Promotions Strategy

Advertisement
1) Print media

Print media costs less than television and has the potential to have greater and longer exposure. What is important here is to get the message across in three seconds (roughly the time one looks at a print ad). In terms of location, Hang Ten should place posters at areas that young adults frequent (e.g. the stretch of Orchard Boulevard, bus stops). In addition, we recommend advertising in magazines like 8 Days, Cleo and Nylon to capture the young and trendy audience.

Example: Korea’s print advertisements 

Hang Ten should keep media content simple and trendy, in line with their product offerings. As mentioned, the use of celebrities will work well for Hang Ten. The focus is on both the actor and his clothes. Apart from this, there should be elements used in the media collaterals to help give the perspective of different usage situations Hang Ten can be worn. This widens salience.


2) Interactive forms of advertising

Interactive advertising ranges from websites to online advertisements to mobile marketing. However, out of all these, we believe using a good website, and drawing users to their website is the best and most cost effective way of bridging the communication gap.

Hang Ten's Singapore Website: http://www.hangten.com.sg/index.html

Website improvements: Hang Ten’s current website is not only badly designed but is malfunctioning (none of the links work). Its static appearance communicates an unappealing demeanour and does not fulfill its function in engaging consumers. What Hang Ten should do is to employ bright and fresher colours to accentuate their basic and simple image. They should also create a story with the website, so that consumers are enticed to stay on the website and explore.

Example: Hang Ten Korea http://www.hangten.co.kr/hangten/index.asp

Not only providing and emphasizing style, the Hang Ten Korea website also includes pages such as “NEW ARRIVALS”, “STAR photos”, “Hang Ten Diary”, “Events” and even “Brand Story”. They also play videos of interviews with celebrities using Hang Ten. Using a Adobe Flash instead of a HTML website also makes it more interactive. Do visit both websites using the links to have a fuller experience.


Pull of new website: Before we get consumers to stay and interact with the website, we must first get them there. So how does a good website pull viewership? Some simple methods would be to 1) have a lucky draw where customers have to register on their website after a purchase, 2) host a competition on their website where users win a prize or 3) pair up with famous bloggers to publicize the website.


From there, pulling strength would continue if the website is constantly updated with new and relevant information. Thus, both pulling strength and website improvement have to work hand in hand to be effective.


The Advertising Timeline


Overall, we believe that Hang Ten should be selective in advertising because of their constrictive budget. Having not invested much into advertising, the new advertising campaign needs to be well-calculated and planned as a sudden increase in advertising budget could give a heart attack to the group’s director. As such, advertising could be rolled out in this order: Interactive forms of advertising followed by print media. Arranged in decreasing order of interaction and increasing order of visibility, we believe that as consumers become more aware of Hang Ten, image can be reinforced with greater degrees of interactions.

Events marketing and sponsorship

Special launch events:

We strongly recommend special events as a direct touchpoint for consumer engagement. Following Hang Ten's revamped store layout to improve the brand experience, a launch event to create hype is vital to communicate the image to customers. Special invitations will be sent to opinion leaders and Hang Ten members to showcase new collections and store revamp, thus enhancing exclusivity and garnering more interest in the brand.

Sponsoring events:


Hang Ten should follow in the footsteps of successful guerilla brands such as Red Bull and participate in event sponsorship, focussing on identifying special youth events which would help to cement Hang Ten as a brand for youths and young adults.


Some examples are the Singapore Youth Olympics and Singapore Idol, where the participants and viewers are within our target segment.

    

Clothing apparel can be sponsored to the contestants of Singapore Idol and this can help garner greater acceptance of the brand, potentially increase its popularity and alleviate its identity of being trendy and for young adults. For youth sporting events such Youth Olympics and ASEAN games, Hang Ten could sponsor and design uniforms for the volunteers. The Hang Ten brand will be displayed strategically during such sponsorship events. This drives brand recognition and increases exposure in the right environment, thus playing a critical role in Hang Ten's communication mix.


Social Media

Twitter allows users to post a short status update of less than 140 words. It also allows for interactions and sharing of tweets between users. With a Twitter account, Hang Ten would be able to interact and update its supporters directly. The short status updates mean that followers are more likely to read them.

The following are examples of how Hang Ten can utilize Twitter to drive depth of promotions awareness, as well as reviews of their products and marketing events.

With over 800 million active Facebook users, Hang Ten will be able to gather its fans and form a community base of “fans”. As Facebook profiles are more detailed than Twitter, they will be able to provide more information about products, videos, photos and discussion boards where fans can interact with one another.


A good example of a Facebook fan page would be that of our competitor Giordano. In their fan page, Giordano includes their company vision and contact information. They also include photos of their products and events.

We recommend Hang Ten to create their own Facebook page and use it as a platform to educate, engage and retain consumers. Hang Ten could also organize competitions and invite fans to upload photos of them wearing Hang Ten apparel in creative manners, and award a prize to the most creative picture. Through Facebook's sharing feature, this will generate excitement and buzz for the brand.

Hang Ten will be able to engage influential bloggers to write product reviews for Hang Ten’s new seasonal launches. This is very commonly done in Singapore, as popular bloggers such as Xiaxue and Lady Iron Chef do advertorials for cosmetics brands and restaurants. As these blogs get over 30,000 unique readers per day, it will reach a large audience who trust these opinion leaders.

Group Photo at Hang Ten launch event in Manila, Philippines

An example of Hang Ten engaging bloggers in writing product and event reviews would be the Filipino blogger Aisa Paxie. It is a trend and lifestyle blog where she writes about the stores and product launches. In this particular entry, she blogs about attending the Hang Ten store launch in Manila.



As a complementary feature to the previous three social media platforms, we propose that Hang Ten create a smartphone application for users to be kept up to date about the brand’s promotions and special launches. They could also include special promotions for users of their apps in order to drive higher usage and store visits.


An example would be creating a special promotion solely for the smartphone users, to give them a discount when they install the application. As Hang Ten’s target customers are mostly youth who are up to date with trends, marketing through mobile apps would be another avenue to reach out to them.


In summary, social media marketing is relatively inexpensive and it places Hang Ten in direct contact with consumers, allowing them to gain a better understanding of them. As people lean towards multi-platforms, using social media allows us to reach a larger audience and help close the gap between brand image and brand identity.


Endorsement


Similar to Hang Ten’s Korean counterparts, celebrities and youth idols should be engaged to participate in Hang Ten events and featured in media collaterals. This communication speaks directly to the target market comprising of youths and helps them identify with the brand more.


We recommend local celebrity, host and actress, Michelle Chong. Michelle is a well-known actress in her early 30’s who rose to fame in 2007 after her lead role in comedy satire The Noose. The show is rated amongst the most viewed TV shows, attracting not just the older folk who watch TV but young Singaporeans that view the viral videos online.

With Michelle Chong’s high visibility and popularity amongst the target group, Hang Ten would certainly benefit from an association with her. Her reputation as a humorous, trendy actress makes her likeable, making her an ideal Hang Ten brand ambassador.


Hang Ten Singapore could also collaborate to bring in current celebrities who endorse Hang Ten overseas, such as Won Bin and Kim Hyun Joong in Korea. They are very popular young actors that are well loved by Singaporean youths and have an extremely high visibility and favorability.