DCU Business School Assignment Submission Student Name: Shane Barry

Student Number: 58535191 Programme: Project Title: Module code: Lecturer: Project Due: Declaration I the undersigned declare that the project material, which I now submit, is my own work. Any assistance received by way of borrowing from the work of others has been cited and acknowledged within the work. I make this declaration in the knowledge that a breach of the rules pertaining to project submission may carry serious consequences. I am aware that the project will not be accepted unless this form has been handed in along with the project. MINT4 - BSc Marketing, Innovation & Technology Eircom StudyHub IMC Campaign MG333 Pamela Barry 09/06/2012

Signed:_________________________

Marketing Communications

Overall Strategy For this integrated marketing communications campaign we plan to focus on customer acquisition and customer winback. We also look to reassure and retain customers by communicating they are with the right broadband provider. For this three month campaign we want to target parents of secondary school children, who we can provide with broadband. The message we want to portray is value for money. Our USP will be Eircom Study Hub giving secondary school children online learning worth 1000s of euro for free with broadband. This will portray great value for money as the lessons are worth more than they are paying for the broadband. As we see in (Fig 1) 63% of parents of secondary school children 9-18 are likely to use this service. We want the IMC to fit in with Eircoms core consumer benefit of Eircom enriches my world and their values of Empowering, Engaging, Vibrant. We want to use the core insight of Families believe that giving children access to the internet is an important part of their development and give them the best opportunity in life in our message and show the customer the benefits and value of Eircom. We look to target parents of secondary school children as they are the buyers of broadband but also look at children who influence their parents decision. For the IMC we want to deliver a consistent one voice message across a range of communication mediums. We want to develop a relationship with our customers and have two way communications. We want to deliver the message through targeted T.V, radio, outdoor display, print and online communications. This IMC will give increased message effectiveness and reinforce Eircoms core message. Objectives For the objectives of the campaign we look to use the S.M.A.R.T objectives technique. We want to look at corporate, marketing and communication objectives. I have outlined six main objectives for our 3 month IMC campaign. 1. Retain all 135,000 Eircom broadband customers with secondary school children by communicating Eircom provides the best value broadband.

2. To acquire 10,000, 20% of none broadband users with secondary school children in one year by communicating message of broadband is important for children development and education and Eircom delivers the best value for that. 3. Winback 20% of customers who have switched within a year. Convey message of Eircoms better value and new features. 4. Reach 80% of target audience of parents of secondary school children between the age of 35-60 within one year. A frequency of twice per day 156 times over 3 month campaign. 5. Deliver a consistent message across all media communications that portrays Eircoms value and benefits of their broadband to anyone that sees the ad not just the target market. Increase overall market share by 10% in one year. 6. Improve Eircoms VFM score and create brand affinity with customers. Get 80% of people who know the Eircom brand to know what Eircom Studyhub is and what it offers.

Target Audience The target audience for this IMC campaign is parents of secondary school children, in particular parents of leaving and junior cert students. The main message to deliver is the value of Eircom broadband with the Eircom StudyHub feature. There are 256,000 parents with secondary school children. The average age of a women has her first baby at is 31.3, 27% have their first baby over 35 and 3% under 20, 70% have their first child between 20-35 (ERSI 2011). Children enter secondary school around age 12 and leave around age 18. Taken this figures into account the average age of a mother when her child enters secondary school is 31.3+12= 43.3, men are on average 2.3 years older than women in a marriage (FSA 2006) so their average age of a man when child enters secondary school is 45.6. Average age when child is doing leaving cert at 18, women 49.3 and men 51.6. If we look at the 70% who have their first child between 20-35, when their child starts secondary school they are between 3247 and when he leaves between 38-53. The average family now has 1.38 children (CSO 2011). From this figures I think we should target parents of secondary school children, the target age of these parents would be between 35-60. This takes into account families who will

