internet is the next big thing in advertising for years to come. The sky is the limit for the possibilities of online advertising. Traditional graphic designers and video production houses have to learn new programming techniques to keep up with the face paced advances in technology.

In the earlier years of existence, Facebook was primarily made up of college and university students aged 18-22. Since then, the demographics have greatly shifted to higher age groups as these students graduate and enter the workforce. According to Facebook themselves, the fastest growing age-group of their customer base were having a median age of 25 2-years ago but today, and 28 1-year ago. Today, this number is 35.

References

1. Eldon, Eric. (2008-12-18). “2008 Growth Puts Facebook In Better Position to Make Money”. VentureBeat. http://venturebeat.com/2008/12/18/2008-growth-puts-facebook-in-better-position-to-make-money Accessed on 08 April 2009
2. Belch, George and Michael Belch (2007), Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective, 7^th edition, McGraw-Hill/Irwin
3. Shimp, Terence A (2007), Integrated Marketing Comminications in Advertising And Promotion, 7^th edition, Thomson South-Western
4. The Facebook Blog, http://blog.facebook.com Accessed on 08 April 2009