Conclusion

In view of the whole report, the following conclusions can be made:

·         The proposed theme for the internal marketing is “imprinting memories”.

·         The top 3 social media sites in Singapore from June 2011 to June 2012 are Facebook, YouTube & Twitter. Thus, these 3 social media sites, together with Blogger, will be used to promote for SLL.

·         Exhibitions will be put up in the Singapore Polytechnic Main Library to promote the SLL.

·         Talks will be organized on Wednesday whenever necessary to provide updates on the SLL to the SP community.

·         Posters on the SLL will be placed all around the SP campus to advertise for the SLL. There will be 2 phases of posters in total, before the SLL is built and after the SLL is built.

·         Articles will be published regularly in the SP magazine, SPirit, to provide more information on the SLL to the SP community.

·          Notifications of the SLL will be updated on the SP website and Blackboard whenever required to the SP community.

·         With the implementation of the SLL, it will be beneficial to the students by enhancing the experience of student learning and learning up-to-date technologies related to their diplomas. This will provide a positive publicity for the SLL externally.

·         Billboards will be placed near the School of Business and right next to the SLL to promote the logos of the sponsors.

·         White Polo T-shirts will be produced exclusively for the members of the SLL and the sponsors for advertising purposes. They will be worn during special events where there are media press.

·         By sponsoring for the SLL, it will create a brand differentiation of the sponsors from its competitors. This will increase the company’s image and link the company to sustainability.

·         SLL will be a platform for test-bedding of new products from the sponsor companies. Detailed feedbacks will be given at the end of the day.

·         With the SLL, it will provide future business opportunities for the sponsors as they can implement SLL as a blueprint for further development of business ideas.

·         By sponsoring for SLL, companies can be seen as supporting green campaign in Singapore and thus, reaping benefits and improving profits through the implementation of CSR.

Issues Faced

During the internship, we have faced a few issues that challenged us throughout the whole 16 weeks:

(1)   Inability to adapt to the working life. In the past, during our education in the Singapore Polytechnic, we were given specific assignments and tasks to do for our modules. As such, we were rather used to the spoon-feeding by the lecturers to tell us what we have to do. However, during our internship in SLL, we had to start from the scratch for our Sponsorship & Marketing campaigns. We had no idea on which direction to work to and whether the direction that we were heading was the correct one. Due to this, we were rather unmotivated and felt helpless at times. Lucky for us, we managed to talk it through and discuss with our supervisors & liaison officer and we got over this issue at the end of the day.

     

(2)   Inadequate knowledge on the tasks we were assigned to for the SLL. As we are tasked to work on the sponsorship and marketing side, we were absolutely clueless on them, besides the mere knowledge on the “4Ps” for marketing. Therefore, we had to get inputs from our supervisors, search for information on the internet and obtain ideas from our business lecturers. All in all, we managed to overcome this obstacle and learn to be more pro-active in finding information from the respective sources.  

  

(3)   Insufficient manpower to work on the project assigned to us for the SLL. For the sponsorship & marketing campaign, there were only 2 members assigned to this project. Honestly speaking, the manpower is rather insufficient to drive both of the campaigns. After clarification, we realized that we were not required to carry out the actual campaigns now on our own, but rather to come out with detailed plans so that future members can follow up and take over from there. As such, we were clearer of our tasks on hand, and therefore we wasted no time and worked along this direction to come out with a detailed report for the sponsorship and marketing campaigns.

Suggestion: Social Media Incentive

Social Media Sites Incentives

(1)   Quizzes on the SLL will be posted, parts by parts, onto the social media sites to attract people to revisit them. The answers to the questions will be found from articles that will be posted onto the sites, so that readers will read about SLL before answering the questions. At the end of the day, attractive prizes will be given to the first 5 winners. For example, the winners will win a night stay in the SLL and experience something different from their usual home stay.

(2)    To attract more people to visit the social media sites of the SLL, collectible items such as mascots and limited edition items will be given to the first 50 fans of each social media sites.

                

Figure 21: Hello Kitty collection                              Figure 22: Coca-Cola Glass

An example will be MacDonald, where they give away Hello Kitty’s soft toys and limited edition glass cups.

(3)   In the SLL website or other social media site, an advertisement for giveaways will be put up to attract attention.

