ally's final year project logbook
hey there, welcome.
FYP2 of 61831 :)
this is my final year project logbook in a form of a blog. weird idea of using blog as logbook, but still there is nothing i can do. since this is my final year, i shall just do what i am supposed to do.
welcome wee leong, and others who care to read.
Summary of report crafting process [19 November to 6 December]
Tuesday, December 9, 2008, 4:23 PM
Issues:- Information may not be accurate enough due to the reservations of the sponsors who may be uncomfortable with revealing some information deems as commerical secrets.
- Miscommunication within the team resulting in conflicts.
- Missing of deadline set for work submission within the team.
Lessons learnt:
- Time management: it is important that all the team members are set on one objective and work towards it together. Everyone will have to submit their work on time for compilation so that the deadline can be met on time.
- Conflict management: communication is very important when working together as a team. When two people are unhappy with each other, it is important to clear up the conflict as soon as possible or else, the issue will swell as time goes by. In such cases, communication plays a huge part. Our team solved the conflict by talking about the reason of unhappiness and sit together and think about the solution solve the issue rationally when both parties had cooled down. When the issue is cleared, everyone is on good terms once again.
081206 Completion of Report
Monday, December 8, 2008, 2:03 PM
Agenda: Final touch-up of report
In the meeting, our team fine tuned and proof read the report to make sure there is a flow to the report. Minor touching up of the report is completed.
After ensuring that all components of the report are intact, we moved on to sum up the report with an Executive Summary which will be included at the beginning of the report. This Executive Summary will allow the readers to have an overview of the report and how did we go about trying to achieve the objective of the project.
081205 Meeting
Friday, December 5, 2008, 3:24 PM
Agenda:Advisor to comment on report progress + make necessary changes + further touch up
Our meeting with our advisor was fruitful. She pointed out some details which all of us did not notice.
Although all of us were tired after the school day, we stayed back after the meeting we had with our advisor, to make the changes she pointed out and further touch up on the report.
After I had completed making the changes, I started compiling the work again and work with the team to come up with 9.0 Conclusions together. The entire meeting was extremely fruitful.
Summary of results analysis [5 November to 3 December]
Thursday, December 4, 2008, 9:25 PM
Issues:- Conflicting responses from sponsors regarding the brand exposure
- Vague responses from sponsors due to trade secrets
- No sponsors package offered to draw in more sponsors
- Marketing and publicity of event poorly done
Analysis of issues:
- Due to the different locations of the different sponsors, the degree of exposure will definitely differ. American Express despite having promotional balloons with their brand on it, it is still at a disadvantage because it is being blocked by Tiger Beer. Unless the attendees walk around and explore the area, they may not even realize American Express was around.
- Many of the sponsors gave vague replies to the questions we asked them about their sponsorship to the event. They may be worried that some trade secrets will be spilled if they / we are not careful enough. If we had been working with the organizers from the start of the planning and are official crew of the event, the 'digging for the truth' may have been easier since we are 'insider'.
- What we've found out from the organizer, Matt Bennett was that no sponsors package were actually offered to the sponsors. This may be a bad move from my point of view, but because of the Grand Prix and the SBF being the first of such event in Singapore, this could be the attraction factor for the sponsors. However, this tactic may not work for the following years to come; the event will really be very risky if no packages were offered to retain the sponsors. They have to show the sponsors something beneficial.
- As commented by the sponsors and attendees, the publicity of the event is poorly done. The organizer disclosed that all publicity was actually handled by the Singapore Tourism Board without any charges. From our side, we saw no advertisements about the event at all. The event was meant to target the locals to introduce them such events similar to the Oktoberfest but because of the poorly done publicity, the objective was not very well achieved. Train stations are the best locations to publicize events since the crowd flow at the train stations in town area is usually the one where there are many people.
- And also, the buzz from the attendees about the Ash concert and SBF being advertised together led attendees to think that they could go to both the concert and the event. This resulted in some unhappy attendees who felt 'cheated'. SBF should have stated in their publicity material that tickets are sold separately to avoid such confusion in the future.
