Bondhu Garage Project of Asiatic Events Marketing Limited

Bondhu garage project of Asiatic Events Marketing Limited

Asiatic Events Marketing Limited is one of the important wing of Asiatic 360. It basically follows the below the line marketing. Below the line marketing activities became so complicated in twenty first century. For an agency the service quality is very important to satisfy its clients and delivering the service in the shortage possible time is another challenge.

Complication becomes so sensitive when an agency needs to deal with both of the client group. The groups are: Social Client and another one is Corporate Client. Both of the groups has their own distinguished set of complications in order to provide the service. Importantly Asiatic Events Marketing Limited has become tremendously successful to provide service to its clients and that is why Asiatic Events Marketing Limited is the Industry leader in Below the Marketing Agency. AEML not only deals with the client, it also has some venture that it needs to normalize Sisimpur is one of the big social projects which regulate under AEML and making business plans for making it more popular. The idea of Sisimpur is to educate the children of rural area through fun and different engagement.

Apart from those social cause, AEML working with many big projects of their corporate clients. Most of the clients wants AEML to organize different events of those respective clients. Clients such as BATB, Grameenphone, Airtel, Unilever, HSBC etc. are main stakeholder of Asiatic. Grameenphone’s new platform for youth based community “Bondhu Garage” is one of the big project they are working with right now.

Introduction:

Asiatic started its journey in 15th March 1966 as East Asiatic. It stated servicing the generic business in the absence of brands (for instance-jute mills; they worked on a campaign to communicate the important role of jute mills in people’s live). After that they became Asiatic 3sixty in the later years of its operation and became one of the largest total marketing communication group in Bangladesh and since operation in 1967, Asiatic 3sixty (then East Asiatic) offered 360 degree marketing solution to its multinational and local clients.

In 1996, Asiatic built international partnership with J. Walter Thompson. Later in 2005, the agency was “re-lunched” by dropping the J. Walter Thompson in exchange for JWT. As being a part of the JWT family, oldest advertising agency in the world, it has pioneered many of the advertising innovation in Bangladesh. JWT the fourth largest marketing communication agency in the world, has nearly 10000 employees in more than 200 offices in over 90 countries, serving over 1200 clients. Basically this attachment transformed the marketing communication wing of Asiatic 3sixty and renamed it to Asiatic JWT.

The range of Asiatic service transcends the frontiers of advertising to cover Social Communication, Events, Public Relations, Corporate Relations, Direct Marketing, Formative Research, Media Planning and Management and Marketing and Product Planning. Asiatic JWT’s role is to ensure that more people spend more time with its client’s brands and purpose is to create ideas that people want to spend some more time with. They belief that better the idea the more time people will spend with it.

Asiatic 360:

The various wings of Asiatic 360are:

Asiatic JWT

This is the associate wing of the JWT worldwide in Bangladesh and shares creative support and other marketing communication related support from JWT worldwide since the multinational corporate client’s base requires such associations with worldwide marketing agency. Under Asiatic JWT there are two main sub-functions.

Asiatic Marketing Communication Ltd. (AMCL)

This is the wing that creates all the marketing communication material for the clients; the materials can be anything ranging to a banner print creative to a complete ATL advertisement. This wing mainly works with the ATL communication of the clients and provides all the creative support to all the other wings the coordination of which provides the client a 360-degree marketing solution. One of the major support requirements came from AEML itself as it needed all the creative materials of the clients for the BTL communication and Activation programs that it launched.

Asiatic Social Limited

Social Marketing Communication wing of the Asiatic JWT that basically address social marketing and social issues and mainly works with various NGO’s (Non-Governmental organization), the government and other social marketing companies to provide marketing solutions for social issues.

Group M

This sub-function consists of three different departments namely: Asiatic Mindshare, Maxus and Media edge, all of which has only one basic function which extremely diversified itself in nature and is very challenge: Media Buying. Media buying is the procurement of the best possible placement and price of a piece of media real estate within any given media. The main task of media buying lies within the negotiations of price and placement to ensure the best possible value can be secured.