Figure 23: The Cofee Bean Card Give Away

For example, ‘The Coffee Bean Card Gift Away’. The giveaways can be a stay in SLL. We can make an advertisement of it and create a poster and post it on the SLL page. Thus to win, one simply needs to like the advertisement and comment on the post and get friends and families to ‘like’ the comments. The giveaways will be presented to the ones with the most likes.

(4)   There will be an integration of the SLL website, Facebook page, Twitter page, YouTube page and the BlogSpot page. This will be done by linking all the social media sites of SLL together. Through this way, it will be more convenient to access to all the sites which will result in higher chance of viewership due to the convenience at the click of the mouse.

(5)   As anime and manga are one of the trends among the teenagers & students right now, there will be a creation of series of comic strips and anime videos. The contents will be about the storylines of the mascots & SLL and how they save the earth. These comic strips and videos will be posted and updated regularly on the social media sites to get people to revisit for entertainment. An example will be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0FwDKN9P3c

(6)   Interesting architecture pictures of eco-houses will be posted on the social media sites regularly to attract the SP community to visit the sites and to look forward to the beautiful pictures.

(7)   Info graphics about the SLL will be posted on the social media sites to arouse interest and attract attention. Interesting facts about SLL will be posted to captivate the reader’s attention. For example in Figure 24, where it shows the info and facts of facebook

  

Figure 24: Example of Facebook info-graphics

(8)   For sending emails, regarding the SLL, through the iChat to the SP community, the subject heading MUST capture the reader’s attention immediately. For Example, “FREE MOVIE TICKETS @ Navy Career & Sponsorship Talk. This will entice the reader to open up the email and find out more about it.

Figure 25: Free movie ticket @ Navy Career & Sponsorship Talk

Suggestion: SLL Video Competition

We could create video competitions of SLL by asking students to make a short 1-2 minutes video or animation. These competitions will be held bi-annually. All students are welcome to join these competitions. The maximum entries per group are 5. The video theme will revolve around sustainability and SLL. It will be posted on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube as well as SP website. Winners will receive attractive prices. However, we recommend that the champion should receive $500 to attract students to join this competition. The winner is determined by how many shares, likes and comment that the videos have. They are given 2 months to create the videos/animation and submit it to us. Then, we will post the videos in Facebook and get the students to vote for their favorite videos. The period for voting is 2 weeks. After that, we will announce the winner and we will use their videos to attract and raise awareness to public and students about SLL. We could also make it a compulsory project for student in some courses such as digital animation (DDA), visual effects and motion graphics (DVEMG) and creative writing for TV and new media (DTVM) as they could use their expertise and create videos for SLL.

 

Figure 20: N.Emation

For example N.E.mation as it is a digital animation competition organized by Nexus for youths to express their thoughts on Total Defence. Into its seventh season in 2012, the competition has proven highly successful, with more than 7,500 students participating since its inception in 2007. With training and guidance, students with no prior experience have been able to create clips of broadcast quality to screen on free-to-air television such as channel 5 and 8. Some of these clips were even selected for international animation festivals and won several awards. 

Suggestion: Key Chain

Key chains are one of the most common souvenir and advertising items. Key chains are commonly used to promote businesses.  A standard advertising key chain will carry the businesses name and contact information and often a logo. Key chains are small and inexpensive enough to become promotional items for larger national companies that might give them out by the thousands. 

In the opening ceremony of SLL, SP could give key chain of our SLL’s mascot as a door gifts. These key chains symbolize the SLL identity and also serve as a small token of appreciation to our guests. We choose key chain as our door gift as key chain is small but meaningful. Furthermore, key chain is affordable and can be manufactured in bulk. In addition, key chain is durable as it can withstand wear and tear which enables the user to use it for a long time. 

     

Suggestions: SLL Mascot

A mascot represents the “face” of SLL, which is mainly for recognition whenever the mascot is seen. Moreover, the mascot will be needed for fun purposes, to help people relax and have a good time through the jovial perspectives and funny stunts with the mascot. The mascot can also be used for giveaways in SLL’s events, promo's advertising in SP, charity events, fundraisers, assemblies and other similar activities.

Figure 18: Solar-Shell Turtle

For SLL, the mascot must be something that portrays sustainability and is eco-friendly. For recommendation, a tortoise as a SLL mascot is suitable. As a tortoise has a long life span of more than 100 years and durable, thus it perfectly shows sustainability. Moreover, a tortoise is not harmful, which links back to SLL as SLL emits lesser carbon footprint. There will be a solar panel on its shell to link back to SLL. During the opening event of SLL, the mascot will lead the crowd in doing a flash mob to entertain the guests.

