Final+Project

**CCT 356** **FINAL GROUP PROJECT**

**Client:** [|UTM TV] **Members of Group 17: ** Abid Abbas, 997009026  Fidia Ghazi, 997053851   Janat Motiani, 997043480

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**Executive Summary** For the purpose of this report, we have chosen to develop a marketing campaign for our client UTM TV, which is a student run non- profit media outlet. The organizations mission is to document life at the University of Toronto Mississauga and help its students in creating and sharing unique video content that is globally accessible. Our client is currently facing challenges in increasing its viewership and is restricted in its production and marketing efforts due to lack of funding. As consultants, we have developed an online marketing strategy that builds on our client’s current efforts across various social media platforms. We recommend that they should increase the frequency of their social media activities and deploy buzz-marketing techniques to create hype and seek attention of their target market. Furthermore, we recommend that it is essential to inject funds into this campaign to boost its brand image for long-run benefits, such as improved demographics, healthier portfolio for potential sponsors, which furthers better content. This can be achieved by placing banner adverts for companies that target university students on UTM TV’s webpage. Moreover, this will allow UTM TV to earn revenue from advertising, which can be re-allocated towards placing similar adverts for UTM TV on relevant websites. The following report explains how we aim to achieve our objectives in details.

**Background** UTM TV has come a long way since its premier broadcast on 29th January 2009. Upon observing the various underused television screens scattered across campus, Andrew Hamilton- Smith, a then 3rd year English and History Major, came up with the idea of a campus based television program. It is an entirely student-run media outlet that serves as a platform for students at the University of Toronto Mississauga to create and publish creative content. Since it’s inception, UTM TV has grown and is currently one of the most active student groups on campus. The project that started off with a handful of people now includes ‘90 people contributing 150 man hours towards the first of many productions.’ (The Medium)

**Company: Goals and Objectives** At an interview Mr. Smith stated that their goal ‘is to facilitate and encourage students to create unique video content; to produce videos which inform students about their campus; to expose students to the entire production process; and to learn through experience and experimentation.’(The Medium) However, the biggest hurdle that the non-profit organization faces is lack of funding, which restricts its scale of operation. Thereby, although their primary goal at the moment is to increase viewership, their main objective is to attract sponsors and gain funding. Moreover, they also aim to attract more volunteers and build a sense of community at UTM through their efforts.

**Customers:** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">UTM TV’s target market is simply all-current full and part-time students, alumni and faculty members at the University of Toronto. Exhibit 1 demonstrates the usage of the site [|www.utmtv.ca].





