An IMC Plan for my Marketing Communication Project in Sunway College Johor Bahru (Aug - Dec 2010). Completed in a team of 5, act as a Marketing Communication Manager in this Project. Instructed by Mr. Peter Tan

1. Sunway College Johor Bahru
DIPLOMA IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
- AUGUST 2008 (B) -
Assignment
Marketing Communication
- BMKT 0303 -
AUGUST – DECEMBER 2010
Presented to Mr. Peter Tan
Group Members:
Chew Kian Hong (F-0808-046)
Chiam Dao Wei (F-0808-005)
Kong YanSean (F-0808-045)
Lee Khai Hoong (F-0808-035)
Lim Tai Howe (F-0808-011)

2. Executive Summary
BRAND’S® is a market leader of health supplement provider in Malaysia. To
maintain as a market leader, the objective this Integrated Marketing Communication
Plan seeks to promote the products benefits and build stronger customer relationship
to customers, also to encourage brand switching of the Malay’s market.
This plan will include the analysis of the company Strength, Weakness, Opportunities
and threat, also the target audience and the current market trend.
To achieve our IMC objectives, we choose advertising and event sponsorship as our
promotional tools. We will advertise on three different languages of newspaper, and
to TV channels. We also co-operate with the National Cancer Society of Malaysia to
organise a health talk at Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru, and we also do a fund
raising activity to raise RM 100,000 funds for National Cancer Society of Malaysia.
As to maintain as a market leader, we will request a budget 10% of turnover which is
RM 6.35 million over a 12 month period with appropriate reason.
For the evaluation of promotional tools. We will evaluate the two methods that are
chosen to deliver the messages which are newspaper and TV advertisement. To see
whether the customers is aware the advertisement, to make sure the message reached
to our customers effectively. We also evaluate the event sponsorship, to see the
effectiveness of our event sponsorship, to make sure the goal of the vent is achieved.
Besides that, we also conduct a contingency plan if there is any case happens on these
two promotional tools.

3. TABLE OF CONTENTS:
NO. TASK PAGE
1. Executive Summary *
2.
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Company Background
1 - 2
3.
2.0 Situational Analysis
2.1 Market Trends
2.2 SWOT Analysis
2.3 Target Audience
2 - 6
4. 3.0 IMC Plan 6 - 7
5. 4.0 Budgeting 7 - 8
6.
5.0 Promotional Tools
5.1 Printing Advertisement
5.1.1 Newspaper Advertisement
5.1.2 TV Advertisement
5.2 Event Sponsorship
8 - 14
7.
6.0 Evaluation of Promotional Tools’
Effectiveness
6.1 Advertising
6.2 Event Sponsorship
14 - 16
8. References 17
9. Appendices *

4. 1.0 Introduction
We, INDICATORS were appointed by Cerebos (M) Sdn. Bhd. to execute on the IMC
plan with the aim, “To maintain BRAND’S® position as the market leader as a
Health Supplement Producer in Malaysia”. In order to achieve this aim, we had come
out with a promotion campaign’s plan.
1.1 Company Background
Cerebos Pacific Limited (CPL) is a manufacturer and also distributor of the health
supplements, coffee and tea, drinks, canned food, desserts, toppings, condiments,
herbs and spices throughout Asia and Australasia. Today, most of Cerebos’ products
are household names such as, BRAND’S® (chicken essence), Fountain (sources),
Robert Harris (coffee), Saxa (salt), these are just some of the names that enjoy a loyal
following.
Cerebos Pacific Limited (CPL) was incorporated on 3 September 1981 as a private
limited company and under the name Fession Pte Ltd. On the next year January, the
company was acquired public status, adopted its present name and then became the
Group’s holding company. The well known of the company’s product is the
BRAND’S® Essence of Chicken. Some of its others renowned products’ names are
Who Hup (Asian sauces), Fountain (Western Sauces), and Gregg’s (coffee).
One of the health supplement product provide by Cerebos Pacific Limited with the
brand name of BRAND’S® is the market leader in Asia with over 80% market share.
Besides that, BRAND’S® chicken essence is also scientifically proven to be
efficacious whereby BRAND’S® chicken essence prepared with the natural
ingredients. There are more than 10 universities has conducted the scientific research