Reflections:
- Our findings would have been more accurate if the sponsors had trusted us more with their so-called secrets. This would have to mean involving in the planning stage of the event when we are also able to liaise with the sponsors to build up the relationship and trust. We have entered the event too late, or the report and findings would have been better done.
- Through the badly publicize example, this really is a true example of the importance of publicity materials. The event was meant to attract more locals; however, it got a close percentage of locals and foreigners. If the event had more awareness, more locals could have been interested and the turn up rate would have been better.
081203 Meeting
6:57 PM
Agenda:report crafting + work on tasks assigned (part 3)
Continuing from last week's work. I continued to generate charts and tables, and also to analyze more in detailed for the results.
At the same time, I tried to do some compiling of 10.0 References and 11.0 Appendix.
081130 Meeting
Monday, December 1, 2008, 1:57 PM
Agenda:report crafting + work on tasks assigned (part 2)
After completing my 3.0 Project Strategies & Approaches and done touching up abit here and there, I move on to start my analysis.
Other than the inputs of the team, I will need to generate charts and tables to display the results clearer (when our team analyze, we just threw in all kinds of ideas and points) and also to elaborate more on the points. Sometimes when the charts are generated, the result is clearer too, so there may be slight changes to the points that the team had inputted. There goes my duty of clearing up all irrelevant points and adding in a bit more of analysis myself too.
081124 Meeting
Monday, November 24, 2008, 11:58 PM
Agenda:Report crafting + work on tasks assigned (part 1)
After being assigned our tasks, our team met up this week to sit together and work on the tasks given to each individuals. This main purpose of sitting together is to make sure when any doubts surfaces, the team can get together and think about the solution together.
This week, I started to work on 3.0 Project Strategy first. Before that, we need to talk about how our team approached the topic to achieve our objective. This is our team's input:
This framework displayed clearly how our team determine the ROI of SBF's sponsorships. It is through the three important phases of interview with organizers and sponsors, plus the public survey.
Without the organizer's interview, we will not have known about the planning of the event and what did the organizer provide to the sponsors and expect in return. Without the sponsor's interview, we will not have notice the differences in each of the sponsor's expectations of the event and how well was the sponsors handled by the organizer. Without the attendees, we will not have sufficient back up for the awareness created for the sponsors (since most sponsors wanted brand exposure).
081119 Meeting
Thursday, November 20, 2008, 12:59 AM
Agenda: kick-start report
In order to be able to meet our submission deadline of 12 December, our team met up to kick-start our report, although the skeleton of the report was completed beforehand.
Our leader assigned us work so that we can start the work as soon as possible and ideally, end the report on time. So I was assigned the task of
- Compiling the report
- 3.0 Project Strategies and Approaches
- 6.4 Public Survey Analysis
- Gather resources from team to be put into 10.0 References
- Assemble all relevant information into 11.0 Appendix
And when I am done with any of my work, I can move on to help others with their work.
081112 Meeting
Saturday, November 8, 2008, 11:08 PM
Agenda:Results analysis (part 2)
This week, we continued with a little bit of the remaining analysis that were not completed last week.
After completing the analysis, I created a framework of the public and sponsors survey. It serves as a summary / content page to the whole public / sponsors analysis. It also gives the reader a faster and clearer idea of the analysis, all sum up into a flowchart.
PUBLIC's framework:
081105 Meeting
Friday, November 7, 2008, 4:10 PM
Agenda:Results analysis
After collating the survey, it is now time for analysis of the survey results. We analyzed the whole survey and after that, we decide which questions are relevant to achieving our project objective and which are not. On the way, I also cross-tabbed some questions for the team to analyze together.
A very shocking finding is that most of the attendees know about the event through word-of-mouth by their family or friends! This is a very rare situation because this will simply equate the uselessness of any marketing efforts made. Considering what the organizer, Matt Bennett told that they left the publicity of the event to Singapore Tourism Board, the publicity of the event should be high enough!