have more than one child and push the higher target age from 53-60 and lowered the lower estimate to 35 to account for parents whose children will enter secondary school soon. We have an overall target audience of 256,000. We look to retain the 135,000 who are already with Eircom. Target the families who have no internet 45,600 and who have switched 70,510. We believe the majority of parents who have children in secondary school or children close to entering school are between 35-60, we aim to target that age group of parents. Messages We want to deliver a message of one voice, one message across our selected communications. We want our message to retain and create relationships with customers and allow for a two way dialogue. We want to provide the customer with the message and soft sell, let the customer choice who is best because we believe for our target market we have the best value. The message we want to deliver is Eircom broadband is value beyond price. We want to communicate the message to our target market that Eircom Broadband with StudyHub is the best value broadband for them as it offers not only quality broadband but online learning facilities for their children worth 1000s of euro. We want to deliver a message of the quality of the StudyHub and the money they can save by not having to buy grinds and other study tip books. We also want to communicate the message that Eircom StudyHub gives their children the best opportunity to do well in exams and the ease of access to information. Not searching the web for hours trying to find the right notes and tips, its all in one easy to use and navigate place. We want customers to know what StudyHub offers, 1-1 learning, interactive video and audio tutorials, course notes, revision notes and model answers. It also has 400 hours of Video and Audio content prepared by 34 teachers for 19 subjects in the Leaving Cert and Junior Cert. All the contents are worth over 3,000. It important to get across to are target market the value and the savings that can be made by using StudyHub to other forms of revision learning. I think the message should emphasis the quality of the teachers who prepared the notes like 34 teachers from the top 50 schools in Ireland and 7 from the top 10. This gives a quality to the notes parents can relate to other grinds like in the Institute of Education Dublin an intense revision class costs 595.00 for 4 subjects for a week. Parents can then see the real value in the StudyHub. The message should also convey that the StudyHub is always there to use, can be a place for a student to go anytime when they are stuck or need help. It also stores all the notes and students dont have tons of paper all over the place and they cant find what they are looking for across several sets of revision notes and revision books. The StudyHub puts all revision in one easy to find

place. The message should also give students thoughts on the StudyHub. There should be a survey done by students who have used the StudyHub and get their reflections on it to portray in the message. Like 80% found the StudyHub more helpful than a one week revision course in the Institute of Education and 80% of students found the information they needed on StudyHub. The survey should get feedback from the students that use it and convey that in the message. The main message is Value beyond money by providing the best resources for your children to do well. Also relate the quality to other resources and show the savings compared. Finally the message should have student feedback and figures about what they think of Eircom StudyHub and this all comes standard with Eircom Broadband. Marketing Communications Plan The main target market is between 35-60 so this is where the message will be positioned too. We also want others who see the message to be attracted to Eircom broadband so its important the message and communication mediums dont isolate certain segments. Students doing the leaving and junior cert can also have a huge impact and what broadband their parents pick as they are more tech savvy and aware of the best offers. Parents may go to their children asking what they think is best, its important that they believe Eircom is the best value aswell. The communications will be targeted at the target market but will insure to get the message across to all segments that Eircom is the best value for money. 35-60 is a huge market so by targeting them other market segments will definitely see the communications. T.V First we will use T.V to reach our target audience. On average adults spend 221 minutes a day in 2011 watching T.V(FLE Marsh 2011) (Fig 2). 42% of adults time watching T.V in 2011 was watching RTE 1, RTE 2 and TV3 (FLE Marsh 2011). We recommend that Eircom has a T.V ad campaign across these three channels during T.V shows that would reach its target market. Nearly one in two shows adults watch is on these stations so it is a great platform to communicate Eircoms Message. Three two weeks campaign spread over three months should be shown on T.V shows on these channels to help achieve the objectives. The Late Late Show and the Saturday Night Show are great to reach both male and female target audience. Rachael Allens easy meals for female audience, Premier Soccer Saturday and Champions League live for male target audience. Ireland AM and the Morning Show for parents going to work in the morning and for stay at home parents. 35% of the budget should be spent here as T.V is the most expensive spend but is also a great platform to reach the

