1.0 Introduction

MATTA Fair is currently the largest and No.1 consumers travel fair in Malaysia (The Sun

Daily, 2018). MATTA Fair is an event that gathers tour and travel agencies across Malaysia as a

platform to offer their great deals of travel packages which does not only cover the local travel

packages but also various overseas travel packages.

The fair was organized by the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA)

which is held across different states in Malaysia, with the main location in Kuala Lumpur. The

three-day event includes promotion booths from the tour agencies, stage cultural performances as well

as lucky draws contest for participating customers. MATTA Fair aims at providing value for money

travel packages with exceptional travel opportunities as well as promoting the local tourism sector.

MATTA Fair Penang will be held in the upcoming month at SPICE Arena, Penang.

Therefore, representing as an events marketing consultancy, we will submit a marketing

communication plan about MATTA Fair with the aim of increasing the number of expected visitors

from the targeted audiences.

2.0 Marketing Communication Plan

The marketing communication plan will be proposed to attract more visitors from the target

audience group. Geographically, this event will be targeting those living in the northern region states

of Malaysia which consists of Penang, Kedah, Perlis and Perak. The target audience for the event’s

marketing would be working adults aged 25 to 60 years old, living alone or with families. As

Facebook and Google ads has the function of segmenting the target audiences into different interests,

our target audiences will be focusing those within travel interest.

2.1 Advertising

Advertising is a paid communication that uses mass media to persuade and reach out to the

mass target audience. It uses information about the products and interpret it based on customer

demand (Moriarty et al., 2015, 36). Advertising’s information can be delivered through online forms

such as social media, influencers, content marketing or through offline forms such as radio, print

media and vehicular advertising. As most of the advertising strategies are uniquely different from each

event, therefore, below are the online and offline advertising strategies which is recommended for the

upcoming MATTA Fair Penang. The main objective of the proposed advertising strategies is to

improve event awareness and increase traffic into owned media such as websites and social media

channels.

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2.1.1 Google Ads

Google Ads is an advertising platform that requires marketers to bid their ads in order to

appear on the search results and relevant websites in Google (WordStream, undated). As current

MATTA’s website is lack of engaging content and difficult to navigate, MATTA is encouraged to

redevelop their website into contemporary website design in both user experience and appearance for

their MATTA Fair. Display ads campaign in Google Ads is recommended to increase the upcoming

event awareness as illustrated in Figure 2.1. The advertisement will be displayed across travel

websites such as travel blog, Tripadvisor, Trivago and Expedia. As shown in Figure 2.2, the RM500

daily budget for 30 days and RM1.50 cost per click bid, the advertisements will be displayed an

average of 1.235 million times and will receive around 9,850 clicks daily within the target location.

Figure 2.1: Example of displays advertisement in a travel blog websites.

Figure 2.2: The estimated impressions and clicks daily.

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2.1.2 Social Media

Social media channels allow communication between businesses and their customers online,

by providing promotional information or get reviews from other consumers’ experience which

benefited both parties (Dwivedi et al., 2015). Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and

YouTube enable MATTA to promote their event and target specific audience by selecting the

audiences’ location area, interest and demographics. According to the Malaysian Communications

And Multimedia Commission (MCMC) Internet User Survey 2018, 73.8% of Malaysians uses social

media to share any beneficial content to their intended recipients. Furthermore, it is estimated that

97.3% of Malaysians owns a Facebook account, followed by Instagram which has 57% and YouTube

with 48.3%.

Social media platform have the options for advertisers to post pictures, links, videos and even

create advertisements and fan pages (Curran et al., 2011). MATTA should focus on engaging content

development to increase the number of engagement and shares on their Facebook and Instagram

pages. In fact, AdEspresso (2018) stated that 75% of Instagram user will visit the website after

looking at the post on Instagram. One of the content ideas is to create a travel log which features

popular destinations based on customers’ preferences from previous events. Travel log such as

creating blogs about food and interesting places to visit can stimulate the target audiences’ intention to

travel. Furthermore, MATTA can post promotional content such as lucky draws and buyer’s contest

prior to the event to attract more potential customers. Example of the content are depicted in Figure

2.3 and 2.4.