But through our observations, no publicity efforts were visible enough. We dont see any posters or banners to create awareness for the event. No directional signage were visible near the event site as well. In terms of the publicity and awareness, it is a huge disappointment.
081015 Meeting
Friday, October 17, 2008, 6:02 PM
Agenda: discuss skeleton of report, SPSS
Without a report skeleton, it is important to make sure that we can have an agenda to guide the team along with their progress. We used our previous report as a guide as to how the skeleton of the report is going to look like.
Executive Summary
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Roles & Responsibilities
3.0 Strategies & Approaches
4.0 Literature Review
5.0 Survey Process
6.0 Results Analysis
7.0 Issues Faced
8.0 Recommendations
9.0 Conclusion
10.0 References
11.0 Appendix
After coming with the section header, we went on to talk about the sub-headers / other components we find necessary to be included into the report.
Then, I continue to collate all the survey responses, review the responses and making sure no mistakes are keyed in or else the results will not be accurate.
081008 Meeting
Wednesday, October 8, 2008, 7:35 PM
Agenda:Collating of survey responses
The event finally ended three days back on 5th October. Now our team gather to collate the survey results using Microsoft Excel and SPSS.
I am in-charge of collating the responses using SPSS because no one else in the team knows how to use this software. This software will assist in statistical analysis of multiple-choice questions through collating all relevant responses and generating charts and tables for analysis.
As for the sponsors survey, and the open ended question in public survey (question 7), it will be handed to my other team mates to collate and analyze.
Summary of lessons learnt during field survey [2 October to 4 October]
Sunday, October 5, 2008, 5:58 PM
Intents / Aims:- Understand the expectations and returns of the sponsors.
- Find out how attendees felt about the event as a whole through a consumer's point of view.
Observations & issues:
- The event was split up into two different grounds; the air-conditioned tent and the non air-conditioned booths. With the hot weather in Singapore, naturally, people will crowd inside the tent with air-condition. All of the performances are live inside the air-conditioned tent too, which poses as a disadvantage to the booths outside of the tent. Although they provided live feed of the performances on a large screen, the area outside of the tent is still very quiet. It will be better if the performances inside the tent can be moved out of it. Due to the fact that the tent is enclosed, the music tends to be louder. It is very difficult to have a decent conversation when the music / live band performances starts. When the performance is outdoor, it also creates a very lively atmosphere, and the air-conditioned tent can be used as a comfortable and relaxing environment for networking and chilling out.
- Because the event is about beer, people pay to come in to drink. There are many people who drank too much and got drunk, resulting in them vomiting all over the place. After the first night, the place started to stink; this showed a lack of cleanliness to maintain the place and also leaving a bad impression on the event. Who wants to drink in a place that smells so badly? More toilets will have to be built inside the event - when the attendees are feeling unwell or nauseous, the toilet will be nearby. This can reduce the odor of the vomiting from drinking too much.
- Despite AMEX being a very well-known brand, it is still blocked by another booth of Tiger Beer. This strategy hinders AMEX's expectations of wanting to acquire more brand exposure. If the location of the booth cannot be changed, AMEX can move their promotional balloon out onto a more prominent area where people can see. The promotional balloon was originally placed beside their booth; since their booth is 'hidden', the balloon will also be hidden as well. Moving the balloon out onto a more prominent spot will enable attendees to know about their brand's existence in the event, and seek them out if they want to.
- The time limit by the organizer is a huge limitation for us. We are supposed to complete all of our survey forms within the first night. The organizer's concern is that if we break up our survey into several days, it may disturb the attendees. What would have been better done would be to attach the survey forms into the program catalogue when giving out to the attendees. Attendees can then fill up the form as and when they like it. As for the sponsors, if only we can have a mini-interview with all the sponsors and talk about their experience. Maybe when all the sponsors sit together and comment on something, some of the comments may trigger another sponsor's response, through this we may be able to get more information.