5. about the BRAND’S® chicken essence and show that BRAND’S® chicken essence
can reduce tiredness, improve one’s concentration and also enhance one’s immune
system.
The geographical segment of the company included Malaysia, Singapore, Australia,
Taiwan, China, Indonesia, Philippines, New Zealand, Thailand and Hong Kong.
The company vision is to be the leading food and health supplement enterprise in the
Asia Pacific region by creating value for our employees, our customers and our
shareholders.
2.0 Situational Analysis
2.1 Market Trends
According to the research conduct by University Malaya, more Malaysian consumer’s
think it is important to have prevention via taking health supplement. (Please refer to
appendix of market trends). As the people recognize the importance of health, people
will purchase the health supplement in order to remain healthy.
Besides that, there are more diseases exist compare with precious years. Although the
Malaysia is one of the country that affected by global financial crisis, BRAND’S®
still have 26% growth, which means that people are still willing to purchase the
BRAND’S® health supplement products even though there is recession in the
economy. (Please refer to appendix of market trends). Another reason will be the
people is well-educated in this modern era, they have more knowledge about the
needs to maintain body’s health.
2.2 SWOT Analysis

6. Strengths
 Major player in Malaysia’s health
supplement industry
 Sales growth momentum
 Able to meet target consumer
needs and preference
Weaknesses
 Laying foundation
 Do not provide full product range
of health supplement products
Opportunities
 Increase capacities
 Expand Brand’s essence user base
 R&D research on science base
health supplement
Threats
 Deep price cut from competitors
 Avian Influenza (AVI)
Strengths:
Cerebos Malaysia is the major player in Malaysia’s health supplement industry, where
its BRAND’S® Essence of Chicken controls 95% market share. Other major products
include Bird’s Nest, BRAND’S® Innershine and BRAND’S® tablet. The global
financial crises that happened did not resulted in any huge impact to the company.
Sales growth momentum was also sustained through targeted brand building
initiatives and well integrated marketing campaigns featuring celebrity ambassadors.
With the success integrated marketing campaigns and initiatives, the brand itself is
successfully reach to its targeted consumers’ specific needs and preferences.
Weaknesses:
Although we have the major range of health supplement products and also the good
financial situation, our business still cannot expanding quickly to others countries in

7. the Asia Pacific as we are laying the foundations. However, in order to in line with
our objective to develop the markets, we have employed local-based marketing
personnel in several countries such as Myanmar, Vietnam, and Indonesia to drive our
growth strategy.
On the other hand, even though we have a major range of health supplement products,
but we only offer 5 products in Malaysia including BRAND’S® Essence of Chicken,
BRAND’S® Bird Nest, BRAND’S® Innershine, BRAND’S® Essence of Chicken
Tablet Range, and BRAND’S® Alphamynd Essence of Chicken for Juniors. We may
also offer the other product range of BRAND’S® in Malaysia such as the wellness
range’s product.
Opportunities:
BRAND’S® Malaysia considers one of the fastest growing markets within the group
worldwide with its sales growing at double digits year on year. Therefore, it is the
opportunity for the company to increase its capacity in order to cater to the growing
demand. The new factory in Shah Alam able to have three times more capacity than
the existing one in Petaling Jaya, which is able to boost up the production capacity
from the existing 800,000 bottles a month to 1.8 million bottles a month for both
domestic consumption as well as the export market.
The company’s revenue has expanded on a strong double digit growth over the
previous financial year. To tap on the potential Malay market, we embarked on
Malay-focused campaigns to expand Brand’s Essence of Chicken’s user base. With
the strong, integrated executions in both above and below-the-line marketing, we
were able to strengthen our engagement.

8. Furthermore, as BRAND’S® is continuously voted as Asia’s Most Trusted Brand by
Reader’s Digest in the vitamins and health supplements category, this demonstrates
consistent engagement with our consumers and the result of company-wide efforts to
enhance our product and service quality. Therefore, the company will continue to
make strategic investments in R&D to develop science based health supplements,
offering better and new products to support the demanding lifestyles of today’s
consumers.
Threats:
The extremely challenging economic environment in fiscal 2009 was unprecedented.
It resulted the consumer was very cautious on many aspects of their expenditure.
Regular and loyal customers of BRAND’S® products expected a lot more from us
and their loyalty to BRAND’S® were constantly attacked by other companies
offering deep price cuts and other freebies.
Although the company is always performing well in most area of its business, there
may others outcome threatens to the business. For example, the AVI outbreak in
January 2004 dampened sales initially. When the AVI outbreak began, it affected
consumer confidence in poultry related products and it resulted the dampened in sales.
This mean that BRAND’S® may threat by this kind of disease whereby it is related to
the ingredient of its product – chicken.
2.3 Target Audience

