Imc Plan - Thanh Nien Newspaper

INTRODUCTION

This IMC plan campaign plans for raising the cognitive of apology culture in Vietnam. Topics to be discussed and planned in 2 months and the actual length of the campaign are anticipated lasted 5 months (from 02/2016 to 07/2016). As a company specializing agency organization, planning and implementing the IMC plan, we represent a profit organization Thanh Nien Newspaper. After completing all the planned IMC report, we gather many experiences to subjects as follows:

• Apply the knowledge learned in the written plan for the program, including the idea stage to the evaluation stage.
• Understanding the implications of integrated communication not only effective for a social problem and also for a brand or a specific product.
• Improve the analytical skills of each particular situation we aim to objects, how to shoot TVC planning, communication skills in group discussion and cooperation in the paint and create ideas marketing tool.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Thanh Nien Newspaper (Youth Newspaper) is one of the most circulated newspapers in Vietnam. It is the flagship publication of the Vietnam National Youth Federation, published its first issue on January 3, 1986. Since then, Thanh Nien has become one of the most prestigious and influential newspapers in Vietnam, with a total readership of more than 2 million per week. Thanh Nien News is released daily in Vietnamese and weekly in English.

“Sorry” is a word that known for showing regret, express sorrow for one’s action. Almost everybody learnt to say it when they were little kids because it represents politeness and connects relationships.However, “I’m sorry” is not a very common sentence in the Vietnamese culture. Apologizing somehow seems to make people feel embarrassed and humiliated. Therefore, when misbehaving something, people tend to ignore it or walk away instead of solving the problem and apologizing the others. Saying sorry shows that you are brave enough to admit your mistakes, but it does not simply means you are wrong, it also demonstrates your self – awareness, respect for yourself and other people.

This report will analyze the problem and widen knowledge for people who are not very familiar to the word “sorry”. In order to prepare a good IMC campaign, Thanh Nien Newspaper is suggested to understand the target audience and define the position. The target customers focus on people who still afraid of saying sorry to the others.

In our IMC plan, the various communications tools will be organized around the core message: “Apologizing is not a shame”. The code is being used as advertising, TVC media, billboards and print ads. The first activity is viral clip. In order to spread the popularity of the viral clip, some supporting online marketing tools such as pop – up ads and video ads are used. The TVC will be out later to help spread the message. Prints ads will also be advertised on prestige newspaper such as Thanh Nien, Tuoi Tre, Dan Tri, etc. To easily reach more customers, Thanh Nien Newspaper launchs the Billboards along the way to raise awareness as well as oral message of the campaign.

SITUATION ANALYSIS

1. The marketplace

1. The industry

Apology culture has now becoming an social issue in the Vietnamese community. Most foreigners who have come to Vietnam usually complained that people here did not know how to say sorry. Despite that everyone learn to apology when they were children, as they grow up, they all forgot and somehow find it kind of bothering. To some Vietnamese people, “sorry” seems to be the hardest word.

1. The category

Apart from apology culture, there are many existence problems about the ways people behaving in Vietnam such as culture of gratitude, traffic culture, queue culture, etc. These problems can create a bad image of Vietnamese people to other countries in the world. It is important to change our mind and makes build a better image for Vietnam.

1. Trends

Apologizing is a very common sense and part of civilized acts that manifest politeness in social relationships. Behaviors in community can depict one’s dignity and family education. On the other hand, knowing how to say sorry will make a better communication between people. Apology usually a normal thing and seems to be one of the most important criteria to assess someone’s character. However, in recent years, this act tends to be dwindled in social communication. The reason for this gradual decrease is because people might think apology sometimes is superabundant, too formal, unnecessary or their egos are too big to stoop before someone else. When making mistakes, different people face the problems in different ways. Some people admit it and fix the mistakes, some people know it is wrong but do not dare to accept, or maybe they acknowledge it but still do not say sorry. Therefore, to make this friendly word become a habit in society, each person have to be conscious of this problem in order to behave more nicely.

1. The company

Thanh Nien Newspaper is a Vietnamese newspaper publish daily with about 300.000 copies a day. Apart from the headquarter in Ho Chi Minh City, Thanh Nien Newspaper also have another office in Ha Noi. Nguyen Quang Thong has been editor – in – chief for Thanh Nien from 9/2009 until now. Beside press operation, Thanh Nien Newspaper also hold many cultural and social events such as music show Duyen Dang Viet Nam, Khat Vong Tre, U21 Vietnam soccer champions league, Nguyen Thai Binh scholarship fund, Tư vấn Mùa thi, Tiếp sức mùa thi programs, etc.

1. The customers

[pic 1]Thanh Nien Newspaper targets on wide range of customers. They are people who want to learn new things and keep track of what is going on in the world. There is paper version is for the middle – aged, for example, housewives, workers, elders  who are not used to the technology. An online version was distributed later for people who are on the phone, laptop, internet all day. It is easier to follow all the latest news with this online version. Thanh Nien Newspaper is capable of giving their readers sufficient information about the outside world.

MARKET SEGMENT – DATABASE ANALYSIS

Based on Thanh Nien newspaper few months ago, we've gathered some opinion linked to the following issue. First, apologies are very difficult to make because people fear embarrassment or loss of credibility. This has been a reason for frustrating and heartbreaking stories among people. One of which is: At a seminar "Mother and daughter" a mother in HCMC when asked: "How about if the mom was wrong and the daughter was right?" She was confused and replied: "I do not apologize because I don't want to lose face although deep down I know that I'm wrong". Or other case when people, who stopped at red traffic lights, are often urged from behind, accompanied by nagging from others: "Why don't you just pass the red light? Are you crazy? Do you even know how to ride?"... These are the examples for the excuses people made for their immoral behavior. Besides, Dr. Thach Ngoc Yen has also said that in many cases of youth counseling, she has met many heartbreaking cases related to “apology culture” in family. As the case of Mrs. V (23 years old, HCM City), she was hit and resulted in deformities by her own parents. She had hoped for an apology or an explanation from parents but she never received one. Moreover, the question: "Do you owe someone an apology?" have raised many thought-provoking answers. One of which is from Ms. Ha Quan - Communications staff in HCMC, she shares the mistakes of being disrespectful toward her grandmother. Upon the death of her grandmother, she is torment for not promptly apologize to her grandmother. On the forum "The people who like to write feeling homesick", one member said, "Because I feel ashamed and embarrassed for my actions, those feelings are uncomfortable... I just want to say "I'm sorry." but why is it so hard to say aloud?" In addition, a student in Marketing Department added: "When people are hurt or suffers, without others' encouragement, consolation, and receiving an apology when they deserves it, people will become less kind. Their kindness, their altruism, their tolerance will gradually diminish. They will be more selfish in order not to be offended one more time. There are apologies when not made on time can result in catastrophic consequences to people's health, psyche, and their lives." Seeing the difficulties people may have to say an apology when it's due and the consequences of people refusing to make an apology, we decided to carry out a campaign to raise awareness of people about "Apologizing is not a shame". The target audience which we head towards is Vietnamese youth - pupil and students who are families' members and citizens of a nation. The campaign includes 2 print ads, 2 billboard, 2 TVC and 1 viral video. All media will be available to everyone via the website of Thanh Nien and will be broadcasted on Internet channels such as Youtube, Yeah1, Yan news, etc. Detailed communication strategy will be presented more clearly in Objective Media section.

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