target market. It is also a very cluttered space so the communication should be creative to stand out and deliver the clear message that parents will respond too. Radio Radio is another communication that has a good reach to our target market. In (Fig 4) we can see radio has a coverage of 87% on weekdays to ABC1s 35-55 and slightly less on weekends (Mediastar 2011). Again this communication is a must as part of the IMC if we want to achieve our objectives. As we see in (Fig 5) Radio 1, 2FM and Today FM are 52% of what ABC1s listen too. I would recommend communicating on morning shows to catch people in the car on way to work or portable radios on bus but also people getting ready in the morning and stay at home parents. Breakfast with Hector and Tubridy on 2FM, Morning Ireland on Radio 1 and Ian Dempsey and Ray DArcy on Today FM are morning shows Eircom should communicate on. People in the office and parents at home can both listen to the radio during the day Joe Duffy and Pat Kenny on Radio 1 have large listenerships. Coming home from work good shows to reach the target audience are Drivetime on Radio 1 and More Music Drive With Will Leahy on 2fm.These radio stations cover the target audience from working parents to stay at home. It targets them at times in the car stuck in traffic with only the radio to listen to. The ads audio should be catchy expressing savings to grab attention. 15% of budget should be spend on Radio as again has great coverage and listened to by a lot of the target market, by covering three stations can reach 50% of target audience. Again they should run three two week campaigns over three months. Outdoor Display Is another communication tool to deliver the message to our target audience. Outdoor displays on busy streets to catch people on the way to and from work and also people going shopping in town or shops on busy streets. Look to target displays in the suburbs on busy streets people use to get to town where most people work. Also displays around shopping centres and supermarkets where people have to go to buy food and have high footfall. In transit display on Dublin Bus, Luas and the Dart are good ways to target the audience on the way to and from work. Bus shelters are not only a way to target bus users but car users aswell. The outdoor display ads should be eye catching, showing Eircoms vibrant colour and communicating the message clearly again showing savings and student feedback. 10% of the budget should be spent on outdoor display. As its not as expensive as radio or T.V but has a good reach but is also a cluttered space.

Print Media Print media is in decline in readership as we see in (Fig 6) there is now more of a shift online. There are also a lot of papers which all dont have as big a reach as T.V or Radio. Instead of spending a lot on print I recommend we increase spend online. Eircom should take out ads in the Sunday Independent and Sunday Times these have good reach and their main audience would be within our target market. We also recommend that Eircom advertises in the Metro AM, its a great medium to target people on their way to work but also school children who can influence their parents decision. 65,000 Metro AMs are distributed every weekday and are free for customers giving them great reach. Eircom with their vibrant orange colour could take out a front and back page which would be very eye catching and be the first thing each reader sees. In the Sunday papers they should have a half a page ad. They should have one day where they are on the cover of the Metro AM, and have two ads per week for three months. They should take a half page spread in both Sunday papers for each Sunday for three months. 10% of the budget should be spent on print media. Social Media So far the communications have been one way where Eircom is informing their target audience of what they offer. We need a communication medium where the customer can interact with Eircom in a two way conversation to build a relationship. Social media is a great platform for this. Facebook and Twitter are best suited to this IMC for two way communication. As we see in (fig 8) internet usage is rising for all age groups 30-44 year olds 64% use the internet and 43% of 45-59 year olds its a growing trend among these age groups. We have to see where Irish adults spend their time online. As we see in (Fig 9) 47% of adults have Facebook and 11% have Twitter. (Fig 10) shows us the age of Facebook users 18% of 35-44 year olds have it, 45-54 8% have Facebook and 4% of 55-64 year olds. The figures arent that high but it is a growing trend among older users. A recent Nielsen survey showed people over 55 are the fastest growing age group joining Facebook. Eircom should have one page that targets adults and one that target students. Each page can be a place where Eircom can interact with customers. The adults page should have details of the value, cost and what is included in each broadband bundle. The student one should show them the quality of Eircom StudyHub and a place where they can communicate with Eircom and other students. On the Facebook page each week there should be a teacher who answers the top

