Overview of Strategies Planned & Executed

1. Change of Facebook logo to of smaller size to make sure the word 'i.Tea' is seen in the logo as the previous logo put by Mr. Ma had its 'i.Tea' word chipped off. [Implemented]

2. Creating a cover photo for i.Tea fanpage. [Not Implemented ( Mr. Ma feel that the cover photo was not very nice and there no point enforcing a cover photo is its not nice. He also pin-pointed out how GongCha Cover photo bring out its brand) 

3.Flyers  [Not Implemented. Dropped Halfway][Mr. Ma personally wants to find out the effectiveness of Social Media Platforms on i.Tea, thus he does not want us to implement any traditional means.]

 

4.Loyalty Card [Not Implemented. Mr. Ma believes that the results of this strategy will take a few months to evaluate.]

5. Custom Drink Bar [Not Implemented. Mr. Ma thinks that this is too complicated for the staff and requires too much capital.]

6.Facebook Advertisement [ Implemented The Ad was linked to timeline instead of the post. The particular post that featured the promo was highlighted so that it will stay at the top of the timeline. ]

Initial Ad ideas:

Official Ad:

7.  Like Vs Share Event [Implemented. Requested Voters to fill up google doc while we manually key in to amiando to prevent duplication of entries ]

8. $1 Like Vs Share Followup event [Implemented]

9. Posters [Not Implemented]

10. Chocolate Day [Not Implemented] 

11. Product Design  [Not Implemented] 

12. Post of Products (Top few) [Implemented]

Contribution to the team (Wilson)

I'm the secretary for our team.
I mostly take down what was done in each meetings.I then post these infomations on our own group's Facebook page for my group members to take note of what has been done and what hasn't.  I was the one taking most of the photographs of drinks which will eventually be used for designing posters for promotions and events as I lived relatively near to I-Tea's Tampines shop. I also helped out in the designing of the Loyalty Card.

Problem I faced:
-  The major problem I faced during this project is the distance of my home and school. Since I lived in Tampines, which is on the Eastern side of Singapore, it is often a major problem for me to turn up for meetings, especially when I am the secretary. Since most of my group mates and our boss, Mr Ma, live in the Western side of Singapore, almost all the meeting with our boss would be at the I-Tea's Bukit Gombak shop. However, I did tried to make it for each and every meetings. Our leader, Daniel, understood the troubles it would take to travel back and forth Singapore and was able to exclude me in some of the minor meeting that doesn't require me to be there.During some of these meeting, I would be heading I-Tea's Tampines Shop to take photographs required for the posters.Jin Wei had also helped me in one occasion to take down what was done during one of the meeting that was late at night and held at I-Tea's Bukit Gombak shop, knowing that I would not be able to attend as if I did, it would be past midnight before I reached home from the meeting. And for this reason, I thank both Daniel and Jin Wei for helping me out and the rest of my group members for being understanding to my situation.

My Contribution To The Team (Benedict)

I'am mostly in charge of  "designing."
I design posters for I.Tea like promotions and events.
i have designed posters like Chocolate Day , $1 dollar Lemon Tea, I.Tea posters etc.
Before every poster i design , i will spent about 1 to 2 hours surfing the net for ideas on designing the posters.
For each poster i design, i took around 4 to 6 hours designing one.

The problems i face was to make my designs look nice and appealing...
I keep on redoing and finding new ideas for the design as i found out that my poster wasn't up to expectation after completion.

To solve my problems, i always ask my teammates and friends for their opinions and advises about my posters and change/edit after hearing them out .  From there, I learnt the mistakes I made, things to look out for in the future and improve on the next one.

Most of all, my teammates have also help me in designing the posters too... they told me how to improve my poster designs and sometimes they even personally help me to edit! Therefore credits goes to them too :) Everyone have put in the effort to design too.

Here are some of the poster designs :)

Reflection (Zheng Wei)

As a member of TEAM i.Tea, i mainly took charge of the brain-storming of the group, coming out of most of the ideas, such as the Like VS Share, loyalty card. i also help and comment/improve in some of the design portion, such as the loyalty card design (14 June) and help to 'head-start' the Like vs Share design (24 June) which got the approve of Mr. Ma before passing the baton of design to my other teammates to complete it. Before most of the posting on Facebook are done, research on what to post was done, mainly browsing thru successful bubble tea Facebook Page model like 'GongCha and Each A Cup', garnering inspiration on content to post.  

