Media Selections

There has been a worldwide boom in private medical education. In Asia, there are 79 medical schools in Japan, with 50 governmental and 29 private colleges. Other countries like Malaysia 19 private institutions, Thailand, 3 and the Philippines 3, have also ventured heavily into private medical education. Out of the 18 medical schools, Allianze Universiti College of Medical Sciences or better known as AUCMS is in urge to rebrand its media selections in order to stay competitive with its subsequent medical colleges in Malaysia. Previously, AUCMS has invested a lot in Advertising and Promotion (A&P) of the college; however it ended up failure compared to other similar in nature colleges. Hence, among the medium that AUCMS need to look at are social media and social networks, print media, new media, broadcast, promotional part and outdoor advertisement.

Social Media (Network)

In this fast moving era, social network has become an exceptional in everyones lives. Everywhere in every single second millions of people out there somehow and somewhere had log on to any website. It can be social networks such as twitter, facebook or even paypal. It can also be any blog or news portal or simply a website. Up to 10.4 million Malaysians interact online, ranging from different set of demographic identity. Dealing with their age, youth within the age of 15-24 are the largest population (37%)

of Malaysian using the internet and the age ranges reach 55+ which account for 6% Malaysians online. Female participation online in Malaysia is incredible, they make of the 47% of the whole Malaysian using the internet. Statistical report behold that Malaysians are spending more 16hours online per week and their most visited international sites are Google, Facebook, MSN, Youtube and Yahoo accordingly while the local most visited sites by Malaysians are Maybank2u, Mudah.my, Airasia.com, Star Online and Malaysiakini. The Malaysians participation online records several activities such as search, social networking, photo and multimedia. Just like in 2009, the 2010 statistical report expose that ITU is the most giant usage source of Malaysian connection online, their source represent 64% of the whole internet usage source of Malaysians. As such, AUCMS needs to engage actively in social network to attract more students to enroll in the Universiti for medical studies. Usually, the main problem in a failure of any A&P is that the particular initiative failed to deliver the message that it is suppose to. Social networks such Facebook and twitter can be a good platform to spread about AUCMS and its current activities. The page must design in an attractive manner according the need of the students. It should not contain more words, instead 3 dimension effects, pictures and designated web page would definitely attract a student to at least like the page. AUCMS must ensure that all the information related is available on the web page and most importantly it can be accessible easily without much complication.

Up-to-date about 10,034 people liked AUCMS facebook. This number is not enough to meet the target of the medical school. AUCMS should at least record double digit growth in upcoming year so that it can achieve minimum 15% of student enrollment every year.

Broadcast Besides social network, the role of broadcast is undeniable. AUCMS should go for effective broadcast advertisement. For example, it can become sponsor for any programme which has highest audience reach. In this case, while watching the programme people will also came across the ad for AUCMS. i. Television Normally television would be the way to go when introducing or re-introducing a product into the market. Most households have a television and if a company was to place ads on the right stations with enough frequency they could raise awareness for their product. Among all the major 178 payment based channels and six free to air channels available to the citizenry of Malaysia, according to the survey done, capture all the 14.6million of the Malaysian adults (15+) TV3 is revealed as the Top channel in Malaysia, having 28.7% audience share among all. Analysing by the media ownership, it is correct to say Media Prima accept the most high ranked media channels as most of their owned TVs are ranked within 1 to 5 (TV3; 1 st, TV9; 3rd, 8TV; 4th, NTV7; 5th). Ranking the audience share of the Malaysia TV within 1 to 10, the RTM owned channels is as well significant amongst other counterpart, the report have it that TV2 is second of highest of the rank, while TV1 is seen at the number 6th of the ranking.

The ad for AUCMS should be designed in a catchy way. As a first step, AUCMS needs to change the beat of its theme song. As for what Limkokwing has done. Limkokwing university hardly spend money for A&P, but it remains popular and people knew the existence of the college. The similar technique should be followed by AUCMS. The song need to be youthful, and the video of ad should be creatively created so that it makes each and every student who envision to study medicine would have fixed in mind that AUCMS would be their ultimate choice or option.

Hence the choice of television stations would Tutor TV for SPM students, TV3, Astro Awani, Bernama TV, RTM Channels, discovery and history channels.

ii.

Radio

However, high income customers are the exception to the rule. Consumers with a larger annual income spend less time in front of the television. That is the general idea on the consumers mindset in pushing a product. Radio is one of the best ways to reach consumers during their daily commute. Just going to and from work a person can spend up to 3 hours round trip.

The Malaysia radio industry is still progressively active and holds a brighter future, even with the invention of the online radio that has successfully distorted the future of the traditional media future, the Malaysian radio industry remains adamantly progressive. There are 25 national

and 38 regional radio stations throughout Malaysia, among all 31 stations are owned by the government while 32 are owned by private organizations.

Advertisement still serves as the financial power of the radio industry and their spenders ranges from; Retail, Finance and Non-alcoholic beverages. Sinar fm (Bahasa Malays), Hitz (Englsih), and MY fm (Chinese) are the most renowned and influential radio stations throughout Malaysia. Study shows that elders from 25years and above are chanced to listen to radio in the morning, while young ones are active listeners in the afternoon and in the evening, as patterning to the media culture of Malaysians.