leaving and junior cert questions left on the page. To drive traffic to the page they should create target ads on Facebook for each age group. (Fig 11) is an example ad targeted at students of the leaving cert and junior cert (Fig 12) shows the reach of the ad. Eircom should also have just one Twitter account. They can answer questions from both parents and students on. To gain followers on both, Eircom should encourage potential customer to join them on Facebook and Twitter through other communications. Icons at the end of T.V ads, quick voice at end of radio, icons on all print media newspapers and outdoor display. Any other communications should drive customers to Facebook and Twitter because this is where they can interact with customers. (Fig 13) shows an example ad targeted at our target adult group the reach of the ad can be seen in (Fig 14). Eircom could also have people working on Boards.ie to respond to people asking about what broadband to get or people having problems with Eircom broadband. Eircom can set up a YouTube account where example elearning videos can be put up on YouTube so people can test the quality of the learning before deciding to buy. 15% of the budget should go on social media. All social media sites should continue to be kept up to date even after the campaign is over and be checked everyday during and after the campaign. Online advertising All other communications again should link to the Eircom website where they can inform the potential customer, interact and make sales. As we saw in (Fig 8) the rising use of internet usage in our target market. We recommend display advertising on popular sites our target audience use. Some websites that would reach our target audience are RTE, which also has the RTE Player which had 3.8 million streams in January 2012 (AMAS 2012). Online advertising now has the 3rd biggest spend with 13% market share behind T.V and print (AMAS 2011). RTE website is also ranked the 11th most visited in Ireland by Alexa.com. Display ads on the website and before videos on the RTE player would help reach our audience. Other websites to display in would be AIB, 365online, Vodafone, O2, Irish Times and The Independent, these we think would all be websites that our target audience would use. They are all in the 50 most viewed websites in Ireland by Alexa.com. Display advertising on smartphones on websites and apps is another emerging trend. We can see in (Fig 15) the smartphone usage by age, there overall are 741,000 smartphone users in Ireland (AMAS 2011). 29% of 35-49 and 7% of 50-64 year olds use smartphone and the numbers are on the rise. It would be a good place to target 35-49 year olds. There has been 682,000 downloads of the RTE app and 121,000 of the TV3 app (AMAS 2012). These apps would

have great reach. Along with adverts on apps, display ads on the same popular websites on mobile devices should be bought. Also Eircom should have ads on these websites apps as they are popular sites among our target market. Eircom should also look into having good SEO in Google along with buying PPC ads. Words which contain Broadband and Broadband comparison would be very targeted. Targeting words of learning and study wouldnt be as effective as it would be the student look up them terms. 15% budget should be allocated to online advertising. Other communications Some other creative ideas could be used from money taken out of other budgets. Here is a list of ideas that can be chosen from which you best think would be suitable to Eircom. They could sponsor a suitable T.V program like Dragons Den or The Apprentice both are related to learning and where learning can get you and how important it is for children to have the internet for the best opportunities. Eircom could launch their own phone app which could have the StudyHub on it we can see in (Fig 10) percentage of Smartphone users 13-17 and will continue to grow. Eircom could also launch Eircom WiFi Hotspots in certain schools and give the teacher the ability to use the StudyHub along with students in class. It would be hard to get into schools and negative reaction from competition and even parents but could be tested. Alternatively Eircom could set up free grinds for students across certain days, where they would use the StudyHub to teach children, in turn parents would have a positive view on Eircom and students might push parents for it. Eircom could also use its existing office resources and invite students in to have a quiet place to study. Also have an expert teacher to supervise and answer any questions. StudyHub would be available on the computers in the office. This would be good CSR for Eircom and hopefully increase sales. Eircom could give out free booklets with a few revision tips from StudyHub and a study planner in the Sunday newspapers which parents would see and give to their children. Eircom could offer a large number of places for transition year students to come do work experience in Eircom for a week. Some of the ideas could be done for free others the budget would have to come from other communications.