9. The target audience for BRAND’S® will be the Generation X and Generation Y. The
Generation group X is born in ranging from 1961 to 1981. The birth rates of
Generation Y will be significant increase in between 1982-2000.
It is very stress in this modern world. (Please refer to appendix of target audience).
Therefore, these people face stress and it will cause the health problem such as high
blood pressure. According to the Miller, Cohen, & Ritchey, 2002, the results showed
stress might reduce the immune system. This is supported by Cohen and Herbert 1998.
(Please refer to appendix of target audience). So, we choose them as our target
audiences to promote our products, in order to enhance their body’s health and
immunize system.
3.0 IMC PLAN
The aim for this IMC Plan is to help BRAND’S® to maintain as a market leader of
health supplement provider in Malaysia.
We have set three objectives for this IMC Plan to achieve our aim, they are:
1) Penetrate into Malay’s market by encourage brand switching.
Penetrate into Malay’s market by encourage them to switch to BRAND’S®
Health Supplement products which can help us to increase our sales volume
and help us to achieve our IMC aim.
2) Build stronger customer relationship with existing customers.

10. Building stronger relationship with our existing customers, can make us able
to retain them more effectively as they have already trusted in our brand and
make sure they will not switch to another brand.
3) To promote the benefits of BRAND’S Health Supplement products to the
target audience.
By promote the benefits of BRAND’S® Health Supplement products to the
customers, can help us easier to attract the customers who are interested or
desire to improve their health.
4.0 Budgeting
In 2009, BRAND’S® had achieved a total turnover of RM63.5 million in Malaysia.
(Please refer to appendix of budget). In order to achieve the objectives set in this IMC
plan, the total IMC budget will be taken out 10% from the turnover, which is RM6.35
million. 10% from turnover is enough for BRAND’S® to achieve full impact in order
to maintain market leader. Besides that, according to Ken Orwig who is the Marketing
Chairman of United Way of Greater Toledo, fast moving consumer goods spend 8% -
10% from total turnover to advertise. (Please refer to appendix of budget)
The largest proportion of our budget will be allocated 70% for advertising because it’s
an advertising tool that can reach mass audience with greatest impact and higher
frequency. The other 30% of our budget will be dedicated to event sponsorship. The
method we use to establish our budget is percentage of sales. The main reason to use
percentage of sales is because it is the secure method as it is dealing with known
amount such as quantity of goods sold compare with the predicts or forecasted
amount.
5.0 Promotion Tools

11. Advertising promotes a product or services to its target audience. An advertising plan
for one product might be very different than that for another product. Advertising is
typically done with signs, commercials, e-mail messages, personal contact, etc.
According to AC Nielsen, newspaper and terrestrial TV continue to command the
bulk of total advertising across the media measured at 54% and 35% respectively,
followed by radio which is 5%, magazine is 2% and outdoor is 2%. Firstly, we will do
the BRAND’S® advertisement in newspapers for 5 months. Besides, we will also
advertise our BRAND’S® through television advertising.
5.1 Printing Advertisement
Objectives:
1. To increase purchase intention of the target audience towards our product.
2. Create product awareness in the Malay market.
3. To remind the existing customer about BRAND’S.
5.1.1 Advertisement (Newspaper)
We plan to advertise BRAND’S® advertisement in Malay, English and Chinese
newspaper. From the 3 different languages of newspapers, we choose the higher
readership of each language newspaper in Malaysia to do the advertisement. (Please
refer to appendix of advertising). For the Malay language newspaper, we choose
‘Utusan Malaysia’, for the English language newspaper is ‘The Star’ and for the
Chinese language newspaper is ‘Sin Chew Daily’. The reason we choose these
newspapers is because more people will aware of our products as they are possessed
the highest readerships. (Please refer to appendix of advertising) We will advertise the

12. advertisement on Saturday and also Sunday. Besides, BRAND’S® advertisement will
be present in the full page and full colour for the Malay language newspapers, for the
English and Chinese language newspapers will be present in half page with full colour.
Duration
5 months for each newspaper from June of 2011 to October of 2011.
Budget (Please refer to appendix 3)
Utusan Malaysia
- National edition, full page, full colour – RM14, 000 per advertise
- Every Saturday and Sunday
- Total cost = RM560, 000
The Star
- National edition, half page, full colour – RM19, 300 per advertise
- Every Saturday and Sunday
- Total cost = RM772, 000
Sin Chew Daily
- National edition, half page, full colour – RM29, 500
- Every Saturday and Sunday
- Total cost = RM1, 180, 000
The concept behind the newspaper advertisement is by applying AIDA. We will
design an attractive advertisement to attract the attention of our target audience. The
reason why we choose every Saturday and Sunday to advertise our BRAND’S