Figure 2.3: A preview of Facebook Ads Figure 2.4: A preview of Instagram Ads

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As Instagram owns by Facebook, all of the posted content in their pages can be boosted to the

targeted audiences by using Facebook Ads. Facebook page campaign will have a daily budget of RM

750, which is estimated to reach 64,000 to 186,000 target audiences in Figure 2.5. We suggested that

MATTA should advertise their event for 30 days before their event with the total cost of RM 22,500

and expected to reach around 3.750 million out of 6.539 million audience at the end of the campaign.

For Instagram, the daily budget will be set at RM 500 which is estimated to reach around 43,000 to

124,000 target audiences. It is suggested that MATTA should advertise their event in Instagram for 20

days before their event with the cost of RM 10,000 and expected to reach a total of 1.670 million

audiences as shown in Figure 2.6.

Figure 2.5: Estimated daily reach on Facebook Figure 2.6: Estimated daily reach on Instagram

YouTube is a platform that allows businesses to attract new audience by advertising their

video in various format illustrated in Figure 2.7 (YouTube, 2019). MATTA can advertise their event

using the display and overlay advertisements format which will only be shown in relevant travel video

channels as depicted in Figure 2.8. We plan to set a daily budget of RM 200 to create event awareness

which is estimated to display around 535,000 times daily presented in Figure 2.9. Furthermore, we

suggest MATTA should advertise their event for 20 days with the total cost of RM 4,000 and

expected to reach around 10.7 millions targeted audiences.

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Figure 2.7: Types of YouTube Advertising Format

Figure 2.8: MATTA Fair advertisement appears on the relevant travel video.

Figure 2.9: The estimated impressions with a daily budget of RM 200.

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2.1.3 Radio advertising

Radio advertising is an effective tool to spread information with wide coverage and cost

effectiveness (Mihir & Prithvi, 2013). Based on a recent survey by MCMC (2017), 75% of Malaysian

were radio listeners which the common listening hours are between 6 am to 10 am and 4 pm to 7 pm

as where most people spend their time commuting between home and work. Furthermore, based on

Astro Radio survey (2019), there were 6.7 million, 3.0 million and 2.4 million listeners in ERA FM,

Hitz FM and MY FM respectively. Hence, we suggest MATTA to broadcast their advertisement

during the peak hour for a month in three different main language radio channel to gain more

audience. The content should be focusing on event details such as date, time, place, promotions and

prizes highlights. The cost of radio advertising in the northern region is shown in Table 2.1.

Table 2.1: Summary of radio advertising cost calculation.

Radio Advertising Rate per spot Spot per day Days Cost (RM)

Radio Channel 1. ERA FM 2. Hitz FM 3. MY FM

190 170 280

5 5 5

14 14 14

13,300 11,900 19,600

Total cost 44,800

2.1.4 Outdoor Advertising

According to Lee and Cho (2017), the audience that gives more attention to the digital

billboard advertisements tend to have higher levels of advertising recall and more favourable attitudes

towards the advertisements. One of the digital billboards which is suitable for MATTA Fair is at

Komtar area as shown in Figure 2.10. This area is a prominent landmark in Penang as locals and

tourists walk through the area frequently. It is surrounded by companies such as banks, government

offices, hotels, shopping malls, entertainment, bus station, etc. The package to run advertisement on

four digital billboards during peak hour for a month is depicted in Table 2.2. The advertisement will

appear 576 times for 8 hours per day (MagnumLed, 2019).

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Figure 2.10: Example of Digital billboard Komtar area that can display Matta Fair Ads

Table 2.2: Digital billboards package cost.

Outdoor digital billboard Cost per unit (RM) Quantity Cost (RM)

Digital Billboard (Komtar area) 3,750 4 15,000

Total cost 15,000

For the bunting and temporary billboards as illustrated in Figure 2.11, a local manufacturer

will be appointed to provide services of designing, printing and license permit application from the

local authorities, Penang Island City Council (MBPP, 2019). The detailed cost which includes

installation and dismantling the 500 units of bunting and 25 units of temporary billboards around

Butterworth and Penang area for a month is summarized in Table 2.3 and 2.4. The cost of the deposit

payment for the bunting and temporary billboard will be reimbursed by the city council after the

advertising period ended if fulfils all the rules and regulation requirement by them.

