Media Proposal for Australian Solar Panel - Case Study Example

Media Proposal and Annual Plan Author’s Name Grade course Institution Tutor Date Media Proposal for Australian Solar Panel Client Information Australian Solar Panel is located at 4/29 Bellrick Street Acacia Ridge QLD 4110. Australian Solar Panel (ASP) is a registered company and a global company. The company is involved in development and maintenance of many types of certified solar panels which are of high quality. The company prides itself in producing solar panels that bring out very high quality workmanship, have great performance and are also durable. The company is located in the State of Queensland in Australia. The company is an emerging player in the photovoltaic industry and it offers comprehensive solutions to those who require using clean energy. The company takes note of the fact that the world is shifting towards sustainability and life that is friendly to nature. The company’s goals are informed partly by the struggle by people world over in seeking to energy efficient and it is evident that not many are able to meet the requirements to the required standards. ASP seeks to fill the void that is available in the clean energy market. The company offers power solutions that are dynamic and hence positively impacting the daily living of its customers who place reliance on its good track record and ability to offer energy solutions that are cost effective as well as long-lasting (ASP 2012). The company provides power to which can be used to light home in humblest of dwelling places and it is also capable of providing energy storage which can power even a whole city. The company also provides bus shelters which are powered by solar power and charging station for scooters and cars that use electricity. ASP has specialized in delivering products that ensure clean energy. The products by the company are meant to be used in residential homes, industries, as well as government utilities. The company therefore engages in constant research as well as development. The company therefore struggles to keep pace with the latest development in the clean energy market. The research is geared towards ensuring that the solutions developed are cost effective and this makes them widely accessible to the members of the public. The modules produced by the company have the capability to have a maximum output in every kind of weather condition. The modules used by the company receive approvals from Germany and specifically from TUV Rhineland. The products by the company therefore meet all the safety requirements. This means that the company has received Class A (Safety class II) IEC 61730. The IEC EN 61730 has two parts. The first part deals with requirements for construction while the second part deals with requirements for testing and approval. The company has received certification in Germany as meeting the highest standards in terms of efficiency and attention to detail. The modules produced by ASP also received the most recent fire rating accreditation. The company also provides help to project developers and dealers in designing, installing, and maintaining utility scale systems (ASP 2012). This media proposal therefore looks at the ways through which the products by ASP can be advertised and thus make sure that the company gets its rightful exposure and share in business. Target Audience The audiences to be targeted for the solar panels are going to be drawn from the following: 1. Individual home owners 2. government agencies 3. colleges and schools 4. Industries Proposed Media The proposed media for advertisement shall include the following: print, broadcast, outdoor, social media, and search engine optimization (SEO). Print media refers to the collectivity of magazines and newspaper. The company shall make use of newspapers and magazines to reach its target audience. Since the advent of printing, spreading of information became very easy (Surmanek, 1995 p. p43-105). Magazines and newspapers became the most common ways through which news get to the populace. The fact that newspapers and magazines receive wide readership makes them an ideal platform on which advertisement can be conducted. In the State of Queensland, there is a wide range of newspapers and magazines from which to make a selection. The Courier-Mail covers news and events in Brisbane and Queensland. It also reports on world new, sport and most importantly technology. The other newspaper available is Brisbane Times. Brisbane Times also conveys news from Queensland and Brisbane as well as business news. The state also has many and diverse magazines which address different issues which range from technology and also many other areas. It is clear that there is sufficiency of print media in the form of newspapers and magazines from which an advertiser can choose from. Broadcast media refers to the distribution of content either in audio or video form or a combination of the two. This is done through a medium of mass communication and these mostly use electromagnetic radiation. Broadcasting may be targeted at the general public or a large group forming part of the public. Broadcasting is useful in training, recreation, exchange of messages as well as commercial purposes (Wimmer & Dominick 2011, p.44). Therefore advertisement can be done through television and radio. The state of Queensland has many radio and television stations. The radio stations can also be found online and most of them broadcast using the digital technology. Social media is the way through which people interact, exchange information and share ideas through networks and communities which are virtual. Social media can also be seen as applications which are internet based and allow the creating and exchanging of content which is generated by the users themselves. Social media is dependent upon applications that are based on the web and mobile phones (Surmanek 1995, p. p43-105). Social media has revolutionalized the way people communicate and share information. Social media is very much different from the traditional media as it is known. Social media has made it possible to reach more people more quickly and also improve on the quality of communication. Social media sites enjoy more traffic than other sites on the internet and with increased connectivity, the number of people and amount of time that is spent on social media continues to increase. There are very many social media sites but a few of them are extremely popular with issues. Twitter and Facebook are among the leading social sites in terms of quality as well as the number of users who subscribe to them (Mangold & Fauld 2009, p.359). Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to the process through which visibility of a website or a web page can be improved. A web page or a website which is ranked highly and where web page is accessed more often, it is displayed quite highly in the search results of a search engine. The strategic positioning of the results of a website or a web page makes it possible for more visitors to access that website or web page (Barta 2009, p.51). Search Engine Optimization can be applied in a number of different searches that are carried out. These include academic search, search for videos or images and local or international search. SEO makes use of the workings of the search engine. It uses information as to what people search for and what kind of words those seeking information use (Surmanek 1995, p. p43-105). SEO uses different strategies such as editing the content of a web page or changing the coding of such web pages. The purposes of introducing such changes are to ensure that the results that are received are more relevant to the words that are used in searching. Outdoor advertising takes very many different formats. This is a type of advertising which gets to the intended person while out of their homes. This type of advertising is very different from the other types such as internet advertising, print and broadcast. The aim of outdoor advertising is to reach people while they are going on with their daily activities in areas that are public. Such advertisement can also be placed in means used for transporting people and also offices where people have to wait to be served such as banks and medical offices (Barta 2009, p.53). The outdoor advertising can also be seen in commercial locations an example being places that sell goods through retail. There are four broad categories of outdoor advertising and they are: transit, street furniture, billboards and alternative. Media selection and analysis-qualitative Use of web advertising should take priority as it is the most cost effective means of getting the message across to the intended people; this is related to social media. It is important that budgetary allocations are properly taken care of when it comes to advertising through television and radio. Advertising through the radio and television is quite expensive and it is important that the spots picked are strategic and assure the company that there will be maximum number of the targeted audience at hand (Mangold & Fauld 2009, p.360). Bill boards are also another relatively means of advertising. It is therefore important that bill boards are placed at very strategic positions for maximum effect. Media Proposal and quantitative analysis Media Time to be aired Estimated cost per annum in $ ‘000’ Comments 1. Internet and social media. Throughout 2.5 2.print media Weekends 25 3. broadcast media. Prime time 35 4.outdoor advertising Throughout. 30 5.SEO Throughout 25 Rationale for the choice of advertisement Outdoor advertising is important as it ensures that more information gets to the people. The information received through this medium more often than not guides the potential customers to the various destinations. They thus ensure that the other modes of advertising are augmented. The most common form of outdoor advertising has taken the form of billboards. In modern times, the bill boards have advanced and there are digital billboards. It is very strategic for company selling solar panels to make use of this. The first advantage is that it is possible to reach an additional number of people who are not able to access other media of advertisement (Wimmer & Dominick 2011, p.49). Outdoor advertising is also helpful because it comes to the attention of the targeted people many times when they are relaxed. This means that such people are able to focus more on the message that is being passed across. The images that are placed on the bill boards in public places are simple and appealing to the eye. Bill boards are therefore able to pass a message across in a manner that is very easy and interesting. Social media has become on of the most preferred medium of communication especially between the younger generations. This means that no company can afford not to have a presence in social media. Social media supplements the websites of companies and such social media sites could help direct people to the company's website. ASP could benefit a great deal by having a presence in facebook, twitter, and Google plus just to mention a few. Social media could perhaps be the most cost effective way of advertising and communicating with customers and potential customers. ASP could be in a better position where it has a facebook page and such a page attracts likes and this leads to the information spreading to many people (Barta 2009, p.57). Many people, especially the youth, are spending more and more time on the social media sites probably even more than they do in listening to the radio or watching television. This makes it even more important for ASP to establish a huge presence in social media as this would mean that it is able to reach to the largely youthful population that has shifted away from the traditional means of advertising. Social media also enables potential customers to access company's website and thus increasing traffic to the site and ensuring that more people are able to know what the company does and what it stands for. Search engine optimization is a very strategic way that ASP could make use of so as to ensure that when people search for information concerning solar panels; they are able to find results of the company being placed high up. Companies are known to use techniques which are very aggressive including having some sites being banned from search results. This show just how important it is that one's search results are ranked highly and companies can do almost anything to ensure that they achieve search engine optimization. Search engines do collaborate with the search engine optimization industry and they do in fact sponsor events are that are meant for search engine optimization. A good number of the search engines give information which is important in those seeking to optimize traffic to their sites. There are different methods applied in search engine optimization. The leading search engines which include yahoo and Google make use of crawlers which make it possible to come up with an algorithmic result for the search. Some search engines require payment and this makes it possible to get the results required in a higher rank (Barta 2009, p.63). It would be of great advantage for ASP to make use of search engine optimization as this would translate to the fact that whenever internet users search for content relating to solar panels, web pages related to the company would be ranked very highly in the search results. Print media is also a very vital way of conveying information regarding one's products. There are still many people who read newspapers and magazines. They provide a fairly permanent record of the information provided. ASP would be in a better position by making use of the newspapers and magazines that have a wide readership. The advertisements could be spread across papers and magazines that are popular to the targeted groups. Broadcast media can also be justified due to the fact that many people, especially the younger generation, are moved by what they see and hear (Wimmer & Dominick 2011, p.52). There is sufficient presence of radio and television and it is important for ASP to maximize on this since the two attract very many audiences especially at certain times of the day and this is very strategic for a company that deal with products which are strategic. Solar panels are one way through which the world can use to combat the effects of climate change since it produces green energy as well as cutting on costs incurred through the use of traditional sources of energy. References Australian Solar Panel (ASP). 2012. Solar Panels. Retrieved from http://www.australiansolarpanel.com.au/solar-panels/ on 25/05/2013. Barta, R, 2009, Advertising Management, 5/e, Sydney: Pearson Education India. Kaplan, A & Haenlein, M., 2010, Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media. Business Horizons, Vol. 53, No. 1, pp 59–68. Mangold, G. & Faulds, D. 2009, Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix. Business Horizons, Vol.52, no.4, pp 357–365. Surmanek, J., 1995, Media planning: a practical guide. Lincolnwood, Ill, NTC Business Books. Wimmer, R., & Dominick, J, 2011, Mass Media Research: An Introduction. New York: Cengage Learning. Read More