Problem Faced:
- Having the same wavelength as Mr Ma. Mr Ma is more concerned about the image of the company; wanting it to look/seems of high quality while we portrayed the company as more opened-minded (making the people think that the company is interesting and arouse youths to know more about the company as youth of Singapore is one of our main target audience). However we learnt that no matter what ideas we take, we still need to head the advice of a adult of more seniority in the field like Mr. Ma, so we decided to take a step back and listen to the feedback of Mr. Ma instead of taking a large jump in such field.

-Time Issue. As time in poly life progresses, my CCA( canoeing) schedule is getting more pack and pack. This caused some of my workload to be burden by my other group mates to handle the load for me, but i still try to get most of the work done, and also ensured the work that i done is not a sloppy work, which will bring further burden to my group. Having a capable leader like Daniel, he understand everyone difficulty and problems and try to accommodate everyone different schedule to allow the project to continue smoothly. I greatly appreciate having him as my group leader. Also not to forget my other groupmates who are willing to share the workload with me.Thank You.

Apologies and a Summary

My apologies the inactivity on this blog. Due to the tonnes of projects that are dued and the MST week, my group members and I have been very busy and thus could not update this blog regularly.

As a form of an apology, I would like to update you guys on the things my group and I had done during the weeks we were inactive.

1. Task List

Benedict Then

- What does it do, its mission, vision, goals etc
- A brief history of the company if available

Wilson Neo

- Its key products/ services / features. What are its best-selling or most
well-known products/ services / features?
- Who are its key target customers? What do they like best about the
company’s products / services / features? Why do they buy from this
company?

Jin Wei & Zheng Wei

- Analysis/ findings of the company’s current marketing standing:
* What is its market share? Is it a “big-timer” or “small-timer”
only?
* Who are its competitors?
* What marketing management orientation does it practise?
(production, product, selling, market, societal)
- What is the value proposition of this company? i.e. why should
customers buy from this company and not from its competitors?

Daniel

- What are the current marketing methods of the company? Are the­­­­­
current marketing methods effective­­ in reaching the target
audience of the company?
- What are the company’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and
Threats (SWOT)?

After we have been given our individual task, we have done our own research and have managed to complete the intended Task by the given due date.

2. Ideation List

Our group was then required to come up with some ideas that will help the company(i.Tea)
Here is our Ideation List(using wallwisher)
http://wallwisher.com/wall/SMM-1a03d

3. Report & PowerPoint Slides

Next, our group have used the information we had compiled from our Task List and had used them to 'convert' it into a Report and  PowerPoint Slides where we were required to present it to our class at a later date. This took us lots of time to complete this, but we eventually managed to complete both the report and the PowerPoint Slides.

4. PowerPoint Presentation

The time has arrived for us to present our work to our class. And I must say our group have very little rehersals together since our GenEd MST was on the same date as our presentation, so we agreed to simply practise our segments individually. Everyone was obviously, nervous on the day of our Presentation, but we manage to pull through, and I felt that we did well together overall as a team. 

P.S. We will update this blog regularly from now on, well if there is really nothing to blog about then...

Hi Mr. Ma

8:30pm
i.Tea    (爱茶) 
Blk 372 Bukit Batok  St 31 #01-336
Operation MMM (Meeting Mr Ma)

After having a long break in school, approximately 2.5 hours, Jin Wei, Wilson and I managed to replenish ourselves and head towards Mr. Ma's i.Tea branch in Bukit Batok at around 7pm.

We managed to reach the meeting location at around 7:30pm. Since we are have around 1 hour to spare, I decided to try one of their new inventions. Being a typical Green Tea Fan, the "Green Tea Macchiato"(a green tea topped with fresh milk) caught my attention immediately as it was displayed on the 42-Inch Philips HD TV in the shop.

After looking around for the next one hour, trying to find any potential competitors/threats, we decided to head back to the shop. We met Mr Ma and introduced ourselves formally before beginning our conversation

From our short conversation, I can understand that Mr Ma has had many previous collaborations with other students from polytechnics to university. He told us that he is very open to young students like us, since he believes that "Young man is full of innovation and creativities.....given chance and good platform".  He also stated that he will be giving us admin rights to i.Tea's FaceBook page and is willing to help us in this project whenever necessary, since he understands that we are freshmen and may be inexperienced.