Analysis of issues:
- The organizer probably had a mindset that outside the tent when people can drink and smoke at the same time, it is a good time for various businessmen to get together and talk. This provided a small business opportunity through their smoking time. However, this also poses another problem: what if some attendees does not like to smoke or dislike being a passive smoker?
- The space inside the event is very limited. If more toilets are built, there will not be enough space for attendees to network outside the tent which is much quieter than inside the tent. With the event being a corporate event, business opportunities are very crucial to their purpose of attending. And also, the toilet is only a small distance away from the event entrance.
- AMEX's booth being hidden behind the event is probably so that they can network in a quieter environment. It could also be that AMEX's purpose of being at the event is not just for brand exposure, they may be looking for business opportunities. Considering that, it may be better that their booth is quieter.
- Other than our team, Singapore Tourism Board also have a team of surveyors to conduct a 11-pages survey regarding the whole GP season with SBF as a fringe event under it. Our concern was also that, with another team of surveyors, the attendees may feel pressurized or disturbed that their night of enjoyment is ruined by so many surveys.
Insights / reflections:
- Although we have a time limit to complete our survey, our team did our best to finish all of our survey forms within that night.
- The experience of talking to the sponsors was priceless, of course. We got to approach them and understand their stand on the event etc.
080928 Meeting
Sunday, September 28, 2008, 5:43 PM
Agenda: survey questions crafting
As the date of the event draws near, it is critical to craft the survey beforehand so we can send the questions to the event organizer, Matt Bennett, for confirmation.
The questions from the sponsors survey covers mainly about their expectations of the event and their returns (if possible). For we know that there will be confidential commericial secrets which may cause them to be uncomfortable to reveal so most of our questions are general questions that allows the sponsors to share about anything under sun.
The public survey will be enquiring about their opinions about the events in a consumer's point of view. Mainly about the process of knowing about the event, reasons of interest for event and their purchase process. These questions will give us an understanding of the consumers and their view of the operations and planning of the event.
080924 Meeting
Friday, September 26, 2008, 4:18 PM
Agenda:Meet up with event organizer + source for literature review.
The meeting with the event organizer at his pub was fruitful because it provided us with insights as to how the event is planned, and also information about the sponsors' contribution to the event.
After the meeting with the organizer, our team when to the National Library @ Bugis to source for information for our literature review. The literature review will allow us to have a better understanding of the general idea of sponsorship and what more can we apply what we've read into our report.
Summary of interview with event organizer [24 September]
Wednesday, September 24, 2008, 10:21 PM
Questions asked & answered:- Is Singapore Beer Festival a sponsorship driven event? - "Not really sponsorship driven, but it helps alot"
- What organizer give sponsors in return for their contributions? - "Beer for their sponsorship, and a tent at the event for socializing and networking with all the high net worth individuals present"
- Are there any sponsorship package offered? - "No"
- It somehow is confusing / contradicting that the organizer did not offer any sponsorship packages to attract the sponsors, but yet there are so many sponsors willing to invest in this event. It is not a sponsorship driven event, but the sponsors involvement do help the event alot. Probably the organizer had not expected the amount of sponsors who are willing to chip in to the event, so they hadnt thought of the event as 'sponsorship driven'.
- The organizer mentioned that they offered the sponsors beer, tent and the high net worth of individuals attending. However, did the organizer thought about or asked the sponsors about their target market? What the event organizer deem as 'high net worth' may not be as 'high' if the sponsor's target audience isnt that group of people. It just could be a mistake of barking up the wrong tree.
- Matt Bennett also mentioned that they left their marketing to Singapore Tourism Board. But have they thought that STB probably will just chuck the event under the F1 GP Season, which may not be what the sponsors want? Because all event like to have their own unique selling point, if they are always linked together with another mega event, this small little event will never be able to succeed hiding under that big umbrella.
Recommendations:
- For the first year, it may be interesting to not have sponsorship packages because when an event is new, more eyes will be set on it. Sponsoring the event may just be a chance to flash the brand around which may explain the amount of sponsors SBF have, for being the first in Singapore. However, this tactic will not work forever. Consider the sponsors as a customer: we will need to keep pleasing the customer so that they will remain loyal and keep coming back for repeat purchases.
