I. BACKGROUND OF THE COMPANY
Awava Manila is a spring off from Awava Design in New York. The companies are a full-service graphic design and marketing firm specializing in web development. As the Internet grows to be today's arena for trade, communication and research, Awava Manila comes in to offer premium web development and new media services to make our entry into the World Wide Web smooth and effective.
The company is a small firm composed only of 10 people and around 5-7 freelancers. The company's goal is to provide their clients the best web solutions applicable to their needs. They hope to do this by blending their client's ideas with their creativity and technical expertise to produce a unique and entertaining web experience.
They offer state of the art web development services such as website redesign, web positioning and marketing for individuals, businesses, and organizations. They also, through their ingenious promotional marketing strategy, make the site visible and are going to find its way to its target audience by itself.
The company's expertise is what it would take to make the site stand out from approximately 4 billion other sites on the web. They will design and develop their client's site into one that would capture the attention of the target market and communicate the message efficiently.
They keep their team updated in the latest web technology. Their web developers and designers are versed in Macromedia Flash 5, Macromedia Dreamweaver Ultradev 4, Macromedia Fireworks 4, Adobe Photoshop 6.1, Adobe Image Ready 3, Adobe Illustrator 9, Microsoft FrontPage 2000, 3D Studio Max 4, Adobe Premier, Allaire Homesite, ASP and PHP. They move in a continuous quest for the newest and best methods to create sites both their clients and their audience will benefit from.
Awava Manila has only started their operations here in the Philippines April of 2001. They get their clients through the use of a website, they call potential clients, and they e-mail them as well. In order to convince them of their expertise in the field of web development, Awava Manila use their website for people to see their capabilities let them know and have a first hand experience at the services they can offer and do for them.
Aside from a website, they also chose to create a CD-ROM presentation which is included in their marketing kit. The CD-ROM provides all the information about company, their services, portfolio, contact numbers. The company decided to use a CD-ROM because it can serve as a supplementary item of the marketing kit. Aside from the low cost that they will incur compare to creating print media, CD-ROM presentation is a gauge of their level of expertise.
Mr. Guerrero conceptualized the CD-ROM with a premise in mind of 'no talk-just show' since graphic design is assessed visually. And for them to convince their clients they have 'to see to believe' through the CD and a 1 ½ minute movie. This presentation is believed to make jobs easier for those in marketing and sales. The main objective of the CD-ROM is to let the target clients see what they can offer and their level of expertise by providing them an interactive CD where their skills in graphic design and web development are seen.
The presentation has a non-eccentric and non-traditional design. It has a flash movie which is characterized with fun and lots of interfaces. They used the colors orange and yellow as their dominant motif since orange is the color for creativity and yellow for emotional. They try to send subliminal message of creative and emotional people.
II. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
What is the relationship between the use of the CD-ROM presentation as a marketing tool and the clientele base and sales of Awava Manila?
III. OBJECTIVES
The proponents aim to find out the relationship between the use of a CD-ROM presentation as a marketing tool and the clientele base and sales of Awava Manila and see if this marketing strategy has indeed made a positive impact in their clientele base.
IV. SCOPE AND LIMITATION
The scope of this study will be on the effectiveness of the CD-ROM presentation used as a marketing tool of Awava Manila to their clientele base and sales.
The study will be focused on one type of marketing tool, the CD-ROM presentation. Because the CD-ROM has been becoming one major marketing strategy of graphic design companies, the proponents want to know the impact of this technology on the sales and the number of clients of Awava Manila.
It will also be focusing on graphic design and marketing firm specializing in web development specifically the Awava Manila, since they have included such technology in their marketing kit.
V. FRAMEWORK OF THE STUDY
The study will use the Silver Bullet Theory for its framework. The theory is also known as the Magic Bullet Theory, the Transmission Belt Theory, the Hypodermic Needle Theory, and the Powerful Effects Theory. The major contributors in this theory are Schramm, Laswell and De Fleur. This is the first theory concerning the media's effect on society. It is a simple, mechanistic, unsophisticated model of media-audience relationship.
The theory explains that media were thought to be able to shape public opinion and sway the masses toward any point of view by the communicator. It says that every member of the audience receives media messages in a uniform way and that immediate and direct responses are triggered. Media is omnipotent, sending messages to atomized masses waiting to receive it and nothing in between.
Here the independent variable is the mass media with the audience or the public is the dependent variable. The theory assumes that the audience is passive and that messages are received in a uniform manner. This predicts that audience will interpret the messages in the same way and that media is powerful in influencing the audience.