Timing The whole IMC campaign should take place over three months. After three months the campaign should be measured to see how well it was doing to meet objectives if successful the campaign should run for another three months. I recommend the campaign starting at the Back to School time, end of August start of September and running three months that follow. We think this is a great time when parents are looking for what the children need for the new school year and want them to have what they need to do the best. Eircom StudyHub could be a back to school must. Secondary schools will start back on the 3rd of September 2012 the campaign should start 20th of August and end 19th November. The T.V ads will run in two week sections throughout the three months with an extra week at the start. 20th-27th Aug, 27th Aug- 3rd Sep, 3rd-10th Sep, 24th Sep -10th Oct, 1st -8th Oct, 22nd- 29th Oct and 29th Oct- 5th Nov. For Radio it will also run in three two week sections over the three months. The dates are as follows 10th 17th Sep, 17th -24 Sep, 8th-15th Oct, 15th-22nd Oct, 5th-12th Nov and 12th-19th Nov. Print ads will be in the Sunday Irish Times and Sunday Independent every Sunday over the campaign 26th Aug, 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd and 30th Sep, 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th Oct, 4th, 11th and 18th Nov. A full front and back cover will be on the Metro AM on the first day back to school 3rd of Sep. Two days each weekday for the campaign print ads will be in the Metro AM, dates will alternate each week. Display ads will also run in two week section over the three months. 3rd-10th Sep, 10th-17th Sep, 1th-8th Oct, 8th-15thOct, 29th Oct-5th Nov and 5th-12th Nov. Social media and online advertising will go on throughout the three months. Social Media accounts will be controlled 9-5 each day to insure interaction with as many customers as possible. Display advertising, Google adwords and Facebook ads will also run everyday of the three month campaign. Campaign will run 20th August- 19th November. If the campaign is deemed successful another 3 month campaign can begin in April for the built up the Leaving and Junior Cert in June. Measurement To see how effective the campaign was, there are a number of measurement tools we look to use. Inquiry test to see who has seen the ad, get a final percentage of people who have and who has within our target market. We can also ask which communications they have seen the ad on. This can be done by doing surveys online and in shopping centers. We also look to have recall test where we ask people to recall three ads they have seen for broadband in the

last three months and where, this will give us an idea of how appealing the ads were and if people remembered it without being asked. It also can see which communication methods worked the best. This again can be done by surveying people in busy areas. We will also look at sales figures and if they rose during the campaign. We can also see if there was a significant rise in traffic to the website and increased calls. To measure our Social Media on Facebook and Twitter we can look at how many fans we increased during the campaign and also how much people interacted with the page. Facebook has a tool to show you how people got to your page and information about people who were on your page. See how many views on YouTube and how many comments our Boards.ie workers left to help potential customers. To measure our Facebook ads and Google adwords we can look at how many clicks each got. For our display advertising we can also look at how many clicks it got. We can also look at the impressions of people who didnt click but saw the ad by seeing how many people where on the page when our ad was there. On Facebook we can look at demographics and see if we attracted our target audience. We can use Google Analytics to see how successful we were driving people to our website from other communication types. We can measure the campaign at the overall cost per customer acquisition to see if the campaign made financial sense. Overall we will measure the campaign and see how they compared to our objectives, a successful campaign will be on in line with our objectives.

Bibliography Carr, A (2011), Ireland's birth rate is the highest in Europe, Available From: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2011/0628/1224299677508.html, [Last Accessed: 19th April 2012]. ERSI (2006), Households and Family Structures in Ireland, Available From: http://www.fsa.ie/fileadmin/user_upload/Files/2012_documents/Households_and_Families_Final_ Report.pdf, [Last Accessed: 19th April 2012]. Richards, S (2012), Social and the grey market, Available From: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/9086-social-and-the-grey-market, [Last Accessed: 19th April 2012]. Hughes, B (2009), Only 24% of the Most Popular Websites in Ireland are Irish, Available From: http://brendanhughes.ie/2009/07/26/only-24-of-the-most-popular-websites-in-ireland-are-irish/, [Last Accessed: 19th April 2012]. AMAS (2012), State of the Net Spring 2012 Issue 24, Available From: http://www.iia.ie/resources/, [Last Accessed: 19th April 2012]. AMAS (2011), State of the Net Winter 2011 Issue 23, Available From: : http://www.iia.ie/resources/, [Last Accessed: 19th April 2012]

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