IMC PIMC PROGRAMROGRAM FOLLOWEDFOLLOWED ININ MYMY CCOMPANYOMPANY::

OORASCOMRASCOM T TELECOMELECOM B BANGLADESHANGLADESH LLIMITEDIMITED (BANGLALINK (BANGLALINKTM)TM)

MKT#525Integrated Marketing

Communication

Term Paper on

IMC PROGRAM FOLLOWED INIMC PROGRAM FOLLOWED IN

MY COMPANYMY COMPANY

Submitted to

Professor Dr. Md. Anwarul Islam

Submitted by

XXXXXXXX

#407xxxx

EMBA 13th Batch

Department of Marketing

4th December, 2008

University of Dhaka

4th December, 2008

To,

Dr. Md. Anwarul Islam

Professor

Department of Marketing

University of Dhaka

Subject: Submission of the Term Paper

Sir,

With due respect, I want to submit my term paper as a partial fulfillment of the

requirement of completing degree of MBA. The report is generated on the topic ‘IMC

program followed in My Company’.

.

I therefore, hope that you will take this paper for your kind consideration.

Yours truly,

XXXXXXXXX

# 407xxxxxx

Evening MBA Program (13th Batch)

Department of Marketing

University of Dhaka

Acknowledgement

(All praises belongs to almighty ALLAH, the most beneficent, most merciful)

This paper could not have been written without my course teacher Professor Dr.

Md. Anwarul Islam who not only served as my teacher but also encouraged and

challenged me throughout the course. I would like to thank him at first.

Where would I be without my family? My parents deserve special mention for their

inseparable support and prayers. My Father, XXXXXXXXXXX, in the first place is

the person who put the fundament my learning character, showing me the joy of

intellectual pursuit ever since I was a child. My Mother, XXXXXXXXX, is the one

who sincerely raised me with her caring and gently love. I am grateful to them.

Index

Title Page………………………………………………………... i2nd Title………………………………………………………….. iiLetter of Submission ……………………………………………. iiiAcknowledgement………………………………………………. ivIndex……………………………………………………………… vWhat is Marketing……………………………………………….. 1Marketing Tools/Mix…………………………………………….. 3Integrated Marketing Communications………………………….. 5Importance of IMC………………………………………………. 7Role of IMC for development of marketing & society………….. 2Company Background……………………………………………. 10IMC Program followed in my company………………………….. 13Some Sample of ads of Banglalink………………………………. 17Conclusion……………………………………………………….. 29

Marketing is the social process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others

-Philip Kotler.

What is Marketing

Marketing is a business term referring to the promotion of products, advertising,

pricing, distribution channels, and branding. The term developed from the original

meaning which referred literally to going to market, as in shopping, or going to a

market to sell goods or services.

There are many different definitions of marketing. Let us consider some of the

following alternative definitions:

“The all-embracing function that links the business with customer needs

and wants in order to get the right product to the right place at the right

time”

“The achievement of corporate goals through meeting and exceeding

customer needs better than the competition”

“The management process that identifies, anticipates and supplies

customer requirements efficiently and profitably”

“Marketing may be defined as a set of human activities directed at

facilitating and consummating exchanges”

Which definition is right? In short, they all are. They all try to embody the essence

of marketing:

• Marketing is about meeting the needs and wants of customers;

• Marketing is a business-wide function – it is not something that operates alone

from other business activities;

• Marketing is about understanding customers and finding ways to provide

products or services which customers demand.

Marketing activities are numerous and varied because they basically include

everything needed to get a product off the drawing board and into the hands of

the customer. The broad field of marketing includes activities such as:

o Designing the product so it will be desirable to customers by using tools

such as marketing research and pricing.

o Promoting the product so people will know about it by using tools such as

public relations, advertising, and marketing communications.

o Setting a price and letting potential customers know about your product

and making it available to them.

In professional usage the term has a wider meaning of the practice and science of

trading. The American Marketing Association (AMA) states, "Marketing is an

organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and

delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways

that benefit the organization and its stakeholders."