Asiatic Events Marketing Limited

This is the Below the Line Marketing solutions wing of Asiatic 3sixty and provides the best activation and BTL marketing solutions to its clients. I have completed my internship on this department, therefore, further description is providing in the report.

MRC-Mode

This is the market research wing of Asiatic 3sixty and it designs research formats ad research methods to provide the client with all the important, relevant and desired information accurately and in a user friendly fashion which aids the clients decision making and program launch process.

Forethought PR

This is sub unit that deals with public relation and media management. This department ensures that the right message is conveyed by the media and also helps in communications not through the traditional methods but through the publicity and management. This department keeps liaison with individuals and figureheads who play an important role in the society, whichever social strata they belong to and ensures that they communicate the right message through appearances, performances, etc.

Nayantara Communication

This is audiovisual production unit and facility for the Asiatic 3sixty and creates all the audiovisual elements that the AMCL or AEML or any other department requires. They are the individuals who shoot, edit and create audiovisual presentation, which may be in the form of a drama, short film, etc. This department is also associated of Sesame Street Inc. in Bangladesh and communications educational videos and games in Bangladesh.

Along with these departments and sub units, Asiatic 3sixty also has 20 Miles, which is another audiovisual production house of Asiatic 3sixty and their own in house printer called the Moitree Printers.

Asiatic Events Marketing Limited:

Asiatic Events Marketing Limited is BTL marketing servicing and communication provider. It is a part of the Asiatic 360 but has its own individual operation and works independently within the group.

Asiatic Events Marketing Limited started its journey back in 1997. This was the era when suddenly there was a need of a BTL marketing, activation and communication platform with the experience individuals who can operate into this platform. Therefore, born out of necessity due to the highly completive business environment scenario, Asiatic Events and Marketing Ltd. was a pioneer in popularizing the concept of professional event management and marketing in Bangladesh. Being a part of the largest marketing communication group of company, which is the Asiatic 3sixty, it did not take AEML very long to establish itself as the best activation and BTL marketing and communication agency in Bangladesh.

The Vision Statement

“Become the Most Preferredbelow the Line Marketing solution offer.”

The Mission Statement

“Generate year on year sustainable growth whilst consistent customer satisfactions.”

The journey started during the time of Mini Cricket World Cup 1998 and since the journey is not smooth initially. There were major setbacks and AEML was become a loss making company during the year of 2002 to 2006 period. But everything turned around during the 2007 as there were changes in management and better people were hired by the company to propel it to the top and sconce then, in its 16th years of operation, AEML now stands tall as the best in the business, unrivalled, unparalleled and indomitable. It has proven its worth to the client base and the goodwill is so solid that the client does not hesitate to pay premium for their services. AEML had proven track record in planning, designing and implementing wide range of activations and events on behalf of various consumers’ brands of different multinational and local companies. And they have been extremely successful at it both its scale and quality for which the premium goodwill of the company which is “providing the best” has been strengthened further.

Services:

Asiatic Events Marketing Limited is one of the leading below the line marketing agencies in Bangladesh. They provide a 360 degree solution for business as well as support to doing business from root level. The core essence of marketing actually starts with its root customer base where AEML offers a versatile solution. They have the strongest B2B base where the leading companies are its s stakeholders. Such as British American Tobacco Bangladesh,

Unilever Bangladesh, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Grameenphone, Airtel Bangladesh, Nokia etc. Apart from these corporate clients they have United Nations bodies including the UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, World Bank, IDB clients from NGOs such as the Plan, Katalysist, IYCF, Engender Health, and Embassies development programs from USAID, UKAID and the Bangladesh Government.

In term of service, they provide two types of service to their clients. One is Client Service where all the events and business plans are made and according to client demand they provide a solution. The solution driven activity start with the planning department and then it goes to the client service department and then goes to the Operation department. This solution includes marketing plan, requirements, budgets and time frame to achieve the goal.

Another service they provide is “Activation”. This term is known as campaign or direct marketing. Usually activation is useful for the product based marketing. A team of enthusiastic people do this activation activity. They are capable to go anywhere, any time and can reach the remote customer base.

