EMRS Team 2 Mini Roadshow: Exam 101

Date: 11 & 12 August 2016

Time: 10:30am to 4:00pm

Venue: Outside NYP Koufu

Team 2 together with Mr Sudesh

Team 2 was tasked to organise a mini roadshow on our first week of EMRS. .

Our objective is to plan and execute a successful event while motivating students and getting them to exchange words of encouragement with their peers. Our target was to achieve a consignment price of $700 as well as a sales of $1000 from the mini roadshow.

As a team, we thought of different ideas for our mini roadshow. After discussion, we settled on the event name ‘EXAM 101’. As the name suggests, the theme and idea of this roadshow was inspired to motivate students and to go an extra mile since it was nearing the exam period. For our mini roadshow, we sold a range of savoury chocolates, sweets, snacks and drinks, not widely sold in Singapore.

While planning for the roadshow, we had a few issues in sourcing as well as securing a suitable vendor. After all the research, we then decided to consign goods with TUCK; an online shop that sells confectioneries, snacks and drinks, freshly directly imported from UK. Besides them being able to provide us with the products we wanted, they also agreed to our terms and conditions. Once everything was settled, the team of 14 was divided to delegate the different tasks. Our OICs are Jia Min and Jocelyn, A&P- Ming Li and Sock Huay, Logistics- Arif and Xavier, Inventory- Alichel and Brandon, and Finance- Samantha and Nasyibah. Besides concentrating on their primary role, the team also help each other out.

The products that we have consigned from TUCK were snacks such as Walkers Crisps, Propercorn, Borders Biscuits and Quinoa Chips, drinks such as Firefly, Ginger Beer and Ben Shaw. Lastly, candies & chocolates such as Millions, Jelly Tots, Maltesers Teasers and Reese.

For our mini roadshow, everyone in the school are our potential target audience.

In the area of A&P, we designed posters and placed them near the escalator at the atrium so as to for promote our event. We also made a motivating tree where motivational post-it notes are pasted on the tree. Bookshelves were made from cardboards which were used to display our products during the mini roadshow.

A&P Preparations

Posters and Motivating Tree

It’s finally the day of our mini roadshow!

Our team reported at 9:00am when the OICs begin the day with a short briefing. Next, the inventory team went to prepare the stocks for the first day of our mini roadshow while the rest went to help out in the set-up of the booth. However, as the planning for the manpower allocation was not detailed, we only managed to complete our whole set-up by 11am. We had a total of 4 mobile selling teams to cover all areas of the school. At around 4:20pm, we cleared our booth area and all logistics items are returned. After the event, we tally our stocks sold with the amount shown on the POS machine. And… we got no discrepancy for Day 1!

At the end of Day 1, 2 flavours of Eat Real Quinoa Chips and Borders Biscuit was all sold out.

Our inventory team preparing the stocks for 1st day of our roadshow

Our Finance ICs- Samantha and Nasyibah, setting up the POS system

Setting up of booth

         

       

Our booth set-up

       

Our mobile teams setting off

Mobile selling teams in action

Calculating the amount collected from mobile selling

We came up with a more detailed manpower allocation plan on Day 2 so as to set-up on time and fully utilise all our manpower. We also did a minor change to our booth layout. Instead of hanging “EXAM 101” on the wire mesh, we hung it on the metal rack. There were also some changes made to the product arrangements on the table so as to fill up the empty spots because some products ran out of stock!  As for mobile selling, it had been reduced from 4 to 2 teams so as to focus more on our booth. With our team-mates constantly pushing the products, 40% of our products are all sold out!

Stocks all sorted out for Day 2 of our roadshow

Our booth layout for Day 2

Alichel and Damien promoting our products to the customers at the booth

Satisfied customer!

Despite a minor stock discrepancy at the end of Day 2, the event was a success. At the end of the mini roadshow, we achieved a total sales of $1193.10, exceeding our sales target of $1000. At the same time, we also exceeded our consignment target. Through this event, we gained event planning experience and learnt the importance of time management and teamwork. We also have a better understanding in what to look out for while planning for an event. Most importantly, we became more bonded as a team and will definitely miss our time spent in EMRS together! 

EMRS Team 2 Resorts World Sentosa Halloween Horror Nights 6 Roadshow

Date: 1st, 2nd and 3rd August 2016

Venue: Outside Koufu

Time: 10.00AM to 04.30PM

Halloween Horror Nights by Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) is one of the largest scare fests held in Singapore, and EMRS worked with RWS to promote this year’s event. How exciting!

This was a rather different experience where RWS actually provided us with the marketing collaterals and we had to devise a plan to promote the booth.
We focused all our efforts to help make their event here in NYP a success! 

The main objectives of this event were to attract people to the booth and to spread awareness about the special offer tickets.

We had to allocate the respective tasks where the 2 OICs - Samantha and Pei Fen were in charge of contacting Ms Yvette from RWS, and liaising with her with regards to the logistics allocation for the booths. Strong young men were required for our Logistics team where only Brandon and Arif were buff enough to be qualified as the ICs! Damien, Alichel and Xavier worked as the ‘brains’ of the team to provide constructive inputs.