- Understanding the sponsors is critical because we will then know what they want, then the event can be wind towards the sponsor's needs. They are the one investing, some sort of providing capital for the event, so we need to take in their suggestions and needs too. If the sponsors cannot find what they want, they will eventually leave.
- Marketing is the most important factor to look at during the planning of an event. Most of the event budget usually goes to creating awareness / hype for the event. It will be good if Matt can oversee the marketing of the event to himself because without the hype and awareness, the turn up rate will not be good since no one knows about the event. Or probably, Matt may not need to oversee the whole marketing process, but he should at least have regular updates from STB than just throw the whole marketing project at STB.
080923 Meeting
Tuesday, September 23, 2008, 10:22 PM
Agenda:Discussion about the details of meeting with organizer
This is a last minute confirmation of the meeting with the organizer. One of the event organizer, Matt Bennett, had agreed to meet up with us to share with us the details of the event.
We also take this chance to review our interview questions again and highlight the more important questions that needs to be asked and answered.
These are some of the more important questions:
- How did the organizer approach the sponsors?
- Any sponsor's package? Details - what did the organizer give and what do they get back in return?
- What are some of the returns the sponsors are looking for, and how did SBF help to achieve those expectations?
We hope that the interview will be fruitful so it can provide us with some answers which the sponsors may not supply us with, deeming some information as trade secrets.
080917 Meeting
Wednesday, September 17, 2008, 10:53 PM
Agenda:Contacting of organizer
In order to have a better understanding of the Singapore Beer Festival, our team met up briefly to craft an email to send to the event organizer. Through the event organizer, we may be able to discover information that are not available from any other resources, and also know about how the event was planned. Because our topic is about sponsorship, it will also be important as to how the organizer managed to attract so many sponsors.
Since there are three main contact point stated in the event official website, our team decided to send the mails to all of them. I think that it is really to their disadvantage that the event does not have a single contact point as it may be really hard for people to contact 3 person at once, and may in turn get 3 different responses. This will result in confusion and mixture of communication.
080910 Meeting
Wednesday, September 10, 2008, 9:27 PM
Agenda:Compilation for project plan
After coming up with the skeleton for project plan last week, our team now got together to compile the various components that made up our project plan:
1. Roles and Responsibilities
2. Objectives
3. An overview of Singapore Beer Festival
4. Project Timeline
5. Strategy and Approach
6. Industry partners (involved in SBF)
7. Research Methodology
8. Summary
My responsibility is to draft up the methodology, thinking of what methods we can use to approach the topic. I thought of literature review first since 70% of the world's knowledge are in books. So through reading up on the topic of sponsorship, we may be able to get a better idea of sponsoring of event. Then we will have surveys, separated into sponsors and public so we can get responses about the event from 2 perspectives.
080903 Meeting
Thursday, September 4, 2008, 2:04 PM
Agenda:Project plan skeleton
For our team's second meeting, we came up with the project plan skeleton. The project plan will aid us in kick starting the project - it included our strategy and approaches that we will take to achieve our objectives of finding out the returns on sponsorships for the event we have chosen, Singapore Beer Festival.
080825 Meeting
Tuesday, August 26, 2008, 6:22 PM
Our team had our first meeting yesterday. And we covered a couple of important areas with our advisor, Christine.Our Topic:
"Research, measure and evaluate the key benefits the key sponsorship of the upcoming Amazing Race (or other events) received as a result of sponsoring the event."
Our roles and responsibilities:
Before moving on to anything, our team started the meeting rolling with the role assignment first.
I was appointed the Research Analyst who will be in-charge of the research section throughout the project.
Discussion:
We research on the project and decide on which event to study on. Eventually, we settled on Singapore Beer Festival which will take place from 2nd - 5th October 2008. It is a fringe event of the Singapore Grand Prix. So it will be interesting, I think.