Figure 2.11: Example of temporary billboard and bunting advertisement.

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Table 2.3: Detailed costing of bunting advertisements.

Bunting Cost per unit (RM) Quantity Cost (RM)

Bunting 1. Printing including PVC pipe (2’x 6’)

15

500

7,500

One time additional cost : 1. Standard design cost 2. Local authority approval

● Deposit payment ● Licence approval ● Bunting sticker Permit

3. Installation and Dismantle charges

30

30 20 2

10

1

500 500 500 500

30

15,000 10,000 1,000 5,000

Total cost 38,530

Table 2.4: Detailed costing of temporary billboards advertisements.

Temporary billboard Cost per unit (RM) Quantity Cost (RM)

Temporary Billboard 1. Printing including stand (6’x 10’)

75

25

1,875

One time additional cost: 1. Standard design cost 2. Local authority approval

● Deposit payment ● Licence approval ● Billboard Sticker Permit

3. Installation and Dismantle charges

50

300 50 2 20

1

25 25 25 25

50

7,500 1,250

50 500

Total cost 11,225

2.1.5 Vehicular Advertising

Vehicular advertising is an advertising tool used to share product’s information on the public

vehicles to pedestrians and road users by advertising. The aim of vehicular advertising is to gain as

much benefits as possible by advertising to the road user (Jia et al., 2015). We suggest that the

MATTA Fair can be advertised using RapidPenang as depicted in Figure 2.12. The full wrap

advertisement for RapidPenang will last for three months (Rapid Penang, 2019) and we will employ 3

buses for the advertisement campaign. The total cost of vehicular advertising is shown in Table 2.5.

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Table 2.5: Total cost of vehicular advertising.

Buses Cost per unit/month (RM) Quantity Cost (RM)

Bus Rental (3 months) 2500 3 22,500

Full Wrapper (1 time payment) 2750 3 8,250

Total cost 30,750

Figure 2.12: Example of vehicular advertising on RapidPenang.

Overall, the total advertising cost will be RM 191,805 as summarize in Table 2.6 and the time frame

for each of the advertising campaign will be shown in the Gantt Chart in Figure 2.13.

Table 2.6: Total advertising cost.

Advertising Campaign Cost (RM)

Google Ads 15,000

Facebook Ads 22,500

Instagram 10,000

YouTube 4,000

Radio 44,800

Digital billboard 15,000

Bunting 38,530

Temporary billboard 11,225

Vehicular advertising (Rapid Bus) 30,750

Total Advertising Campaign Cost 191,805

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2.2 Discounts and Promotions

Promotion is an added value to the basic offering with the intention to encourage the customer

to buy the product immediately. In other words, promotions are used to accelerate sales (Fill and

Turnbull, 2016). According to Park and Yi (2019), free gifts are attractive deals for customers and

able to induce negative reasoning in customers’ minds. Furthermore, discount promotions are

attractive towards older customers to compile information and increase their knowledge on getting the

most reasonable price for themselves (Fam et al., 2019).

We proposed that MATTA can request The Travel Store, a travelling goods store to sponsor

three set of branded luggage for the daily lucky draw prizes and in exchange, MATTA would print

their logo to be advertised in the sponsor section. All visitors are entitled to participate in the lucky

draw without any purchase required which the lucky draw forms will be distributed to the visitors

Furthermore, MATTA Fair’s Buyers’ Contest, which is only entitled to shoppers can potentially

convert more visitors to buyers. MATTA should approach the participating travel agencies to sponsor

the prizes for the buyers’ contest. Various prizes will be offered such as tour packages, flight tickets,

entrance tickets, cruise trips and hotel stay.

