Marketing Plan
For

Boka Night (1st season)
2012-13

Muhammad Abdullah-Al-Mamun
BBA (Major in Marketing), 8th Batch,
University of Rajshahi.
MBA (Major in Marketing), 21st Batch, University of Dhaka.

Executive summary:

This marketing plan is designed for the weekend radio show ‘Boka Night’. Substantial opportunities exist to tap into the market of radio entertainment. The advantage of these opportunities will influence the behaviour of the target market in such a way that will unveil a new horizon of entertainment and will bring some positive change to our socio-economic life.

The market profile is refined by mining data from several articles on internet and newspapers and also from listeners’ feedback channel (FM Radio fan page) to know the actual market situation, attitudes and behaviours towards the music and benefits delivered by them. The results were combined with demographic, geographic and psychographic information. But the major area that deserved highest concentration is demographic.

This marketing plan has been strived for finding out the target market’s psychographic needs and trying to bridge them with the conceptual flavour offered by Boka Night.

Title of the program:

Grameenphone Boka Night

Program synopsis:

In accordance with the proposal, this will be a talk-show with sequential musical playback in which people with distinct run of society are going to have the floor to share their meanings (Story, Lyric, Song and Poem) under a similar hood (Boka). The show will deal with the outcome of their crude socio-material life through certain timelines (Cosmic irony) when they feel themselves reluctant to measure facts conventionally. The show will showcase their realization, dreams in a different language.

Program flavour:

The program will be anchored by two imaginary characters (Boka and Shoka) who will ensure the flavour of the central program. The program will be just like an imaginary threshold from where the realization behind the audience’s stories will be portrayed. The contents and language of each story will remain familiar to general people whereas the presentation style, the rhythm will act distant from their prosaic way to think. The two-fold goal of the program will lay behind the story sharing along with the image development of Boka world (an ideological dream world).

Additional information (for full treatment):

* Content of show (items, features and articles): a) Story telling; b) Discussion with guest audience; c) Music track performed by neophyte Boka artists; d) SMS reading;

* Examples of Vox Pops (People response) to be used: a) Via phone-call; b) Via SMS/Text messaging; c) Via E-mail; d) Online community via social networks( i.e. Facebook, Google+)

* Styles of music to be used:
Songs that comply with the Boka theme, the thematic pattern of which will be introduced in the beginning episodes of the program and will be made much clearer later on as the show progresses.

* Proposed time slot:
At weekend (11.00PM-12.00AM). It would be a time when people would have some space for themselves to meet their inner selves.

Program longevity:

As long as the audiences keep the response tunnel flowing through sharing their stories, lyrics, poems (Boka Mon er Shoka Kotha) the program will be continued. And I can hopefully state that this is going to be a long-acting show. Because everyone has such kind of story. As we know, todays ‘Dog eat dog’ reality doesn’t give the green light to human’s desire and to the right all the time. As a result the story of Bokami evolves. It’s a never ending process indeed.

Extensive action plan:
The program has been designed with some extensive event plans that will take place on the seasonal break of ‘Boka Night’. After seven months regular program hosting I have following interactive program plan tailored to my target listeners:

* Interactive occasional get together for the listeners; * Two Telefilms that will be released under the selected sponsor’s banner( Developed from the best two stories shared through the program); * A brand new music album that will be released under the selected sponsor’s banner (Collected from the best 10 track performed in the 1st season episodes of Boka Night).
I hope these action plans can result better brand salience both for the program and the selected sponsor whereas it also will incept a better reflexive phenomena in the socio-cultural life of country’s mass people.

Marketing strategy (Target audience profile):

The Boka Night target market is defined using interesting factors and variables such as profession, age, social class, lifestyle and occasion rather than demographic information alone. Although the customer description generally falls within the demographic that have been identified, this approach will provide an increased understanding of what motivates the listeners and can be used to focus target marketing and positioning efforts more precisely.