Project Summary:

To comply with academic requirement of getting theoretical knowledge, I applied in some institutions and from them AEML has offered me for internship. Reporting to the Manager, the internship period started from16th August, 2014. During my internship period I worked with the Bondhu Garage project of Grameenphone. While working with this project the divisional head gave me a brief of the functions of the units. As I got the chance to work practically here, so I would like to describe my contribution to AEML.

Objectives of the study:

To have a brief idea about entire business procedures
To prepare a connection between the theories and practical procedures of product distribution and operation.
To flourish the skills and knowledge of Marketing that has been taught in the BRAC University
To gain practical experiences and view the application of theoretical knowledge in the real life

Sources of Data:

Sources of data were collected through two segments. I) Primary and ii) Secondary Data Primary Sources of data were

Practical desk work
Conversation with the employees
Conversation with the clients
Appropriate file study as provided by the concern
Personal experience gained by visiting & working with different people

Secondary Sources of data were
Annual reports of Asiatic Events Marketing Limited
Publications obtained from different libraries and from the internet

Bondhu Garage:

Bondhu Garage is an online community initiated by grameenphone and developed by AEML where the target group is involved in various activity of present day’s interest. The platform actually matches with the present day life style of the youth. They would like to introduce Bondhu Garage is a platform to constantly engage youth with different activities, both in online and offline. Under bondhu garage platform, they will do different types of lifestyle activities; provide benefits and rewards which will stimulate usage.

The target group is 18 to 26 years old people those are the core youth group with versatile mindset and lifestyle. Grameenphone have a long term business plan with that bondhu garage platform. The journey started at 11thjuly with the target of making 3 lac members for the garage within 6 month. Bondhu garage contain a Facebook page, one close group and one website. By this online platform it actually communicates with the garage member. User need to sign up to get into this group. We provide many offers and facility to this group member.

Strategic Approach:

To bring people in a common platform is the dictum of this project. Bondhu garage are collecting members from 40 universities throughout the country. By activation and student involvement, BG collects member from different universities. Although, they have a online sign up system, where anyone (between 18-26 years) can sign up for that group. The group is very happening and interactive.

Facebook page & Group:

The Facebook page and closed group are actually the medium of communication. The page gives

A glimpse of what happens inside the closed group
Ensures spill over impact on TG
Place of leveraging the community activities
Interaction platform
Sharing of knowledge

Promotional activities are also run on that page. Campus based targeted promotion from Bondhu Garage Facebook page during start up activation. In an easy way, it’s a paid add promotion to the targeted people.

For example: Bondhu Garage already launched its activation campaign at BRACU on 23th September, 2014. It ran ad campaign 4 days before for BRAC University students. Through search ad campaign different terms related with targeted interest areas has incorporated and thus people are directed to Bondhu Garage communication.

Campus Activity:

Bondhu garage of Grameenphone want Asiatic Events Marketing Limited to launch day long events in different Universities of Bangladesh that covers the both public and private Universities all around. AEML then sets an whole plan to launch these events. On this day long event student were engaged with various sports and games contest. There were exciting prizes for the winners. At the end of the day there will a concert with the Garage Band and Campus band. As a BRAC University intern I felt proud to be a part of this whole event.

GDN (Google Display Network):

GDN is a term use for digital marketing. As the Bondhu Garage is a online based project, so the marketing activity are done over the online platform. GDN is commonly known as Google ad or “Ads by Google”. This is also a targeted ad campaign where AMEL will pay based on online ad impression or ad showcase.

