Memorable Events

They always say a picture speaks a thousand words, so I hope from these pictures, you are all able to see how internship has been :)

I am going to start with my first experience with a creative press kit! Can you guess who our client is? It's definitely not a pastry firm......

It's Mandom Gatsby! They had just launched their latest product- Hair Jam. From the name, I'm sure you are able to guess why the press kit looks like that! As good as it looks, getting all the items for the press kit was a huge challenge! We had to use about 2 packs of fillers per box of press kit to ensure that when the kit was opened, the Hair Jam wouldn't be at the bottom of the box. And the challenge- finding that particular shade of blue fillers. It was out of stock everywhere! We had to come up with 75 kits, so imagine the number of fillers we had to look for! Eventually, we managed to get 200 packs of fillers after combing different parts of Singapore.  

So after packing them all, out it went to the relevant media. All the hard work of brainstorming and finally putting the press kit together paid off when we followed up with them. 

Their reactions and responses were very positive and they had nothing but praises for the press kit. Each time they asked where we were calling from and what press kit we were referring to, all we needed to say was the loaf of bread and they would tell us how pleased they were with the whole idea. Absolutely satisfying.

The next big thing that we all had to prepare for was the pitch to Far East Hospitality for their Malaysian market. We were notified that there were 4 other agencies that were going to be pitching as well and we had the honour of going first. So 2 days before the pitch, we were informed that the CEO, Mr Arthur Kiong intended to sit in for the pitch. That, definitely added pressure.

16 Dec 2013, the day of the pitching came and I have to say, went really well. I was pretty stressed throughout the presentation. Mr Kiong decided not to go through the presentation that we had prepared because he roughly knew what we were going to say; instead, he decided to have to have a casual chat with us about Brand Inc and how we started out. That, was pretty stressful for me because I'm super new in Brand Inc.

About a day later, we were notified that we got the contract for Far East Hospitality Malaysia (FEH) and immediately, work began. Rendezvous Hotel was bought over by the FEH group in August 2013 and they intended to officially reopen the hotel on 17 January 2014; we had to ensure relevant Malaysian media contacts were present for it. The amount of work to be done was massive because we did not send out invites to the Malaysian media until January. Almost everyone was on leave in December! January came and up till now, has been insane! To ensure we understood the different properties of FEH, we had a site visit to all their properties on the 6th and 7th January. 

Things were going crazy in the office with everyone working their butts out and finally, the day came. Relevant media from neighbouring countries were invited to stay in the hotel from 16-18 January. Brand Inc, had manage to secure 7 Malaysian media presence.

(L to R: Ms. Kogi from 360Celsius, Ms. Nurul from EH!, Mr. Zamari from Santai Travel Mag, Mr. Khari from Libur, Ms. Heng from Travelution, Mr. Azhar from Newman and Ms. Dya from Jasmine.)

Michelle, my colleague (in the middle holding her passport) received the media in Malaysia KLIA Airport and flew in with them to Singapore. I received them in Singapore Changi Airport and from there, we all headed to Rendezvous Hotel.

16 January 2014: Media dinner at Food for Thought at Queen Street.

The theme in the restaurant was Restaurant of Reverse, which explains why we were having dessert for our first course. 

(Above) 17 January 2014: All the media gathering around Mr Kiong last night during the event, as he answered their questions.

The theme of the opening event was Fashionably Artsy because of how Rendezvous Hotel is being re-branded as; an arts hotel. Overall, it was a really good experience. Alot of hard work have been exhausted and seeing how everything has come together smoothly was truly gratifying.

Something that I have learnt from this that wasn't taught in the textbooks- creating the best media experience. I shall share that with everyone on my last post! Thank you for reading!

Have a great weekend everyone! :)