P.S. We actually wanted to take a group photo with Mr Ma, however he insisted that he wanted to keep a low profile and offered to take a picture of us instead.


Cheers :)

Daniel

Meeting Mr. Ma

After a short conversation via phone with Mr. Ma this Thursday, 3 May 2012, we have come to an agreement that our team will be meeting with Mr. Ma this weekend at his Tampines iTea branch.
However, due to some unforeseen circumstances, our meeting was postponed to a later date, at another branch in Bukit Batok.

-Meeting has been postponed to 8pm on 7 May-

Edit 2[Meeting again postponed to 8 May]

Let's hope we can finally meet up with him.

Company approval for collaboration

Here is the email the company, I-Tea, emailed to me,asking me some questions while at the same time,approving the collaboration between the company and our group.

Screenshot of email

---

From: askhimleh@hotmail.com
To: ioicafe.cafe@gmail.com
Subject: We hope that you might consider
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:04:16 +0800

Dear Sir / Mdm

We are a group of students from Singapore Polytechnic, School of Digital Media and Information Technology.

We have been given an assignment which requires us to promote and market a company through social media.

We are very interested in your products and would like to form a partnership with your company to boost the awareness of your products / company, and possibly increased sales through the use of social media platforms like Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Blogs.

As part of the marketing strategies, we plan to do the following for your company:

1) set up a Facebook Page and put up interesting content on it on a regular basis

2) set up a blog to share interesting information about your products

3) set up a Twitter account to disseminate snippets of information about your products and as a feedback channel for your customers

4) set up a Youtube channel and create videos to market selected products of your company.

Besides utilising social media, we will also help to market your company through traditional means of such as designing attractive posters/flyers that will be distributed around Singapore Polytechnic and its vicinity.

We will work together to think of more ideas if your company is willing to work with us on this. If needed, we can submit a simple project proposal to share our ideas with you so that you have a better idea of how we can contribute to your company.

Please feel free to call me AngJinWei at my handphone 96920009 or email me at Askhimleh@hotmail.com if you have any questions.

You may also contact my lecturer, Ms Dora Chua (dora@sp.edu.sg) (hp:97492609) if you would like to clarify the nature of this proposed collaboration.

Thank you for your kind attention, we hope to hear from you soon.

Thanks and best regards

 

The other email was sent in the webpage of the Each-a-cup page so there's no screenshot.

 

My Experience

Last Friday (20/4/2012) , I came to think of a shop in Jurong Point named "HongKong Egglets" which opened just recently earlier this year and thought that it will be a great idea to collaborate with them for this project. Through some background searching, i found out that the shop have already has a Facebook page! However, they only acquired 43likes. Therefore, i felt that it was a good opportunity to help them increase their popularity in the social media platform. So, i e-mailed them on a possible collaboration.

Last Tuesday(24/4/2012) , not having any reply from the shop, i decided to head down to the shop to ask for a collaboration upfront, in case that they just overlooked the email that i sent. I was asked the staff working there and they asked me to return back on Thursday as the boss was not in that day and would be back on Thursday.

Today, (26/4/2012), as what i was told by the staff, i returned to the shop on Thursday with my teammate ,Jin Wei, in hope that we will be able to meet the boss of the shop. Never did we know, when i approached the staff that was managing the cashier today, she told me that the boss was in Malaysia and appeared unwilling to provide the boss number, maybe due to confidential reason. She told me to return to the shop on Saturday, which the boss would have by then returned back. 

The result of this collaboration is pretty much unknown as the boss is not around and it does not seems that the discussion of collaboration will pull through long...

-Zheng Wei


-EDIT- (27/4/2012 23.56)
Addon of SS of email sent

Blog entry #4

Date: 25 April 2012
Time: Around 3pm
Place: Tampines Block 201B

After I split up with Daniel and Benedict,who went to Ang Mo Kio Hub to search for companies, I went to scout for companies in the area where I live in,Tampines.