Involvement of the Group:

On behalf of Grameenphone we have organized several events to ensure involvement of the garage members. Small events will be conducted in a month to keep our bondhus active all the time. Big Events for every interest Area will be held for giving our Bondhu garage fans the special feeling for being part of it. The plan is to roll out 15 big events for the garage member. Already 9big events successfully done under my supervision titled. Seven more events are on the pipeline and will happen in whole December 2014.These events are more involving and exclusively dedicated for the Bondhu Garage Members. Apart from events, they offer exciting facilities for the different interest group. Such as

Cycling:

Free servicing facility at Cafecyclist,Cyclehub,Saraikhana, Redloop
First access to new stock
Model specific discount
Accessories – water bottle, helmet, bottle cage
Discount

Gaming:

Gaming event :New game launch –
Pre-order new games with discount &Combo pack (New game + Old game)
New gaming device such as Oculus rift
Gaming café

Sports:

Sports café concept – match screening, gaming with complementary gifts
Sports gear – Original merchandise at actual price
Players’ gears free / Player autographed merchandises

Technology & Gadget:

First to review the latest released devices i.e. Samsung Galaxy S6 or iPhone 6
Purchase and get accessories
Points to redeem – to buy products

Photography

Once a consumer buys a camera s/he will be registered for a Photography 101 course by a renowned photographer.

Partnership mechanism:

A dedicated partner management team work with potential partners and crate the partnership
High value – lounges and cafes(Smoke, h2o, floor6, kozmo, grillhouse, cofi11, roll express)
Average value – carts(Wow burger, nagainc.,mad chef, crepe momo, awesome burger)
Branding and endorsement in relevant communication

Analysis on Bondhu Garage Project:

The Bondhu Garage project is a long term and one of the big projects of Grameenphone. They invested hell lot of money to just build an online group. For sure, they have a bigger plan rather than only this type of involvement. They will promote their “Bondhu” package on that group. However, AEML is currently handling all the activity such as gathering members, cracking deals with partner, planning and organizing events, activation, promotion, and public relation etc of this project.

My Involvement in Bondhu Garage:

I am one of the key resources for this project from the beginning of my internship tenure. So I was involved with many activities of Bondhu garage. Such as:

For different University activation, AEML needed the campus permission to roll out the activation campaign, so I was there to take permission from some Universities that includes my own BRAC University.
I went through the basic functions of Client Service, different project proposals which were approved by the clients and previous client profile and project detailsand I had to train up Brand Promoter for Bondhu Garage so that they can transfer the correct brand essence to the consumer
I went for field visit to supervise the Bondhu Garage team, so that they could perform smoothly
Managing third party vendor for any events and give them brief regarding events and requirements.
Roll out 9 full event (Till 5th September to November 28th 2014) Taking part in the meeting and present the overall report regarding my activity and plans.

Events of Bondhu Garage:

Food Ball

On 5th September 2014, Bondhu Garage organized the first ever event of its kind consisting of the perfect union of food as well as football! This event, called “Food Ball”, was organized by Club Orange in partnership with FoodBank, a social media based food review group along with the help of Asiatic Events Marketing Limited on behalf of Grameenphone. The whole venture was sponsored by Bondhu Garage and powered by HungryNaki.com and promoted by media partners – Independent TV, Radio Shadhin and Dhaka Tribune.

It was a day-long event held at the grounds of Banani Model School with a co-ed 6A side football tournament kick starting at 9 AM with energetic players battling for the title of winner. The tournament that came to an end at 7 PM was won by Seven Nations Army. Aside from the sporting event, there was a Food Cart fair that featured popular carts such as MadChef, Hot Box and Tabaq as well as introduced newcomers like TBW Fish n’ Chips, Bat Gone Broke, Wrapped and The Palate Circus. The event also witnessed a Burger Eating Contest, a live DJ performance and a fire-spinning show by Naur. Later in the day, the Best Cart Award was given to Hot Box based on the number of votes it received.

The cover for attending this unique and exciting event was only BDT 50/- but Bondhu Garage members received the special advantage of free entrance for themselves as well as a friend.

Foto Fun 101

Bondhu Garage combined photography and fun together in this exclusive event called Foto Fun 101.Bondhus pushed their boundaries and captured their lifestyle in amazing shots with their devices to participate in an online competition hosted on Bondhu Garage’s Facebook page. Winners were selected based on vote count and judge’s choice.