Marketing practice tends to be seen as a creative industry, which includes

advertising, distribution and selling. It is also concerned with anticipating the

customers' future needs and wants, which are often discovered through market

research.

The scientific study of marketing is a wide and heavily interconnected subject with

extensive academic publications. Marketing methods are also informed by many

of the social sciences, particularly psychology, sociology, and economics.

Anthropology is also a small, but growing influence. Market research underpins

these activities. Through advertising, it is also related to many of the creative arts.

The marketing literature is also infamous for re-inventing itself and its vocabulary

according to the times and the culture.

Marketing Tools/Mix

In the early 1960s, Professor Neil Borden at Harvard Business School identified a

number of company performance actions that can influence the consumer

decision to purchase goods or services. Borden suggested that all those actions

of the company represented a “Marketing Mix”. Professor E. Jerome McCarthy,

also at the Harvard Business School in the early 1960s, suggested that the

Marketing Mix contained 4 elements: product, price, place and promotion.

o Product: The product aspects of marketing deal with the specifications of

the actual goods or services, and how it relates to the end-user's needs

and wants. The scope of a product generally includes supporting elements

such as warranties, guarantees, and support.

o Pricing: This refers to the process of setting a price for a product, including

discounts. The price need not be monetary - it can simply be what is

exchanged for the product or services, e.g. time, energy, or attention.

o Promotion: This includes advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and

personal selling, branding and refers to the various methods of promoting

the product, brand, or company.

o Place (or distribution): refers to how the product gets to the customer; for

example, point-of-sale placement or retailing. This fourth P has also

sometimes been called Place, referring to the channel by which a product

or service is sold (e.g. online vs. retail), which geographic region or

industry, to which segment (young adults, families, business people), etc.

also referring to how the environment in which the product is sold in can

affect sales.

These four elements are often referred to as the marketing mix,[1] which a

marketer can use to craft a marketing plan.

The four Ps model is most useful when marketing low value consumer products.

Industrial products, services, high value consumer products require adjustments

to this model. Services marketing must account for the unique nature of services.

Industrial marketing must account for the long term contractual agreements that

are typical in supply chain transactions. Relationship marketing attempts to do

this by looking at marketing from a long term relationship perspective rather than

individual transactions.

As well as the standard four P's (Product, Pricing, Promotion and Placement),

services marketing calls upon an extra three, totaling seven and known together

as the extended marketing mix. These are:

o People: Any person coming into contact with customers can have an

impact on overall satisfaction. Whether as part of a supporting service to a

product or involved in a total service, people are particularly important

because, in the customer's eyes, they are generally inseparable from the

total service . As a result of this, they must be appropriately trained, well

motivated and the right type of person. Fellow customers are also

sometimes referred to under 'people', as they too can affect the customer's

service experience, (e.g., at a sporting event).

o Process: This is the process(es) involved in providing a service and the

behavior of people, which can be crucial to customer satisfaction.

o Physical evidence: Unlike a product, a service cannot be experienced

before it is delivered, which makes it intangible. This, therefore, means that

potential customers could perceive greater risk when deciding whether to

use a service. To reduce the feeling of risk, thus improving the chance for

success, it is often vital to offer potential customers the chance to see what

a service would be like. This is done by providing physical evidence, such

as case studies, testimonials or demonstrations.

Integrated Marketing Communications

Marketing communications is 'promotion' from the marketing mix. Integrated

means combine or amalgamate, or put simply the jigsaw pieces that together

make a complete picture. This is so that a single message is conveyed by all

marketing communications. Different messages confuse your customers and

damage brands. So if a TV advert carries a particular logo, images and message,

then all newspaper adverts and point-of-sale materials should carry the same

logo, images or message, or one that fits the same theme. Coca-Cola uses its

familiar red and white logos and retains themes of togetherness and enjoyment

throughout its marketing communications.

Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) can be defined as Synergistic

approach to achieving the objectives of a marketing campaign, through a well

coordinated use of different promotional methods. As defined by the American

Association of Advertising Agencies, IMC " ... recognizes the value of a

comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of

communication disciplines—advertising, public relations, personal selling, and

sales promotion—and combines them to provide clarity, consistency, and

maximum communication impact.

Marketing communications has a mix. Elements of the mix are blended in different

quantities in a campaign. The marketing communications mix includes many

different elements, and the following list is by no means conclusive. It is

recognized that there is some cross over between individual elements (e.g. Is

donating computers to schools, by asking shoppers to collect vouchers, public

relations or sales promotion?) Here are the key of the marketing communications

mix. First four elements are known as basic activities of IMC.

o Personal Selling: Personal selling occurs where an individual salesperson

sells a product, service or solution to a client. Salespeople match the

benefits of their offering to the specific needs of a client.

o Advertising (above and below the line): advertising directs a message at

large numbers of people with a single communication. It is a mass

medium.

o Sales Promotion: Sales promotion is any initiative undertaken by an

organization to promote an increase in sales, usage or trial of a product or

service (i.e. initiatives that are not covered by the other elements of the

marketing communications or promotions mix).

o Public Relations (and publicity): Public Relations (PR) are any

purposeful communications between an organization and its publics that

aim to generate goodwill. Publics, put simply, are its stakeholders. PR is

proactive and future orientated, and has the goal of building and

maintaining a positive perception of an organization in the mind of its

publics.

We can also enlist some other communication mix as follows..

o Direct Marketing: Direct marketing is a channel free approach to

distribution and/or marketing communications. So a company may have a

strategy of dealing with its customers 'directly,' for example banks (such as

CityBank) or computer manufacturers (such as Dell). There are no channel

intermediaries i.e. distributors, retailers or wholesalers. Therefore - 'direct'

in the sense that the deal is done directly between the manufacturer and

the customer.

o Trade Fairs and Exhibitions:

o Sponsorship.

o Packaging.

o Merchandising

o E-Marketing

o Branding: Branding is a strategy that is used by marketers to differentiate

products and companies, and to build economic value for both the

consumer and the brand owner.

Importance of IMC

The principal benefit derived from the integration of marketing communication

is the synergy. Synergy has been described as the 2+2=5 phenomenon. By

bringing together the various facets of marketing communications in a

mutually supportive and enhancing way then the resulting 'whole' is more then

the simple sum of its parts. This can be seen when looking at a television

advertisement and the images and messages carried through it. Each element

enhances and supports the other.

There have been many shifts in the advertising and media industry that have

caused IMC to develop into a primary strategy for most advertisers

o From media advertising to multiple forms of communication (including

promotions, product placements, mailers...)

o From mass media to more specialized media, which are centered

around specific target audiences.

o From a manufacturer-dominated market to a retailer-dominated market.

The market control has transferred into the consumer's hands.

o From general-focus advertising and marketing to data-based marketing.

o From low agency accountability to greater agency accountability.

Agencies now play a larger role in advertising than ever before.

o From traditional compensation to performance-based compensation.

This encourages people to do better because they are rewarded for the

increase sales or benefits they cause to the company.

o From limited Internet access to widespread Internet availability. This

means that people can not only have 24/7 access to what they want,

but that advertisers can also target potential buyers just as much.

The progression of marketing - moving beyond traditional to include

interactive, consumer driven, social marketing has spread like Ebola. It’s often

referred to as Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC). IMC is ushering in

a new era in which marketers blend communication messages across all

available media channels into a continuous brand experience. As part of a

successful integrated marketing strategy, IMC integrates public relations,

advertising, online, social media, etc; and other communications elements into

one cohesive entity all sharing the same message.