Study as well reveals that younger stars are active listeners of non-traditional radio platform such as (Hi-Fi, Mobile Phones, Internet and MP3/MP4). In the record of radio ranking as according to the media language, Sinar is presented as the most high of the Bahasa Malaysia in radio industry, while Hitz fm top the English usage, THR fm top the Bi-Ligual Channels ranking, My top the ranking of Chinese usage, and Minnal is the only and the top of tamil usage ranking.

As such, radio ads on the targeted stations with higher listeners during drive timeis essential in exposing AUCMS.

Keeping that in mind, AUCMS should also pay attention to radio jingles and teasers so that the exceptional group can be reached via that medium. AUCMS also must be very cautious in selection of the airtime so that it is able to meet its target market.

Magazines Malaysian magazine industry is bigger than the dailies industry, as 431consumer magazines and 34business magazines are published in Malaysia for readership. Incredibly, less than 10% of the whole big industry readership is controlled by Nielsen publications.

Figure 1: Example of leaflet and magazine infos.

Even it is so, AUCMS should have selected magazines that have a high index within our primary target market age range, but with high indexes in the secondary and tertiary target age ranges, as well. In order to increase AUCMSs reach is by placing ads in multiple magazines, with less emphasis on frequency. Within these magazines, AUCMS should place ads occasionally especially during the month prior to major education fair or events across the education calendar.

This is to increase reach before the vents and attempt to spark interest in students before they were on the actual event. At least they would a simple knowledge on the medical school an its offerings. This is a way to prepare their target market prepared for 2013. It is highly expected that through these ads, AUCMS will be able to garner more support for the promotions it has planned to run during the educational events. For example, Remaja, Mangga, People, Sudut Pendidikan, Dewan Masyarakat and etc are among the choice of magazines.

Newspaper

All the 32 newspaper available for readership in Malaysia are published by 10 major publishing houses, which are Star Publication (The Star, and Mingguan mStar), NSTP Group (New Straits Times, Berita Harian, Harian Metro), Sun Media Corporation (The Sun), The Edge Communication (The Edge and Financial Daily), Utusan Media Sales (Utusan Malaysia, and Kosmo), Sin Chew Media Corporation (Sin Chew Daily, Guang Ming), Nanyang Press (Nanyang Siang Pau, and China Press), Kwong Wah Yit Poh Press (Kwong Wah), See Hua Group (See Hua Daily, Borneo Post), Sabah Publishing (Daily Express and Overseas Chinese Daily News). 16 of the listed newspapers are owned by the nation government and distributed nationally, only four are distributed regionally, 12 are East Malaysia based, and The Sun, Malay Mail, Red Tomato, and Malaysian Today are the free distributed dailies in Malaysia. It is revealed that dailies published in Bahasa Malaysia received largest readership ranking, followed by the Chinese written daily, both the Tamil and English dailies are not significant in terms of readership ranking. If the dailies readerships are classified according to languages, Metro Ahad is the most preferred Bahasa Malaysia newspaper, Sin Chew takes the

highest position among dailies in Chinese, while The Star champions the English language dailies, and Nanban is the most preferred Tamil dailies. Notably, as for 2011 media report in Malaysia, it is revealed that among all the readers of Malaysia newspaper, 87% still prefer the hardcopy newspaper, while just 12% read both online and the printed copy, surprisingly, 1% of the total readers population reads online newspaper.

Sicne, The star is the top national paper with an average circulation of 200,000 to 300,000, its wide reach and varied general content it would be the paper most likely to reach our side spread demographic. Followed by The New Straits Times, Utusan Melayu and Kwan Wah Yit Poh and daily express as a mass target.

The beauty is that these papers do have column for education, hence, AUCMS should take advantage on that to place its ads and discuss the strength and plus point of the medical school compared to its competitors.

Outdoor The outdoor media consisting of the transit media, mobile media, digital bill board and the rest are majorly owned by Big Tree (54%), Ganad (20&), Seni Jaya (15%) and others own (11%) of the total industry. The outdoor media is often used to advertise automobile product such as to showcase their cars, branding and lunching it. While the primary language used in most of it copies are Bahasa Malaysia and English Language.

AUCMS target students are from the mass and particularly the Malay society. Hence, the usage of Bahasa Malaysia and English language would be their utmost choice. The recommendation to use billboards effectively is to place them in high traffic areas in the weeks leading up to and during the educational fair and events is essential. Eventually billboards will be placed in close proximity to students and youngsters are to alert newcomers that the type of quality education that they wanted are available in the AUCMS and that it should be their first choice medical school.

Promotional Activities

AUCMS has appointed six young artistes as its ambassadors. The artistes were singer Khai, Rosma, Alif Razali, Salima Habibi, Lan Kristal and actress Zuraini Kassim. The six artistes are chosen because they are living a healthy lifestyle and can become role models for the students and the local community. These artistes will be handling the roadshows and will lead AUCMSs ads and also being consultant in education fairs, at large.

AUCMS also can host blood donation campaign to promote it. Being a medical school this step would help the institute to meet its target audience and share the details about the medical school in a very simple and easier way. This would help AUCMS to collect view of students and parents on the university and develop its medical courses and twinning programmes to both local and international students with effective results.

Figure 2: School of Pharmarcy in AUCMS