In addition, MATTA should make a partnership with the participating agencies such as

Malaysia Airlines to give special discount on their air tickets purchased during the event as shown in

Figure 2.14. Furthermore, MATTA should introduce alternative payment methods such as 0% interest

rate monthly instalment plan to ease the customer’s financial burdens which can be done through

collaboration with multiple banks as depicted in Figure 2.15. Moreover, MATTA can cooperate with

Hop-On Hop-Off Penang and Grab by providing discount and promotion codes respectively which

can encourage more visitors as it reduces their car parking problems in Figure 2.16.

Figure 2.14: Malaysia Airlines special discount promotion during MATTA Fair.

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Figure 2.15: Example of a monthly instalment plan by Maybank.

Figure 2.16: Hop-on Hop-off Penang discount.

2.3 Event Sponsorship

Meenaghan (1983) defined sponsorship as providing support in either financially or

non-financially form by a company with the purpose to achieve their objective of increasing brand

awareness. Sponsorship is a win-win strategy for both the company and the event organizer as it can

attract the audience to attend the event if they are familiar with the product (Horowitz, 2012).

Furthermore, collaboration with popular brands can improve the event attractiveness towards the

audience.

Travelling is considered as a privileged only for people who can afford it. Therefore, MATTA

Fair was held to encourage people to travel more by offering great deals to make travel affordable for

all. In order to achieve that, they have to partner up with the participating tour and travel agencies to

get their support and sponsors, especially in terms of prizes. MATTA Fair’s official airline is

Malaysia Airlines which mainly sponsors the prizes and the official money changer is Merchant

Trade. The prize sponsors for buyers’ contest are made up mostly from hotels company such as

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Vistana, Avani and The Webley. Lastly, the lucky draw prize sponsor is The Travel Store, a travelling

goods store. Table 2.7 shows the list of sponsors that will involve in the upcoming event.

Table 2.7: List of sponsors for MATTA Fair.

Sponsors Descriptions

Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG) is a global aviation

organisation with subsidiaries and equity investments

organised into four distinct business segments: Air

Transportation Services, Ground Services, Aircraft

Leasing and Talent Development (Malaysia Airline,

2019). Malaysia Airlines will be sponsoring a few flights

tickets to various destinations for the buyer’s contest.

Penang Hop-On Hop-Off is a double-decker bus that

offers sightseeing tour around Penang (Penang Hop On

Hop-Off, 2019). It provides RM 10 discounts for people

who took the city tour package to MATTA Fair.

Furthermore, they also advertise the event on their bus

which can help to gain more people to visit the fair.

MerchantTrade is the first-in-the-market cross border,

multi-currency payment solutions by leveraging on

cutting-edge technology and an innate understanding of

the market & the fast paced environment we operate in

(MerchantTrade, 2019). As travelling overseas require

travellers to exchange their currencies, MerchantTrade

can offer great deals for people who sign up their

MerchandTrade Money which allows them to pay

multi-currency with just a single card.

Hotel is an establishment providing accommodation,

meals, and other services for travellers and tourists.

Therefore, by having hotel to sponsor accommodation

for winners for the buyer’s contest, it can provide an

opportunity for people to travel domestically.

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The Travel Store focus on meeting customer's

expectations and consistently becoming travel goods

provider of choice (The Travel Store, 2019). Travelling

sometimes requires travel accessories to make the

travelling journey more comfortable. The Travel Store

will be sponsoring luggage set for the lucky draw prizes.

2.4 Direct Marketing

Direct marketing is one of the promotional methods which involves showcasing information

regarding the company and their service or product towards the targeted customer without involving

any advertising middle person. One of the direct marketing tools that can be used for MATTA Fair are

direct short message service (SMS) marketing. According to Duzgun et al. (2017), SMS is used as a

mobile marketing to create brand awareness, promote sales, create a customer database, and spread

the word-of-mouth towards other consumers. Besides, SMS marketing is an ideal way to target certain

audiences, especially to young individuals in conveying advertising messages (Awan, 2015).

MATTA is recommended to use SMS marketing as a reminder for the targeted audience

which will be sent three days before the event starts. The cost for SMS marketing is RM5500 which

covers 100,000 SMS to be sent towards the targeted audience which cost RM0.055 for each SMS (360

Interactive, 2018). MATTA can target their previous customers who attended their event before which

the data can be gained from the sign-up contest collected during MATTA Fair event previously. The

targeted audiences then can spread word-of-mouth about the upcoming event to their friends and

families.