Figure 19: Beijing Olympics mascot

For example, in the Beijing Olympics 2008, there are 5 mascots in total to represent the 5 circle of Olympic logo

Suggestions: Banners at SST

Figure 17: Banners at SST Fence

The billboards are only visible to the MRT train going towards Pasir Ris to Joo Koon and the road user on that side only. We would want the MRT going towards Joo Koon to Pasir Ris to know that there is SLL in SP. Therefore, we suggest that we put banner that is large enough for commuters to view it opposite of SLL. However, opposite SLL would be the School of Science and Technology. Thus, we need to ask their permission and put up our banners on the fence of SST’s field which is opposite of SLL. In return, students from SST could have their lesson in SLL. The students will gain a hands-on experience of an eco-house which is high performance and self sustainable on its own. Therefore this will make the lesson interesting for the students of SST. In addition, it is also convenient for them as SLL is just opposite their school and thus saving them transportation fees. 

Suggestions

Online Survey

The purpose of this survey is to find out which promotional tools is the SP community most receptive with and other suggestions that could help promote SLL internally and externally. We have surveyed 30 students in total. From the results, we gathered that the most preferred promotional tool of the SP community is “Social Media Sites” such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube & Blogger. For the least preferred promotional tool of the SP community is “Talks on SLL”. The survey questions are shown in Appendix B. Therefore, we suggest that SLL should start on utilizing of social media sites as a promotional tool. Firstly, the survey showed that the respondents in the SP community are most receptive to this form of promotional tool. Secondly, using social media sites is cost effective as it does not require any cost at all. Lastly, social media sites are especially useful in reaching out to a lot of people through the internet. 

Budget & Resources

Budget and Resources

Activity	Budget	Recourses
Social Media Site	$0	Manpower from SLL club to update social media site when needed
Library Exhibition	$100	3 Promoters 3 old and 1 new Prototypes Old and new posters 2-3 Ipads
Wednesday Talks	$0	2 presenters (lecturers) Manpower to do and edit PowerPoint slide
Posters	$275	Phase 1: 30 A3 and 15 A4 posters Phase2: 30 A3 and 20 A4 posters Manpower for pasting poster around campus
SP magazine	$0	Manpower for writing SLL’s article
SP Website / Blackboard	$0	Manpower to publish and create the content for SP buzz and Blackboard notification.

Figure 16: Budget and Resources Table

Social media site such as facebook, twitter, YouTube and BlogSpot are free to create but we need manpower to update it regularly.

We need $100 for library exhibition as we will cater $60 budget for making the final version of SLL. For the remaining $40, we will be using it to create new poster to explain about the final version and technologies of SLL. In addition, we will also be displaying the 3 old prototypes of SLL and the posters in T832. IPad are also needed to display the pictures, blueprint and Google Sketch-up of SLL.

Wednesday talks are free. However, we need manpower to prepare for Wednesday Talks. We need 2 presenters, 1 as a reserve. We also need one to prepare the PowerPoint slide.

The budget for the posters would be around $275 for both phrases. For first phase, we will be putting up 1 A3 size poster in each school. As SP has 10 schools, we will be printing 10 A3 posters in total. Next, we will be printing 30 color A4 posters. Thus the total cost for phase 1 is (10*$12) + (30*$0.5) =$135. We will only be using 1 poster design for the second phase, where there will be 10 A3 posters and 40 A4 color posters in total. We will put 1 quality A3 posters in each school and 3 A4 color posters, which leave with 10 remaining A4 color posters. These 10 remaining posters will be put up in lifts area and food courts. Thus the total cost for phase 2 is (10*$12) + (40*$0.5) =$140. Therefore the total cost for both phrases is $275.

The budget for SP magazine is $0 as it is free to publish an article in SP magazine. Thus, the only thing is we need is manpower to write a good article about SLL.

It is also free to put up content about SLL in SP website and Blackboard. On the other hand, we need manpower for one to create the content in SP buzz and also someone to design the notification in Blackboard.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Figure 15: CSR Diagram

The awareness and implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Singapore has been increasing since the formation of Singapore Compact, a national society promoting CSR in Singapore. In today challenging economic conditions and competing environment, the focus on CSR is crucial as it’s ensures companies are making the correct decision which lead to positive investment for their long term viability. Some companies associate CSR with charity and philanthropy. However, CSR is about embracing responsibility for the company's actions and encourage a positive impact through its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere who may also be considered as stakeholders.