In the case of the Awava Manila, the media they used here is the CD-ROM. Their target audiences are their clients. With the use of the CD-ROM, as the their clients see their presentation, it will either have a positive or negative effect on them immediately. They will either avail of their services because they are convinced with their performance and expertise in the field or swayed away from asking for their help. Every information they need is in the CD-ROM so there will be no other media needed to supplement the other needs and questions of the clients. Since all their clients see the same presentation, the effect is somehow the same to each of them. The influencing power of the CD-ROM is assessed by the quick reply of the clients to avail the services offered by Awava Manila.
A CD-ROM presentation as a marketing kit must be primarily, interactive in nature. There is the presence of visual effects, animations, and audio or music to go with it. The user or the audience of the presentation must be able to capture the attention and interest of the viewer and communicate the message creatively and efficiently. The effectiveness of the media technology used is measured by the researchers through the increase or decrease in sales and clients of Awava Manila. If the CD-ROM is indeed an effective tool to capture more market and sell their services, sales and clients will increase and expand, otherwise, their will be no effect on the client base and sales of the company.
VI. METHOD AND PROCEDURE
RESEARCH DESIGN
The proponents will study the effects and impact of the CD-ROM presentation on the company through analyzing the increase or decrease in sales and client base of Awava Manila. This is done by interviewing the company president of Awava Manila. Mr. Guerrero. The proponents included 'how many clients did you have before you created and included the CD-ROM in your marketing kit?' and 'how many clients availed of your services after launching the CD-ROM and presenting it to them?' in our interview questions to be able to see the effects and impact of the new technology in their operations, especially in their sales and client base.
VARIABLES
The independent variable of the study is the CD-ROM presentation as a marketing tool of Awava Manila. The proponents seek to find out the effectiveness and impact of the use of CD-ROM to the company's operations. The proponents want to find out if the technology will lead and influence a positive attitude and effect to their clients.
The dependent variable here is the sales and the number of clients of Awava Manila. These variables are primarily based on the marketing strategies and tools of the company. In our case the marketing strategy used is the creation of a CD-ROM presentation. If the clients respond positively on the CD-ROM, the sales and client base will as effect increase and expand. If it does not really make an impact and trigger the interests of their clients, sales and clients will still be the same.
DATA GATHERING
The proponents scheduled an interview with the president of the company, Mr. Guerrero, and was able to get the necessary information needed from the head himself and thus the information given is reliable and factual, especially regarding the data about their sales and the conceptualization of the technology. Aside from the interview, the researchers were also provided with their marketing kit with their company profile, their services and contact numbers in it. The researchers were also provided with the CD-ROM where more information and data is present.
VII. RESULTS AND DATA ANALYSIS
Awava Manila only started operations April of 2001. They only included a CD-ROM in their marketing kit on their 2nd month. Although it is too short a time since their operations started, the effects and impact of the CD-ROM for their company is desirable. Because of the CD-ROM it became easier for them to convince clients, to impress them of their skills and expertise, were able to market well their services and it gave them their company identity easily.
The assessment of its effectiveness lies on the impact of the CD-ROM to their sales and client number. Before they used the CD-ROM they market their products by just calling their clients and e-mailing them, it was harder for them to convince them to avail of their services, their number of clients were only 2 at that time. Since they used CD-ROM as a marketing tool for presentation of their services, they were able to attract and convince more clients and increased their project clients to 5 after their presentation. Among these clients are the Singlescore.com, a dating site, Crown Paints wanted a print collateral and CD-ROM presentation, and Crazy Nuts. They were also offered by the big companies of Petron and Citibank to join in their bidding for an interactive CD.
VIII. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
The researchers concluded that the use of a new technology, the CD-ROM, as a marketing tool for the Awava Manila is not a failure. The main objective of the technology, which is to convince clients of their capabilities and expertise through the visual effects and graphic design present in the CD, is met. Their sales increased and clientele base expanded. Big companies now are interested in the services they offer.
The proponents were able to view the presentation and were also convinced that they can do an excellent job. The group recommends that they continue using CD-ROM in their presentations and include it in their marketing kit and still continue improving and updating on the CD. There is only one aspect in the CD-ROM that the group would recommend on that is the color of the text box. The proponents suggest that they use a darker shade of yellow or orange if they would want to continue using white for the color of the text. Aside from the text box color, the group finds the technology to be very successful and effective for their marketing operations.