13. advertisement is because we believe that most of the people do not go for work during
weekend. For example, people will aware our advertisement while they are reading
the newspaper in the morning, after that they will purchase our product.
5.1.2 Advertisement (TV)
For the television advertisement, we had chosen ‘TV3’ and ‘TV8’ to advertise the
BRAND’S® advertisement. The reason we choose ‘TV3’ is to meet the IMC
objective which is to create the awareness in Malay market. Through ‘TV3’ channel
profile, we able to know that there are 95% of Malay, 3% of Chinese and 2% of
Indian/others are watching this channel. (Please refer to appendix of advertising)
However, we also want to advertise our product in Chinese market through ‘TV8’.
The ‘TV8’ channel profile shows that there are 78% of Chinese are watching this
channel, for the Malay is 21%, and for the Indian/other is only 1%. (Please refer to the
appendix of advertising) BRAND’S® advertisement will be present in television for
duration of 119seconds. During this 119seconds, we believe that it can deliver the
appropriate messages to the audience.
Duration
2 months for each channel from September of 2011 to October of 2011.
Budget (Please refer to appendix of Advertising)
TV3
- Duration/Sec = 60seconds – RM2,000

14. - Monday to Sunday
- 7pm-11pm (3 times)
- Total cost = RM714,060
TV8
- Duration/Sec = 60seconds – RM2,000
- Monday to Sunday
- 7pm-11pm (3 times)
- Total cost = RM714,060
We applied AIDA concept in the television advertisement as it can be more
effectively. Besides that, we plan to advertise our BRAND’S® advertisement every
day, and the time period is from 7pm to 11pm. According to the television reach by
time segment, there are 77% adults are watching television from 7pm to 11pm. In this
case, we believe that our advertisement can achieve high viewership. (Please refer to
appendix of Advertising)
5.2 Event Sponsorship
Event Sponsorship is a form of promotion for brand. Event Sponsorship allows
corporate to ties their brand to a high-interest public activities, such as entertainment,
social, athletic and other public activities.
Objectives of Event Sponsorship
1. To raise the fund at minimum amount of RM 100, 000 for the National Cancer
Society of Malaysia of the year.
2. To enhance our brand equity of customers.

15. 3. Enhance Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of Cerebos Sdn Bhd as good
CSR is a fundamental business principle to them.
We and National Cancer Society of Malaysia (NCSM) will cooperate together to held
a health talk, which is about the importance of early detection of cancer. The reason
that we choose to organize this health talk with National Cancer Society is because,
according to National Cancer Society, there are many Malaysian are dying from
cancer due to the cancer is found in late stage. This talk is aim to increase the people
awareness of the importance of early detection of cancer.
This event will come along with the activity of a small exhibition about cancer to the
audience which would allow them know more about cancer, and an activity of fund
raising for the National Cancer Society.
Strategy
This health talk will invite some of the well known experts. For the Kuala Lumpur
area, the experts are Dr Christina Ng, a Consultant Medical Oncologist at Pantai
Hospital KL; Mr. Tony Skelchy, President of National Cancer Society of Malaysia
and Dr Vijaya Sangkar, Haematologist.
For Johor Bahru, the expert will be, Dr. Saunthari Somasundaram, Medical Director,
National Cancer Society of Malaysia. Dato' Dr Mohamed Ibrahim A.Wahid, president
of Malaysian Oncological Society (MOS); Dr. Loh Siew Yim, senior lecturer of
University Malaya. They will give their talk about the importance of early detection
of cancer to the audience.

