Marketing

For once, I actually enjoy doing something in school. Not that I’ve detested any subjects, but every lesson I love marketing/advertising more and more. 

It isn’t because we are working on a project for Long John Silvers. Granted, the client could have been a better choice, but I’m not complaining. I guess it’s the whole process of embarking on this 17-week project with my friends and knowing one another better. My understanding on advertising has also increased exponentially, and now I genuinely want to persuade people to have a better impression of Long John Silvers. 

I enter Wendy’s and I notice the colors, the menu, how they actually installed a flat-screen TV to play over and over again their latest promotions and food that they want us to try. Red is a great “food color”. Yellow and blue, on the other hand, not so much. Conducting primary research through surveys also made me realize how people don’t really bother about the aesthetics of the Long John Silvers outlets, but they are talking more on the food.

Oily, expensive, small are just some of the words used to describe Long Johns. Granted, the prices of the food they serve isn’t your typical McDonalds Extra-Value-Meal cheap because in the first place, Long John Silvers doesn’t earn much, and they have to earn something, even if it means cutting down on staff; reducing the serving size; bringing up the prices. These are risky stakes, but they have to do it in order to survive.

Right now they only have 29 stores in Singapore, compared to McDonald’s 100-strong locations. They don’t reach out to many people as they are mostly located in the heartlands. It’s not exactly easy for them to earn money, and with people talking shit about them it gets even worse.

That’s why we have marketing lessons. That’s why we (Ngee Ann Polytechnic) liaised with Long John Silvers so that students from the school of Film and Media Studies can actually help them because we are their customers, and we know what we want, therefore we can.

I’m not sure if my non-disclosure agreement actually covers this and allows me to post these things.