2.5 Public Relations

As MATTA Fair is a reputational event with years of experience in organizing the famous

travel and tour fair, MATTA should consider retaining and further builds their reputations to receive

wider customers base. According to the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) (undated),

public relations (PR) is “the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you”

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which is all related to firm’s reputation. Furthermore, PR involves a process of strategic

communications between the public and organizations that focus on building a beneficial mutual

relationship (Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), 2019). PR are being done through unpaid

method like earned, shared and owned media.

● Media Relations

Media Relations involved communicating with media personnel such as news editors,

reporters and journalists (Theaker, 2012). MATTA can have a pre-event press conferences to

spread the news about the event in the local newspapers. Journalists and reporters are

considered as trustworthy third-party which can reduce the consumers’ scepticism about the

news. Furthermore, coverage from press media can amplify the event awareness which can

increase the event attendees and sales potential. Press conference are able to reach multiple

media and broadcasting companies all in one shot whereby their news reports can enhance the

customers’ anticipation about MATTA Fair. MATTA should use press conference to

publicize their event information, for instance, booth amount, promotions from participating

travel agencies, transportation advice, etc to gain attention from potential customers. The cost

to organize a press conference is RM 4,300 which is for the rental of the function room.

● Customer Relations

It has become increasingly important to create two-way communication with consumers

through interactive and experience rich contents (Theaker, 2012). Social media especially

Facebook can help MATTA to interact with customers directly. MATTA should update their

contents with honest and reliable information to get their customers’ trust. In addition,

keeping in touch with customers through updating interesting and high quality content can

increase customers’ engagement which brings up the company’s reputation and brand

exposure. Furthermore, to maintain the customers’ impression, any comments sent by

customers need to reply in good manner promptly as shown in Figure 2.17. Any

announcement that touches on public concerns can be made through Facebook in order to get

the public views about the company. Moreover, social media can help in managing crisis

response can help in gaining good PR as when the company are good in managing crisis, the

company will be deemed as having high reputations. Additionally, MATTA has the

opportunity to start a movement in societal development. This movement can be branded as

#Travel_For_A_Cause which encourages travellers in donating to those in need during their

journey.

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Figure 2.17: MATTA replied to their customer in a good manner.

3.0 Conclusion

In order to make the upcoming MATTA Fair successful, the proposed marketing

communication plan needs to be implemented as it covers various aspects to deliver the intended

messages which is mainly helping to increase event awareness to the targeted audiences and increases

the visitors amount. Table 3.1 below shows the total budgeted cost to implement the marketing

communications plan. The estimated sales revenue from booth sales is amounted around RM 900,000,

which is calculated from the average booth selling price and the total booth available for sales. The

total cost of the marketing plan for the upcoming MATTA Fair is RM 201,605. Hence, it is reasonable

and worth to execute the comprehensive marketing plan in order to attract over 50,000 visitors from

the targeted audiences in northern region.

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Table 3.1: Summary of total budgeted cost.

Description Budget Total budget (RM)

Advertising:

Google Ads RM 500/day for 30 days 15,000

Social Media ● Facebook

● Instagram

● Youtube

RM 750/day for 30 days

RM 500/day for 20 days

RM 200/day for 20 days

22,500

10,000

4,000

Radio advertising

● ERA FM

● Hitz FM

● MY FM

RM 950/day for 14 days

RM 850/day for 14 days

RM 1400/day for 14 days

13,300

11,900

19,600

Outdoor Advertisement

● Digital billboard

● Bunting

● Temporary billboard

RM 15,000/month

RM 38,530/month

RM 11,225/month

15,000

38,530

11,225

Vehicular Advertising (Rapid)

● Bus rental

● Full Wrapper

RM 2,500/per unit (3 unit for 3 month)

RM 2,750/per unit (3 unit)

22,500

8,250

Direct marketing:

Short Message Service (SMS)

RM 0.055/SMS (100,000 SMS)

5,500

Public Relations: Function room

RM4,300

4,300

Total budgeted cost: 201,605

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