<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Current visitors spend an average of 2 minutes per visit. The site is most widely used in Canada and given that the university has a huge population of international students it is also accessed from all over the globe, especially Asia. The site currently has 64.59% new visits, however, it also has a 65% bounce rate. Our aim is to increase the new visits and reduce the bounce rate.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**Competitors:**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">UTM TV has two main competitors. The 1st is UTM’s weekly newspaper called ‘The Medium’. It is very popular among students and has served as the primary source of information regarding campus activities and events in the past. Students have been using it as a tool to express their opinions and ever since it launched an online edition ‘The Medium’ has gained more popularity because students can access it anywhere at anytime instead of having to procure hard copies. The CFRE radio, on the other hand, is UTM’S own radio station. The station broadcasts live 24/7 and apart from playing a diversity of music, it also promotes student musicians and covers campus news and events. It currently broadcasts on 91.9 FM in Mississauga and also has a live stream on its website. UTM TV thus needs to enhance its current marketing strategies so that it can penetrate the share of readers or listeners for both its competitors and increase its viewership.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**SWOT Analysis**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">__Strengths:__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">UTM TV’S biggest strength comes in the form of its volunteers. Almost all these volunteers are either full-time or part-time student at the university, with little or no experience at running a production house. However, they have managed to successfully cover most of the majors events that take place on campus and usually have highlights of these events posted on their website, so that students who missed the event also get to experience them. Another major strength of UTM TV is that since it exercises self-censorship, students who create content for it have creative freedom and are not restricted by censorship regulations <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">__Weaknesses:__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">UTM TV’s has a couple of weaknesses all of which are related to its lack of funding. Given that they are a non-profit organization, they are always struggling to operate under a low budget. Moreover, this lack of budget restricts them from expanding their reach and at times also contributes to low quality broadcasts. Moreover, given that almost all its volunteers are inexperienced, they also struggle with production and technical issues. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">__Opportunities:__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">There is a high demand for a service like UTM TV as various student bodies and clubs across campus could use it as a medium to gain exposure. UTM TV could perhaps collaborate with the University of Toronto Mississauga Student’s Union (UTMSU) as well as other clubs such as the Residence Council, UTM Debating Club, UTM Music Club, Hindu Student Council(HSC), Undergraduate Commerce Society (UCS), Student Management Association (SMA) and Athletics Council to name a few. Moreover, if funding is available, they could air regular broadcasts and venture into making documentaries for research studies or academic videos. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">__Threats:__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">External professional groups are a threat to UTM TV. For instance, Uof T recently launched the ‘Boundless’ Ad campaign and employed a Toronto based ad agency, J.Walter Thompson (JWT) with public relations elements handled by Hill and Knowlton to develop the entire campaign. It is the largest fundraising campaign in the history of Canadian Universities with an objective to raise over $2 billion over the next five years and cost University of Toronto a substantial amount to produce. Such professional agencies over shadow UTM TV and limit its exposure. If the University Administration outsources all its advertising efforts to external producers then UTM TV will not be able to attain its goal of building a campus wide community.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**Current Marketing Strategy**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">UTM TV currently markets itself using primarily social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. They also maintain a website that broadcasts all their programs to its target audience. However, apart from social media and their own website, UTM TV does not employ any other media for online or offline marketing.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">__Problems with Current Strategies__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">The biggest challenge our client faces is increasing its reach. Subscribers are limited to UTM students, majority of whom are still reluctant to regularly view its broadcasts. This is primarily because the production quality is not high definition like most programs these days. Hence, it is reasonable to say that most of our client’s problems arise from its lack of funding. They have no ad revenue either because currently they are not displaying any 3rd party ads on their website. Moreover, upon their launch they had done some offline marketing like billboards and short video ads that were displayed on various TV screens across campus. However, it has been over a year that they have completely exited from offline marketing because it is cost ineffective.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**Recommended Strategies**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">__Increase Frequency of Social Media Marketing:__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">The essential elements we need to keep in mind, is to make sure that the advertising strategies we deploy are cost effective and at the same time are also effective in serving our clients purpose. With the help of social media advertising, our client can hope to reach or increase its audience and dominate their market in order to maintain its current standings and potentially increase its current viewership.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Social media heightens the effectiveness of advertising. It allows for users to express themselves, therefore allowing for demographic information to be collected and used for targeted advertising. The main advantage of such advertising is it gives our client the opportunity to interact with customers through targeted communications, which customers can choose to engage with voluntarily. Thus, with the help of social media we can create an online community for UTM TV and its followers, therefore deploying a completely holistic digital marketing strategy.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Since their launch, our client has maintained a channel on YouTube. It served as a tool for them to initially promote their pilot shows and create hype about. The YouTube channel has been customized for the liking of its audience, in terms of backgrounds, logos, playlists and additional features related to the online community. However, we now recommend them to make their channel more engaging and interactive by sending regular newsletters and emails about latest posts to their subscribers. Moreover, UTM TV should collaborate with the St.George and Scarborough campuses. By doing so not only will they be promoting all of University of Toronto but also encourage students from the two campuses to share their work. Including videos and news from all the other campuses will lead to an increase in UTM TV’s audience and its ability to cater to a larger crowd.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Apart from maintaining the YouTube channel, we recommend out client to increase the frequency of posting updates on Facebook and twitter. Exhibit 2 provides insights on UTM TV’s posts and reach on Facebook and also plots the frequency of their posts.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">As shown in the exhibit, the frequency of posts and updates related to the brand was extremely low. Facebook allows people to like and comment on posts, pictures, videos etc. This enables our client to receive instant feedback and numerous interactions allow UTMTV to garner feedback from different people and online communities. Hence, the best way to keep their feed active is to dedicate a team of volunteers who take turns to constantly keep posting updates at regular intervals.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Our client should implement the same approach to increase their Twitter activity. Twitter is a form of micro-blogging, that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters. We recommend our client to send in frequent ‘Tweets’ and involve its production and technical team to send these in as well. The biggest advantage of constant updates on social networking sites is that it helps in creating ‘hype’ before broadcasts or special event. Buzz marketing is thereby a crucial aspect of our new marketing campaign.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">__Websites/E-mail Marketing Strategy:__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Our client has designed and maintained their own website, [|www.utmtv.ca]. since their launch in 2009. All their broadcasts are aired, archived and organized. However, currently the percentage of visitors returning to it is lower than the share of new visitors. This means that people are losing their interest towards our client. Thereby, we recommend Direct marketing via e-mail. UTM TV’s client database comprises of over 800 people and emailing regular newsletters is a great way to spread and circulate content. It helps reach the potential customer directly and also maintains a constant relationship with them.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">__Banner Adverts/Facebook Adverts:__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Adverts placed in related websites have the ability to reach a greater share of the target audience. A banner ad is a form of online advertisement that is embedded at the top of webpages. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking to the website of the advertiser. These free banner and sky scrapper ad acts like an agreement between two or more website to promote each other on respective web pages. We recommend our client to publish such adverts on websites of other student body organizations such as Undergraduate Commerce Society, UTM Library Website and the UTM Women’s Centre to name a few. This would earn them a lot of free publicity and simultaneously increase their reach. They could also charge 3rd party groups like TUSBE (Toronto University Students Book Exchange) or UTM deals, which primarily target students to place their ads on UTM TV’s website. This will help in bringing some advertisement revenue that can be re-allocated towards placing ads for UTM TV on relevant websites.

<span style="color: #0c0c0c; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">The advertising would depend on the associate website’s reputation and any misconduct on their part can have a direct impact on our client’s image. Therefore the associate website has to be very reliable. In case of going for banner ads that are not hosted for free, would add to the expenditure, which is not too feasible as our client operates on a very tight budget. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;"> However, we do recommend investing on Facebook Adverts. A study conducted in 2010 established that North American Facebook user spent an average of 421 minutes on Facebook per month.



<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">__Live Streaming of Events:__

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">There are various websites today, which enable and provide platform for live casting and live video streaming on the Internet. We recommend our client to adopt this approach and broadcast events held by various clubs live on its website. Given that UTM has a diverse and multi-cultural population and is also home to many international students, such live coverage will provide their families and friends back home an opportunity to experience these events and become part of the campus community. Moreover, this will also allow us to share our live content with the two other UofT campuses.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**Conclusion: Looking Forward** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">We anticipate that if our recommended strategies are executed effectively, UTM TV will be able to increase its viewership and also be able to market itself from the ad revenues it receives from advertisements placed on its website. We expect it to morph into a greater platform for students to continue experimenting and exhibiting their work in creating unique content and participate in producing collaborative umbrella projects with universities across the globe.