16. The date for this event, for the Johor Bahru area, will be held at 26 June 2011, at
Persada Johor International Convention Centre; for Kuala Lumpur area, will be held
at 31 July 2011, at Mid Valley Exhibition Centre.
This talk will has two sessions, the first sessions will be at 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.,
and the second session will be at 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Both areas are the same.
An exhibition about cancer will also be set up along with the health talk. This event is
open for general public. The entrance fees will be free for everyone. This exhibition
of cancer will begin from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Both areas are the same.
We will set up a booth to sell the BRAND’S® Essence of Chicken. This is for the
fund rising for the National Cancer Society of Malaysia. The sales revenue in the
event on that day will directly donate to NCSM. A Retractable Umbrella which worth
RM10, will be given as a free gift for those who purchase BRAND’S® product
RM100 and above.
This event will be advertised on the newspaper one week before the event to inform
the public about this event.
Budget
The allocated budget for this event is RM1.9 million. For the Kuala Lumpur area, we
estimate that the cost for the whole event will be RM 985, 000; for the cost of holding
the even at Johor Bahru, the estimated cost will be RM 915, 000. These costs have
taken into account of all the cost that is needed for holding an event.
6.0 Evaluation of Promotional Tools’ Effectiveness
6.1 Advertising

17. In advertising, we want to evaluate the awareness of customers towards the
advertisement. The reason for us to evaluate the awareness of customers towards the
advertisement is because we want to ensure our messages in advertisement reached
our customers effectively as expected. In advertising tool, we had chosen two
methods to deliver our advertisements’ message.
The first method is Newspaper. In newspaper, for every customer who returned the
advertisements’ page in our newspaper to any of our retailers, we will provide a cash
voucher worth RM10 to the customer that he/she can use this cash voucher for the
next purchase of BRAND’S® products in any of our retailer shop with a RM10
lowered price. The criteria that we set for this method is to receive a minimum of 30%
returned newspaper advertisement within the promotional period.
The second method we chose is TV advertisement. In TV advertisement, we will
request a viewership of TV’s advertising period from the TV channels that we
assigned to broadcast our TV advertisement. The criteria for this method is having at
least 48% of average viewership from both of the TV channel assigned to broadcast
our TV advertisement.
Contingency Plan
For the advertising (newspaper), we set a criteria of minimum 30% returned
newspaper advertisement out of the total newspaper that were distributed within the
promotional period. In order to make improvement if negative result happened, we
will evaluate the total quantity of returned newspaper monthly from all the retailer
and see whether it reached the criteria we set, which is 30%. If the criteria is not
achieved, we will evaluate the problems provided with solutions. For example, if the
total received newspaper is lower than 30%, this may be cause by the design of

18. advertisement, or the awareness for them to notice the benefit that the newspaper
mentioned. In this instance, we may improve the design of our newspaper
advertisement to make it more attractive, or put the Chroma Key in the commercials
to increase the awareness of this benefit of receiving RM10 cash voucher by hand up
the newspaper advertisement.
6.2 Event Sponsorship
We will evaluate the event by measure its effectiveness. For event sponsor ship, we
are evaluating the contribution of BRAND’S® towards the National Cancer Society
of Malaysia (NCSM). By doing this evaluation, we are able to make sure the goal of
this event is achieved. During the event, BRAND’S® chicken essence will be selling
on the day, the turnover generates from the event will be donated to the NCSM. The
criteria will be achieved a minimum revenue of RM100, 000 from the event.
Contingency Plan:
We will evaluate the first event which will be held at Johor Bahru area at 26th
of June
in 2011 to see if the average amount of RM50, 000 from the criteria set for two events
can be achieved. In case of negative result to be happened, we had set one month of
the time line to evaluate the result of first event in Johor Bahru. The problems will be
issued and solution will be provided in that month in order to make improvement in
our second event which will be held in Kuala Lumpur area in 31st
of July 2011. For
example, if the RM50, 000 is not achieved, it may be the reason like the message of
this event is not fully delivered, so that there will be less people to participant in the
event. In this instance, we will then intensify the man power and time line for the
advertising of the coming event to make sure the same mistake won’t be happened
again.

19. References:
Book
1. Schultz, Don E, Tannenbaun, Stanley I, Lauterborn, Robert F, 1993, Integrated
Marketing Communication, NTC Business Books, United States of America.
2. Jain, S, 2008, Integrated Marketing Communication, Global India Publications Pvt
Ltd.
Website
1. Cerebos, Annual Report, Cerebos, viewed 20 September 2010,
<http://www.cerebos.com/index.htm>
2. BRAND’S, BRAND’s, viewed 22 September 2010,
<http://www.brandsworld.com.my/>
3. Kenneth, Donald, B, 2002, Integrated Advertising, Promotion, & Marketing
Communications, CATAWBA COLLEGE, viewed 24 September 2010,
<http://faculty.catawba.edu/jbgreen2/Classes/advertising_plan_template.htm>
4. Advertising Budget, seriously effective print advertisement, viewed 26 September
2010,
<http://www.myprofessionaladvertising.com/Advertising%20Budgeting.htm>