This is what we call the perfect combination of having ‘brains and brawns’.

Next up would be our creative souls in the A&P team led by the IC Angela, with members, Mingli, Jocelyn, Jiamin, Nasyibah, Sockhuay and Arifah.
Part of the team started to brainstorm ideas for designing the quiz and redemption tokens whereas the others worked on the lucky dip box!

RWS provided us with 3000 brochures for A&P purposes and we came up with a brilliant idea to tie it in with quiz questions. 
The quiz consisted of questions relating to the roadshow booth and event details of Halloween Horror Night 6.
There were 2 mandatory and 4 random questions to answer.

We attached quiz questions on ice cream sticks for participants to randomly select.

 

Deng Deng Deng! Presenting to you our Lucky Dip Box!
Upon answering the quiz questions correctly, students will be given a quiz token for a chance to the Lucky Dip to win attractive merchandise.
Isn’t that exciting?!

The quiz token serves as a verification that the student has completed the quiz. Students who completed the quiz and purchased tickets at booth were given a redemption token and they were entitled to another chance of Lucky Dip.

At first, many loopholes were found in the quiz questions as it was open-ended and ambiguous.
When we realised this, we altered the quiz questions into a multiple choice format. By doing so, we killed two birds with one stone where questions were made simple and students are also able to find out about booth upon completing the quiz!

Event Day 1

Everyone was punctual on the first day! The Logistics team proceeded to the Fixtures room to bring out the logistics while the OICs were in charge of bringing items such as the ‘Lucky Dip Box’ and merchandise. The A&P team proceeded to the location outside Koufu, to assist RWS in setting up A&P materials, such as the A1 Poster Stands and free merchandise. 

The set-up was completed at 10.00am, using a time of only half an hour. How efficient!
Our team then dispersed to their respective areas to promote the event.
We had our OICs at the Lucky Dip booth to provide assistance to students participating in the Lucky Dip, and also to ensure that only a single point of contact is present between them and RWS so that when problem arises, changes could be made to the plan fast and accurately.    

Our 5 mobile teams were allocated to the different schools such as School of Engineering (SEG) and School of Chemical Sciences (SCL) where they publicized about the HHN6 event to attract students to the booths. They also took the initiative to cover areas not part of allocated location such as the area outside library to promote the event. Kudos to us!

Don’t all of us get tired of people asking, ”Do you want to do a survey?” or “Are you interested to take part in a quiz?” Bearing that thought in mind, we tweaked our questions and used attention grabbing sentences such as “Would you like to win a prize?” to engage the students.
And…. it worked! Students were seen to be more attracted where we had an increased number of them participating in the quiz.

Event Day 2

Day 2! We are at it again! Today was a wee bit special, where we made changes to our booth layout. Behoooooold!

                   Before                                                             After                               

Don’t they always say, “It’s better to have a friend than an enemy”? Rather than having the pillar as a obstruction, we rearranged the tables in an ‘L’ shape layout such that our Lucky Dip booth was facing different a direction to the other 2 booths occupied by RWS.

The new arrangement increases visibility of the booth and on top of that, it brings the booth forward, increasing our presence to the direction of the escalator where most students are approaching from.

Additionally, this arrangement is more spacious and has hence provided more room for movements. Bonus!

The changes did not stop there, we refurbished our manpower allocation as well.
The team observed that our efforts made to engage students at the atrium was up to no avail where most students were either rushing to classes or leaving the school. Our teammates (Brandon and Nasyibah) stationed at the atrium was hence reallocated to areas within the North and South escalators respectively as it caters to a greater amount of audiences such as students heading for lunch etc.

Event Day 3

Finally, the last day came! Everyone persevered to this day and we were determined to execute it with the best of our abilities!  

On the last day, the queue was considerably long as compared to the first two days as students may require time to ponder and gather their friends to purchase the tickets together.

Our main focus for Day 3 was to push the sales and maximise the amount of merchandise given out for the Lucky Dip whilst emphasizing that it’s the last day of the event.

We boldly executed the roadshow without the quiz questions and only gave students who purchased the Halloween tickets a chance to participate in the lucky dip.
And it paid off!
This allowed us to prioritize students who purchased the tickets and ensured that merchandise were given to the right audience.

We also decided to fully utilise redemption tokens as an additional attraction to encourage students to purchase the tickets, in addition to free merchandise given out by RWS. One receipt was entitled to 3 tries of the Lucky Dip. It allowed us to prioritize students who purchased tickets and ensured that merchandise were given to the right audience.

Were you one of the lucky ones who purchased the tickets?

Conclusion
Overall, it was an experiential event as we learnt that whenever a problem arises, we can find ways to mitigate and make the best out of it. Indeed, numerous changes were made but this roadshow gave the team a truly indispensable learning experience.