Many organizations today are now embracing this concept of IMC. Instead of

dividing marketing communications into separate groups that rarely

communicate; organizations are now integrating all marketing disciplines

under one umbrella; thus, making every communication consistent with one

message, sharing the same strategy. This also allows marketers to execute

marketing campaigns more efficiently without having to jump through hoops to

get approvals for creative, content, messaging, etc.

The key to effective integration is the cohesiveness between various

marketing messages, and the understanding that marketing is fundamentally a

conversation between a company and its prospective customer. It is not one

specific marketing campaign or press release; rather, how the blending and

execution of such disciplines convey a message synergistically, and at every

possible customer touch point.

IMC includes the various tools such as advertising, public relations, personal

selling, sales promotion, direct & database marketing, sponsorship, event

marketing, social media marketing, and online marketing (search, banner

advertising, affiliate, etc.). Since the purpose of marketing is to generate

revenue, increase market share, drive preference to purchase, and/or build

brand awareness, marketers need to find ways to do this effectively; and

embracing an integrated marketing strategy is the first step.

Role of IMC for development of marketing & society

IMC has an increasingly central role to play in today's market place, because if

offer companies a way to strategically coordinate messages and establish a

meaningful dialogue with customers. In short, IMC provides organizations with

a strategic method for both establishing and maintaining relationships with key

stakeholders. And this is essential for marketing success in the twenty-first

century.

The marketplace is changing. What was once a single audience has

fragmented and companies have to establish and maintain brand relationships

with a variety of groups of people-customers, as well as other stakeholders,

such as employees, investors, suppliers and distributors, local communities,

and the media.

Organizations now have to communicate with these groups using a wide

variety of media. Consequently there are more kinds of messages than ever

before and inconsistency can become a company-wide problem. That is why

IMC is also needed to coordinate communication consistency

Because the mass media now have considerably less importance than they

have had in the past, dialogue is becoming increasingly critical in this

marketplace. That means that companies can no longer rely only on one-way

communication targeted to large groups of customers. To be successful now,

organizations must not only be able to target messages to individual

customers, but also to listen and respond to all their stakeholders. That means

they must know who these people are, and the key to that is database-driven

communication.

IMC is critical to brand relationship programs, because it provides the skills

and new ways of thinking that are necessary if organizations are to create and

successfully manage dialogue with customers and other key stakeholders.

Company Background

“Bangladesh is well suited for OTH’s [Orascom Telecom Holding] ongoing expansion into emerging markets, and our preparation for the challenges of providing top quality services

nationwide is solid. We are confident that Banglalink™ will repeat the success story of Mobilink in Pakistan.”

Mr. Naguib Sawiris, Chairman and CEO, OTH

It was with these statements that Orascom launched its first package in

Bangladesh that they had hoped would rock the telecom industry. However,

neither their competitors nor the public had needed these words to convince them

that Banglalink™ would be bringing them a great offering. Ever since Orascom

bought off Sheba (Pvt.) Telecom, people have been expecting something big,

given their record of accomplishment in other countries. INTRODUCTION

Banglalink™ (BL) is the 2nd largest mobile company in Bangladesh. Out of five

mobile companies (Grameen Phone, Aktel, Banglalink™, Citycell, and Teletalk)

Banglalink™ managed to secure this position only in a year. Banglalink™ has

completed its 3rd year successfully in Bangladesh. The growth rate of the company

is tremendous (currently 10.5 million subscribers). During its birth year BL has

concentrated on heavy advertisement. Now BL is a known brand to every

Bangladeshi.

About Orascom:

(Orascom telecom Holding is the mother organization of Banglalink. So it is important to

get an idea about orascom prior to know about Banglalink.)