Radio is the source of entertainment for every individual of any age group whether it is children, youngsters, housewives or aged people. Radio satisfies different needs of the people such as entertainment (which is the most important one). Career guideline, Storytelling, Music and movies update, Relationship problems, News update, Share market update etc. are some sort of popular kernels around which the program spectrum continues its operation. In this diffused area of specification I have choose a very uncommon flavour which very close to mass peoples’ emotion but absent in the current program segments. And that is a special time when a person seeks for redemption from his thoughts without innovative reflexion and from his regular premeditated life tamed by out and out materialistic life schedule. That’s why based on our demographic radio coverage area, I have designed a Target Market Pyramid (Listening priority based) to which all our media and promotional campaigns are aimed directly.

Marketing Mix decisions:

As a Product, Boka Night is manufactured with deep concern for two most important variables- Congruence (with the mass people’s emotion and feelings) and Quality (the aesthetic value and uniqueness of the program). That’s why it is tailored with easy going music, stories that can reach to mass people’s heart. Its intentional pause between dialogues is for providing some space for the listeners to adapt the appeal and to interconnect it with his personal life. At the same time its story script, rhythm will act distant from the conventional programs to ensure its supreme quality.

Price and Place are the factors which have no impacts on the radio listeners since they don’t have to pay for listening radio and it is available almost everywhere. We can say it’s in the pocket of every person in the form of mobile sets (Cheap or Luxury).

Boka Night will grab its initial attention from the listeners through buying some spaces with cover stories on the feature pages on two most circulated newspaper- Shopno Niye (The Daily Prothom Alo) and Rising Star (The Daily Star). Later it will Promote its value (Boka Flavour) through operating ‘Vox Pops Optimization Tools’ (Mentioned earlier in the ‘Additional Information’ section). In addition it will also conduct some integrative and interactive Seasonal Break Operation (Mentioned earlier in the ‘Extensive Plan’ section) to keep the market sustainable.

Competitive analysis:

Boka Night’s high end competitors will be Love Guru (Radio Aamar), Valobashar Kona (Radio Today) and Café Live (Radio ABC). These three programs are considered as Boka Night’s high end competitor on the basis of the proposed time slot and program flavour. Love Guru has positioned its value through delivering solutions to various sorts of relationship problems originated from people’s daily life. Valobashar Kona has owned peoples heart through conducting interactive gossip between the familiar singer Kona and her enormous fans. Lastly Café Live has proposed its value through accompanying friendly jokes, gossip and music on weekend hours.

In contrast to these programs Boka Night have some specific competitive strength that they don’t have in their pocket. These can be highlighted as follows:

* Most Interactive program * Most integrative program as the extensive plan states so * Strong ideological background and artistic value * Sustainability(Program longevity)

Budget information:

Cost per episode Particulars | Costs(BDT) | Program Hosts’ fee (2 RJs) | 8,000 | Production costs | 5,000 | Producer’s incentive | 15,000 | Total cost | 28,000 |

The total program budget will be covered through sponsor in exchange for the added value of this program in sponsor’s brand. And it will help to publicize the brand to different classes of society.

The sponsorship contract will be based on 2 time facets; signing contract valid for 3 months and contract renewal for next 4 months. As the program will be broadcasted in once a week, there will be 4 episodes in a month & 28 episodes (4×7) in a season.

Sponsorship cost: I) Signing amount: 28,000 × 12 = 336,000 BDT (12 episodes for 3 months) II) Sponsorship renewal amount: 28,000 × 16 = 448,000 BDT (16 episodes for 4 months) III) Total sponsorship cost: Signing amount for 3 months + renewed contract amount for 4 months. In total: 336,000 BDT + 448,000 BDT = 784,000 BDT

Exclusion: Telecasting fee (FM Radio cost) has been left for both the selected FM Radio Company and Sponsorship Company’s concern. It has been kept distant from Producer’s concern intentionally so that the deal remains transparent enough. The producer at best can suggest in choosing the radio station.

Post script (Afterword):
From the bits and pieces touched in the above nutshell it is to be hoped that, ‘Boka Night’ will be at least one of the most interactive and long lasting show within the Radio Entertainment Arena. As it is mentioned before there are some aspects that make the concept of the programme a new one and hopefully it will be a successful one also.

Signature

Muhammad Abdullah-Al-Mamun