Finally 10 lucky winners were summoned by famous celebrity photographer, M. ShamsulHoqueKomol, to teach them some valuable photography tips and tricks that they can apply. The model for photo-shoot was none other than the glamorous, Naila Nayem who struck poses in different avatars such as cyclist, photographer, traveler and geek which were related to the interests of Bondhu Garage. Our bondhus spent a wonderful day of fun & laughter while discovering the magic of photography. They received a lot of valuable advice from their mentor for the day from how to buy a camera, what to look for in a photograph, to lighting and composition techniques and much more.

Rock Fest

Bondhu Garage turned the dreams of several music lovers into reality by organizing the biggest ever South Asian Rockfest in Bangladesh.To witness this once in a lifetime event, all bondhus had to do was set the most number of caller tunes between 10^th – 14th October 2014 or refer 3 of their friends to the Bondhu Garage group from 16^th – 21st October 2014. Not only did they win a ticket for themselves, but also received free tickets for their friends. 9 bands from 5 countries came to rock the audience at Bangladesh Army Stadium on 24^th October 2014 and give them a musical experience of a lifetime. The participating bands were Aurthohin, Nemesis, Shunno, Arbovirus and Warfaze from Bangladesh, The Colour Compound from India, Kaya from Pakistan, Stigmata from Sri Lanka and Albatross from Nepal. These energetic bands truly set the stage on fire and rocked the audience to the fullest extent.Our bondhus kept raving about the concert on social media even weeks after the concert was over.

Eid Cycling Event

Bondhus who were looking for different way to spend this Eiddidn’t need to look any further.Mainul Islam Rahat along with his group, BDCyclists, set out for a six-day cycling tour to the Sylhet. Bondhus who participated in this trip spent their holidays in a way they may have hardly anticipated. They took several wonderful memories with them from the event and shared them with the Bondhu Garage group through instant statuses and photographs.

Foto Fun 202

One event wasn’t enough to satisfy the passion of photography in our bondhus and that is why after the huge success of Foto Fun 101, BondhuGarage introduced Foto Fun 202.This time, bondhus were pushed out from an enclosed space in a studio to an open environment for a photo walk! In order to join this event, bondhus had to participate in an online competition on Bondhu Garage’s Facebook page by sharing a picture in which they have captured emotions.

The lucky winners were selected based on vote count and judge’s choice for this event that took place on 24th October 2014. Renowned photographers from the popular photographic community, “Through the Lens” (TTL) accompanied our bondhus in this eventful photo walk that started from RabindraSarabor. They visited Shakharibazar where they witnessed and took several pictures of the colorful presentations of the then upcoming Durga Puja. They made their final stop for the day at the ship-breaking yard at Sadarghat, All these destinations helped our bondhus capture not only emotions, but also wonderful memories that they carried back with them after the event.

Dug Out

On 2nd November 2014, Bondhu Garage united with Manchester United Supporters Club Bangladesh to treat our football-loving bondhus with the biggest BPL live screening event in Dhaka! The highly anticipated match between Manchester City FC and Manchester United was screened at Baton Rouge Banquet Hall in Banani where a total of 207 people showed up! Bondhu Garage members just had to sign-up 3 of their friends to the group to attend the event and get free tickets for themselves and their friends.

Apart from the screening, there was a PS3 video game competition where our bondhus showed off their gaming skills through some FIFA 15 matches. Documentaries of Manchester United, inspirational videos and some short videos related to Bondhu Garage were also shown. Non-bondhu members were pretty impressed with the awesome arrangement and amazing spirit of Bondhu Garage and by the end of the day; they too signed-up for the group and officially became a part of this cool community. Although everyone’s favorite club, Manchester United, lost the match, the delicious dinner served to them after the screening was a definite winner.

Xtreme Trail

From 13^th – 16th November 2014, the bondhus of Bondhu Garage took their cycles off their road for an extreme trail in Rema-Kalenga. Mainul Islam Rahat, the renowned moderator of the BDCyclists Team, led this group of cyclists into the wilderness of this 37 km rocky offroad path. 25 cyclists who participated in an online competition from the Bondhu Garage group were selected by submitting a screenshot from the Endomondo app, of their best cycling performance within the last three months, They departed from Dhaka on 13^th November 2014 and arrived at their place of accommodation, “Hermitage” in Sylhet that very night. On the morning of 14th November they embarked on their journey for Rema by crossing the river “Khuai” by a boat to reach the forest.