Orascom Telecom Holding S.A.E. (“Orascom Telecom”) is a leading mobile

telecommunications company operating in nine emerging markets in the Middle

East, Africa and South Asia. Established in 1998, the company has acquired nine

operating licenses in this region. With nearly 520 million people and an average

mobile telephony penetration of only 5% falling under these licenses, Orascom

Telecom has positioned itself as a leading telecommunications conglomerate in

the emerging markets of this region. The organization has managed to build an

amazing subscriber base of around 15 million in just a short span of six years by

the end of 2004. The majority stakeholder (56.9%) of the OTH group is the

Sawiris family of Egypt, of whom Naguib Sawiris is the present Chairman and

CEO. The rest of the shares are traded in the Cairo, Alexandria & London Stock

Exchanges. OTH's IPO raised US$320 million during the year 2000, and was the

largest offering on the Egyptian Stock Market at the time. The capital of Orascom

Telecom is estimated at 1.1 billion Egyptian Pound represented in 110 million

shares. The mission statement of the OTH is “to be the primary telecom operator

in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia, providing the best quality services to

our customers, value to our shareholders, and a dynamic working environment for

our employees.2” With this mission in mind, OTH had recently divested its

investment in various locations, including Jordan, Yemen & the Ivory Coast, to

concentrate on its core function of providing the primary GSM network in the

regions it operates. Most of its remaining subsidiaries concentrate on adding

value added services to its operation than in introducing new packages from time

to time, in an effort to provide its customers with a complete mobile solution and in

turn add value to its shareholders.

About Banglalink:

Banglalink™ is the latest addition to the GSM family of OTH. Naguib Sawiris,

Chairman and CEO of OTH, announced the acquisition of Sheba Telecom (Pvt.)

Limited with a cost of US$60m in September of 2004. The company aims to make

a difference in the lives of the people. Its vision is to “understand people's needs

best and will create and deliver appropriate communication services to improve

people's life and make it easier”. Their mission is, therefore, to reduce the total

cost of ownership of buying and using a mobile phone. Moreover, to achieve this

vision, the company has established some values that it tries to instill in its

employees. They want their employees, and the company as a result, to be

straight forward, reliable, innovative and, above all, passionate. As Sheba

Telecom, the worst performing network operator in the industry, the company had

only 30,000 subscribers. To dispel this image, OTH had re-branded Sheba as

Banglalink™ in an attempt to give it a completely new image. With that kind of a

reputation at its disposition, the Banglalink™ management has placed one of the

highest priorities on improving its network. In this respect, they have installed

state-of-the-art equipment from Siemens and Huawei and brought in over 1,000

people, including experts, from 15 countries around the world to set up the

required infrastructure. The system took a record of four months (less than half

the normal time) to build.

When banglalink entered the Bangladesh telecom industry in February 2005, the

scenario changed overnight with mobile telephony becoming an extremely useful

and affordable communication tool for people across all segments.

Within one year of operation, banglalink became the fastest growing mobile

operator of the country with a growth rate of 257%. This milestone was achieved

with innovative and attractive products and services targeting the different market

segments; aggressive improvement of network quality and dedicated customer

care; and effective communication that emotionally connected customers with

banglalink.

IMC Program followed in my company

Basically we give emphasis on advertisement and public relation process. The PR

& Communication Department of Banglalink™ plays the key roll of advertisement,

public communication, promotion, event management, sponsorship, visibility &

others. While the public part implies inclusion of things like public affairs,

community relations, investor relations, public press conferences, media events,

internal communications and crisis communications, it also involves a lot of

behind-the-scenes, non-public activity. It could involve simply the writing of a

press release, but it could also involve coordinating media contacts for an event

or conference, securing credentials, lobbying for article placement and the like.

Sometimes public relation is an effort to influence the public. This is especially

true for political action groups, associations and other groups. Sometimes public

relation is community relations. Just look around your own community to see how

many companies and organizations have a community affairs initiative or a

person in charge with a related title. In larger, publicly held firms, this person is

sometimes the director of investor relations. Investors are a public entity, so in this

case public relation is appropriate. What the public wants to hear is a good story.