The first shop I approach was a bubbletea and snack shop. It sells a variety of bubbletea and also some snacks like French Fries and Popcorn chicken. I spoke with the person attending the shop for about 5mins. Unfortunately, she was unable to collaborate with my group as she told me that apprently,the manager of the shop doesn't come down to the shop.Since she also didn't have the manager's number or email address, I left the shop to search for others. [Failure]

The second shop I approach was also a bubbletea shop called I-Tea. I spoke to the people attending to the shop for about 10mins. They told me that their manager also rarely comes down to the shop. However, they managed to give me their manager's number. After I left the shop,I called the manager and we spoke for about 5mins. Since he was having a meeting at that time,we didn't manage to discuss much but he told me to call back later at night to discuss more.

3hours later, I called the manager again and this time,we spoke and discuss for about 20mins. The manager,Mr Ma, was very interested in collaborating with me and my group. After i told him that this collaboration is free and that we are very interested in the collaboration with their companies, he agreed to the collaboration straightaway. He asked me to email him a proposal so that he could understand more about this collaboration. I thanked him and told him that I will send him a proposal and also I will discuss with the rest of my group members about this potential collaboration. [Pending] (The company had agreed to collaborate)

Last weekend, i went to my grandmother's house. Across the block, there was a supermarket called Lim Bang supermarket at Chua Chu Kang Street 51. I went a bubble tea shop called Lim Bang Cafe and i met with the female boss. She looked friendly and so i ask her if she was interested in our campaign. We talked about 10 minutes and she seems keen to collaborate with us. But, after she had discuss with whom i think was her husband (the boss) who was just beside her all the time we talked and he was also listening,she said they did not want so much trouble having a facebook page for them as their shop was just a neighbourhood shop. So, i thanked her for the time and i left.

Also, during the 18th this month, i was browsing the internet to look for bubble tea shops. And, i found two shops: 1) Each a cup 2) IOI Cafe. I emailed them about our plan and within 3days i received a reply from Each a cup. Then, i told Daniel to tell them more about our plan and hope to collaborate with them. But, the other shop: IOI Cafe did not reply me anything regards about the collaboration.

Blog Entry #2

25th April 2012
Around 2pm
Ang Mo Kio HUB
Weather : Sunny

Benedict and I decided that we should search around AMK Hub for food/beverages company . As soon as we reached AMK Hub, we decided to go to Level B2, where most of the food stalls can be found. There we saw a few companies and decided to approach them.

The 1st stall we approached was "Snow Frost" located on level B2. But immediately, we were overwhelmed Advanced Chinese. After around 5 minutes of trying to understand each other, the manager of the shop replied that she is not interested in this collaboration. We thanked her and left
[Failure: due to language barrier]

The 2nd stall we approached was "Lumont Chocolatier" which is also located on the same level. And fortunately, we were greeted by an English speaking employee. This time we managed to converse fluently, and the employee agreed to pass down out "message" to the shop owner. We gave our contact information and thanked her for her time before leaving, in search of another stall.
[Pending...]

The 3rd Stall we approached was "Yami Yogurt". We managed to speak with one of the employees but was quickly referred to an Enquiry Hotline.I dialled in the number, and my call was taken by a service desk operator. After talking about our project and whether Yami Yogurt is interested in this collaboration, she referred me to an enquiry email address. I thanked her before hanging up the phone.
[ Benedict and I then considered that Yami Yogurt is a rather large company and the process for us to reach the intended Head might take too long, and so we decided to "drop" this company ]

After looking around the mall for more shops, we decided to look for other shops outside AMK Hub. After about a 15 minutes break, we ventured outside AMK Hub in search for more companies. After about 30 minutes, we arrived at AMK Jubilee, where we found a beverage stall, " Chatime". We spoke to the shop manager and she seem keen in this collaboration and they took down our contact informaton. Also, since is was a hot day, we decided to try one of their products called the Chocolate Mousse as its name captured our attention. We enjoyed our drink and once again thanked the shop manager for her time.
[Pending...]

And that concludes our(Ben-and-Daniel) adventure.

Finally found!!! :D

Today, at around 2pm, Daniel and I went to amk hub to search for the companies, and after 1 tiring hour , we manage to find it :D the shop is "Chatime"  selling bubble tea. after discussing with the manager for around 15mins , she approved to let us continue with the project. 

After that, Daniel and I went to try their Chocolate Mousse drink. it was really nice and enriching as the chocolate taste was so distinct and the sweetness was just right :) 

definitely worth it....  

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