It was a different event as compared to our Mini Roadshow as we did not have to plan the event from scratch. Moreover, we were engaged by RWS where most of the A&P and Logistics equipment were already prepared and pre-requested respectively. Therefore, our main focus was to raise awareness of the event and encourage students to buy discounted tickets. As such, we were able to put our interpersonal and marketing skills into use by constantly persuading students to participate in the quiz.

Next, we managed to gain operational skills as we learnt how to setup poster stands and spider web used for the big poster at the booth.

The event was so successful that RWS contacted EMRS for another chance of collaboration!

Lastly, we would like to thank Mr Sudesh for guiding us throughout the event by continuously probing us with questions that made us think out-of-the box!

EMRS Team 3 Mid-Autumn Festival Roadshow

MID AUTUMN FESTIVAL

Date: 16th and 17th September 2016

Time: 10.30am to 3.30pm

Venue: Outside Koufu 

Objective: To provide staff with the convenience of buying Mooncakes in school.

What is the mid autumn festival?

The Mid-Autumn Festival known as 中秋节 is a popular harvest festival celebrated by the Chinese community, whereby people will buy or made mooncakes to celebrate this joyous occasion.

Mooncakes:

Bakerzin's Mooncake

Holiday Inn's Mooncake

Gin Thye's Mooncake

Pre-event Preparation

Planning started some 5 weeks before the actual event. 
Our team consists of Peiying and Kenneth as OIC's, Kim Hwee and Cheryl as Logistics, Desmond as Finance and Terri and Jieying in charge of A&P. 

 

Prior to the event, our team came up with the theme of the event (Chang'E & bunnies), which relates back to how the mid autumn festival came about and setting the timeline for the work to be done and calling up of vendors. 

Our team contacted several vendors to enquire if they were interested to work together with us. The vendors ranged from hotel brands to local bakeries, such as Holiday Inn, BreadTalk, Thye Mok Chan. 

After calling our potential vendors, we decided to settle with Bakerzin, Gin Thye and Holiday Inn. These 3 vendors were able to provide us with relatively good discounts which hence allowed us to set our prices competitively. 

Once the vendors were confirmed, we proceeded to confirm with them on the delivery date of the mooncakes for sampling and to agree to our terms of consignment basis, our 30 day credit term and payment via Giro. 

Subsequently we came up with the details that would be put up on our online portal. As this event is done on a pre-order basis, we had to make sure the details on the website are all accurate to avoid any dispute. We also had to create an order form for easier ordering from the staff.

online website

Our A&P came up with several materials which comprised of banner, posters, catalogues, bookmarks and gift cards as prizes. 

Banner

Gin Thye's Catalog

Bakerzin's Catalog

Holiday Inn's Catalog

Prizes for the Plinko Game (Bookmarks)

Prizes for Plinko Game (Greeting Cards)

We also designed a game called Plinko whereby our customers can play and stand a chance to win attractive prizes!

Plinko Game

Plinko Game's Instructions

We also created an  e-commerce platform for our customers to provide greater convenience for them to purchase the products. 

Shown below is how our online website looks like.

We later collated the total orders of mooncakes for all vendors and attained the sales figure of $2,549. However, our targeted sales was $5,500. We later reflected on the possible reasons for us to reach only half the targeted sales figure and came up with After Action Review (AAR) and presented it to Ms Quek and Mr Sudesh.

From this event, we learnt that;

1. We do not have to organize the event by the traditional way of setting up a booth and get the mooncakes to sell in NYP. But we could actually get the vendors here in NYP and get them to sell their mooncakes to the people in school. This could have improved the sales figure as the staff may be more convinced to purchase since the vendors are personally selling.
2. We need to accommodate customers' taste in purchasing things, especially in food and beverages. Customers nowadays are more health conscious and less people are willing to purchase mooncakes for themselves as it may be too sweet for their palette. Most customers get it as a gift for others. We should have sourced for more healthier options and halal mooncakes to cater to a larger target market.
3. Wide competition among the online market (e.g. G Market, early bird discount) for mooncakes as there were more variety and lower in pricing. This affected our sales as our potential customer may feel that buying from other online website to be more cheaper and worth.
4.  The delivery date of the mooncakes (30 August) may be too early for some staff. This is 2 weeks before the actual mooncake festival and some customers may feel it would be better if the date was nearer as it will be more fresher.

 

Mobile Promotion

Although our road show was on 16th and 17th August, we continued our mobile selling on the 18th also. We followed the manpower plan and bringing the mooncake samples, we covered the whole school by knocking on all the doors of the staff room. This enabled us to attain higher sales as we also tried to accept payment on the spot where we helped them to complete the transaction at D'studio and pass the receipt back to them. 

Sales Performance

Targeted Sales: $5,500

Sales attained: $2,549

We collated the number of boxes that we confirmed and sent it to the vendors for preparation.

Despite not meeting our sales target, our team has gained the experience on carrying out the whole event from planning to execution. This was a valuable experience that we will not forget.