Good PR is the telling of a good story. The better the story, the better the

acceptance by the public and the better the public relations, of course if the story

is especially appealing to those that could be your clients, then you could have a

PR homerun. In this case, it is communication with your target market that may or

may not be very public. PR's importance is changing, according to The Fall of

Advertising and the Rise of PR (HarperBusiness). American marketing strategists

Al and Laura Ries argue that public relations has become the most effective way

to build a brand. Well-known brands like The Body Shop, PlayStation and Harry

Potter spend little on brand-name advertising. The same is true for many

entrepreneurial companies like yours. Business owners become known in their

respective fields of concentration many times through public relations and the

associated media generated. PR is communication in many ways with your target

market. Maybe instead of public relations we ought to call it target market

relations or TMR. You may be communicating about a new product, spreading

news about your company or making a major announcement. You want to

communicate publicly, but the only people you care about are potential prospects,

customers or investors, in the case of a partnership or a public company. One

exception may be communication to a group that you are trying to influence for

the best interest of your company and target market. An example of this is

lobbying government. Define what your public or target is in your public relations

effort. This is best done by defining your target market and then any sub-segment.

Lining up publications and broadcasts with the market and the segments will

define what the public is for your public relations. The bottom line is to get word

out about you, your company, your products and services to those who could

potentially buy from you. Public relation is just one part of marketing, as marketing

is made up of many things. The good news about PR is the cost and the

effectiveness when it's in front of your target market.

Press conference for corporate signing and press release of any activities are

also part of PR and Communication department job.

Outdoor/Visibility: All sorts of Billboard, posters, festoons, placard comes under

this heading. Banglalink™ billboard now can be found almost everywhere in

Bangladesh. The brand name is now so popular that only by seeing the tiger

strips people understand it is Banglalink™. New concepts like shop marker, shop

sign are also been used for advertisement purpose. Almost 30% (PR & Comm.

data base, 2006) of the total PR & Comm. expenses are been spent on visibility.

Suppliers like Signage, Megna Art, & ARkey works for the outdoor activities.

TV: Television commercial is a very important means of communication in this

electronic world. Now people spent a good amount of his/her time watching TV.

Many television commercials feature catchy jingles (songs or melodies) or catch-

phrases that generate sustained appeal, which may remain in the minds of

television viewers long after the span of the advertising campaign, e.g. Habib’s

tune for Banglalink™commercials. Some of these ad jingles or catch-phrases

may take on lives of their own, spawning gags or "riffs" that may appear in other

forms of media, such as comedy movies or television variety shows, or in written

media, such as magazine comics or literature. Animation is often used in

commercials. Techniques can vary from hand-drawn traditional animation to

different forms of computer animation. By using animated characters, a

commercial may have a certain appeal that is difficult to achieve with actors or

mere product displays. For this reason, an animated commercial (or a series of

such commercials) can be very long-running, several decades in many instances.

So in order to communicate people properly TV commercial is a mast for a mobile

company. Like the competitors Banglalink™ also has series of TV ads for its

different sorts of packages and VAS services. Currently TV commercials are been

shown in Channel I, ATN Bangla, NTV, RTV, & Channel 1. Among these channels

ATN Bangla, & Channel I work orders are done by agency Interspeed Advertising

Ltd. Apart from TV commercials program like Rock link in ATN Bangla been totally

sponsored by Banglalink™ team.

Press & Publications: Banglalink™ spent maximum amount in March 2006

among the other mobile phone operators in Bangladesh (Market Intelligence

Report of Banglalink, March 2006). And the amount is about 10.17 million BDT. To

be more specific on in the Independence Day the Banglalink™ color ad went to

22 daily newspapers which cost the company 2.6 million for only one day. Ad also

goes to different types of magazines also. According to a internal research of

Banglalink™ the maximum attention of the customer is gained from the Press &

publications. Whole press work is done by the ad agency Interspeed Advertising

Ltd. The press layout, idea generation, & guidance all been taken care by the

agency. For this service the agency gets 5% commission with every work order.