According to Singapore Compact: CSR is essential about business doing well and doing good at the same time. CSR is about long term strategy of aligning business strategy and operations with universal values to achieve positive and sustainable outcomes for customers, suppliers, shareholders, communities, other stakeholders and as well as the environment.

Companies can reap benefits and improve profits through the implementation of CSR. Mr Koh Juan Kiat, Vice-President of Singapore Compact and Executive Director of Singapore National Employers’ Federation explains, “Adopting CSR brings intangible benefits such as a good reputation for the company, high morale among employees and improved performance and attracts investors. Employees will also take greater pride in their company and this will affect productivity”.

Therefore by sponsoring for SLL, companies can be seen as supporting green campaign in Singapore as SLL is a sustainable building and in turn, doing it for a good cause to the environment development, society and students.

Test-Bedding: New Business Opportunities

New Business opportunities

 

  

With the SLL, it will provide future business opportunities for the sponsors as they can implement SLL as a blueprint for further development of business ideas as the SLL uses technologies such as photovoltaic, water harvesting and waste management. For example, there are currently solar-powered containers for the workers in the rural area developments, so that they can rest in them. With this idea, the solar-powered containers can be combined with the technologies of SLL to form a brand new concept of a container for the workers to optimize their work and a place for them to rest.

                

Test-Bedding: New Product Evaluation

New product Evaluation

Figure 14: Product Testing Life

After the SLL is built, we will welcome all the sponsors to test out any new products or prototype in the SLL, absolutely free of charge. As one of SLL’s main objectives is to facilitate future test-bedding and R&D beyond SP in the area of urban sustainability, it will be most appropriate to allow the companies to do so as one of the benefits of sponsoring for SLL.

We will encourage the sponsors to test out their new products by providing the necessary resources to help them monitor the development of the products. Trained personnel of SP will track the progress & report the results at the end of the day. After that, feedbacks will be given to the respective companies on what can be improved. 

     

Branding

Branding is the marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies itself. It also differentiates a product from its competitors. People will easily recognise a well-known brand even if they do not know about the company or its product and service.

Figure 11: Nike Logo

For example, people can identify the name and logo of Nike even if they have never bought any of their products because the Nike brand is known throughout the world. However, not only its company name a brand, but the logo (‘tick’ symbol) is a strong identity on its own and people can identify Nike by the symbol alone.

   

Figure 12: Standard Chartered Marathon   

Figure 13: OCBC Cycling

Companies should differentiate themselves from its competitors as brands that are perceived as different have much higher chance of growth than other brands. For example, Standard Chartered and OCBC bank, both are banks however they differentiate themselves by sponsoring to different events. Standard Chartered have been sponsoring marathon which is held annually since 1982. However, OCBC sponsor cycling since 2009. 

In addition, OSBC is the largest sponsor of Garden by the Bay to date, with sponsoring of OCBC Skyway and the OCBS Garden Rhapsody. When the companies sponsor for SLL, there will be a differentiation of them and their competitors. This not only increases the company image but also link the company to sustainability as SLL is all about creating a sustainable building.

Visibility to public: T-shirt

Polo T-Shirt

We will be producing white Polo T-shirts for our sponsors, which are exclusive only to these companies. After seeking the companies’ permission, the logos of the sponsors will be printed at the back of the Polo T-shirts, in alphabetical order, so that there will not be any disputes among the companies on the placement of the logos on the T-shirts. Alternatively, we can print the sponsor’s logos at the back of the white Singapore Polytechnic Shirt. This will portray the camaraderie and close relationship between SLL & its sponsors.

These Polo T-shirts will serve as the purpose of advertising for the respective sponsors as they will be worn during special events where there will be media press, such as opening events of SLL.

  

The color of the polo T-shirt will be white. We choose white as it symbolizes purity. White symbolizes the potential to move towards every color and this makes it a good choice for a new beginnings and development in any area such as SLL. Therefore, in an opening day of SLL, the entire member present will be wearing white as it symbolizes a new beginning for SLL. In addition, it gives out the impression of exclusivity and official because white color is often used in official events.