It took the team 2.5 hours to complete the trail and when they returned to their cottage, a warm and delicious barbecue awaited them! After devouring the delicious dinner, they had a fun interactive session with Mainul Islam Rahat. Throughout the journey, bondhus faced several challenges but they emerged strong and united by supporting and helping one another.

The inspiring spirit is what Bondhu Garage is all about.

Night of Horror

Bondhu Garage set out to explore the mysteries of the haunted places in Cox’s Bazaar on the spooky night of 15th November 2014. 5 bondhus were selected from Bondhu Garage’s online competition after they submitted spine-chilling stories of horror. The ominous journey started from Dhaka during the early hours of Friday and reached Cox’s Bazaar at night.

As soon as midnight struck, our bondhus set off to explore not just one, but three haunted places on the same night! The experiences definitely gave our bondhus the chills as none of them could sleep that night. They encountered many strange things and admitted that they would never have dared to do such a thing if they were out there alone.

The night of horror was followed by a day of fun and laughter as our bondhus said goodbye to the place and enjoyed their time around the beautiful Cox’s Bazaar beach.

Adventure Mania

Bondhu Garage introduced the winners of “Adventure Mania” to an exciting world of fun and games at The Base Camp, Gazipur. In order to participate, bondhus were asked to answer a simple question in the Facebook between 11^th – 16th November, which was:

Suppose you had a tiger to your left and a cliff on your right, what would you do and why? The most creative answers were selected and the winners were revealed on 19th November. It was a day-long event held on 22nd November where 15 teams were set up to face challenges to emerge victorious.

The first round consisted of floor-based activities such as Tyre Run, Zig Zag, Tyre Sandwich, Through the Tyre, Rope Walk, Log Walk and Hop n’ Jump. One of the bondhus, Monisha Rahman, surprised everyone by breaking Base Camp’s existing time record of 2 minutes 13 seconds, by completing all the tasks in the first round within 2 minutes 9 seconds! 8 teams advanced into the second round where they had to face challenges such as Archery and Boating. Challenges got harder in the final round where 4 teams played for the title of “Winner” with challenges such as Division Wall and Sports Items. The winning team, Navid Hasan & RahatulAshik, received a travel jacket along with a certificate for their accomplishment. The runner-ups, Shorno& Farah Rabby, received a travel bag and a certificate. In addition to their victory, Navid Hasan received the Overall Best Performer Award on behalf of Base Camp.

Recommendation:

While doing my internship at Asiatic Events Marketing Limited, I observed the whole working process of the unit and found some positive as well as negative aspects over the period of time and came up with some recommendations which I would like to include. These are following:

The amount of training programs are insufficient here, it has to be structured as well so that the employees get more knowledge.
The scope of promotions of the employees here at AEML is much less, so I think the scope of getting promotions should be increased in order to motivate employees.
AEML has very less number of CSR activities, so I think they should increase their CSR activities. It would not only be beneficial to the people of the country but also for the company itself.
AEML should offer transportation facilities to its employees as many employees come from far away.
The working hour is from 10:30 am to 6:30 pm but it often exceeds because of work pressure.
While working here I also observed that the employees got their bonus late which can make the employees unhappy. So the employees should get their bonus in time.
The whole environment of the office is so casual. They should bring more professionalism in both off and on the work.

Conclusion:

AEML is the biggest BTL agency which runs under the supervision of Ali Zaker, the chairman of Asiatic 360. Its stakeholders and achievement list is so huge. The Experience I gained during my internship period was very valuable. I am really lucky to Work with international brand such as Telenor have been a life changing experience for me. For the Bondhu garage project I had to travel a lot. I cover almost three regions with the Bondhu garage team for that campus activation. All these experience gave an insight to me. I learned a lot about practical ideas and business policies which I can relate to my academic learning’s.

All these knowledge that I have gained by working three months, I can surely carry for the rest of my career.