Radio Ad: very recently (from March, 2006) Banglalink™ start giving ads in the

radio in order to target the customers in the rural places. The concept of radio ad

already been praised among the different rural customer groups (Market

intelligence report, April 17, 2006)

Events & Sponsorship: For the Pohela Boishak 1413 Banglalink™ had 10

events in all over the country. Events like Dhaka University Branding (in front of

Charukola road), Showrowardi Uddan Branding, musical event at Sohid Minar,

Fantasy kingdom concert, water kingdom concert are few of the events of Pohela

Boishak 1413. Events are run for publicity of the company. During the event and

sponsorship kiosk (A small open gazebo or pavilion.) is installed to provide Pos

materials to the customers. In addition, SIM cards are also been sold at the kiosk

in the event spots. Banglalink™ Tiger Cup (Bangladesh vs. Kenya) is one of the

successful sponsorship ventures of banglalink™. Other then this AFC cup, IGP

kabadi tournament, and Professional School Football Championship at Sylhet are

few of other recent sponsorship programs of the company. Very month many

school, colleges, university, organization’s events are been sponsored by the

company. This has been done to improve the PR and increment brand

awareness.

POS Materials: POS materials mean Point of Sale Materials. All sorts of leaflet,

Tariff card, printing materials comes under these criteria. Pos materials mainly

help the customer to understand the product & services offered by the parent

company. These leaflets provide detail explanation of the services offered by the

operator. Gift Items: different types of gift items are given to the clients and

employees of Banglalink™. Gift items like key ring, pen, CD, Show piece,

calendar, Diary, watch, Mug, T-shirt, & Jacket produced for the clients. All the gift

items are marked with Banglalink™ logo. The gift item helps the company in

public relation and also helps in diffusing the brand name towards the customers.

Web Based Communications: Advertisement of Banglalink™ in the renowned

web sites is also been conducted. Web site like www.tigerscricket.com , and

www.bangladeshinfo.com are few examples of web base ad campaign of

Banglalink™.

Others: Activities like donation, and charity are done by the sr. executive Mr. Abul

Azim Sulman. In February, 2006 amounted Tk. 1,056,720/= given to Ahsania

Mision Cancer Hospital.

Working with different agencies: As earlier told, PR & comm. activities are very

vast requiring a lot of manpower. So most of the activities are run through different

add agencies. Agencies do the job for the company in return they get a

commission amounted 5% to 15% depending on the subject matter. The main

agencies of Banglalink™ are Interspeed Advertising Ltd., Market Access

Providers Ltd., and Asiatic MindShare Ltd. Interspeed deals with the press & TV

activities of the company. The agency provides a complete solution from idea

generation to final printing at the press. On the other hand, concept development,

making of TV ad, scheduling, broadcasting, bill submission, and support service

are provided by the agency. Allsorts of big and small events (concert, mobile-fair,

road show) are organizer by the Market Access Providers Ltd. during the events

company’s placard, posters, backdrops, leaflets were installed. Asiatic MindShare

Ltd is engaged for ad making. But recently (March, 06) the agreement between

Asiatic Mind share Ltd. and Banglalink™ is over. And no renewal has been made

so far.

Some Sample of ads of Banglalink

Conclusion

The mobile industry in Bangladesh is still facing an oligopoly competition. In order to be

competitive in this industry in future, the only option is to build up a strong brand image is

by creating unique product offerings and make a competitive market. Banglalink™ has

successfully managed to introduce perfect competitions among the mobile operators. The

competitions are so vast that that the connection price as well as the airtime rate is falling

down day by day. In this changing environment based on this research on Banglalink™

the following recommendations are suggested for the PR and communication

departments. These recommendations will definitely improve the overall company image

if implemented efficiently.

o TV ads should provide clear message along with very attractive visual and sound.

o Press ad should be communicated with proper message.

o The understandability of the reader should be concentrated. If the target market

does not understand the product ad is for them then there is no use of it.

o Outdoor ads should communicate the message along with visibility that can be

understandable even to those people who do not understand the message. E.g.

Bangladesh Banglalink™ ad having with Bangladesh Map.