REGIT (opposite of Tiger, geddit?) Consultants
Probably the best team dynamics that I have experienced in my 3 years in SMU. Fun. Laughter. Efficiency. Synergy. And it helps that each of us has an unique expertise that made the end product really spectacular.
From left: (
haha, I'm going to wash dirty linen in public because they ostracize me!)
Eng Teck (Powerpoint Choreographer)I never knew powerpoints can be an art form & can be choreographed but this guy is damn pro at what he does. When he said he was going to be the "powerpoint clicker", I honestly thought that he wanted to "eat snake" & take the easy way out of our presentation & I wanted to vie for for that job.
But he really puts in effort into the presentation details. He knows when and what each speaker will say or do & right on cue, the powerpoint will start displaying bubble headings, really professional animations & stuff, sort of like a fireworks display. During my free time, I tried to decipher his ppt & learn those bubbles animations but it's damn complicated. Tamade.
AND this guy is damn anal about the paper that he uses to print the report. He's the first person that I know that differentiates paper into different weights, textures & quite possibly scents as well. I'm very curious to see what his room looks like because I vision it to be filled with innumerable shelves of papers categorized into different grades, color, texture, size, gradient, scent, thickness and countries of origin. Whenever he wants to print an assignment, I can imagine him walking to his shelves, pondering for a good few minutes, caressing different papers before finally making his decision.
Tell me it is not normal right? Aha. Because Kenny categorizes his paper into only 2 kinds: Plain(2 blank sides) and rough(1 blank side).
Jaclyn (SPSS Goddess)She is THE ONE that we go to when we want to analyze & decipher our survey results & find causations with SPSS program. Every meeting, we will tell her what we want to find out and thereafter we will worship her. By the next morning, she will then bless us mere mortals with the analysis via our emails.
I'm not sure if anyone validated her work because I didn't. Each time I open her files, I will get a splitting headache from seeing the figures, tables, charts and confidence intervals. To rid myself of these migraines, I will typically close the file immediately and email her "GOOD JOB JAC!!" & dump her file into a "never-to-be-opened-again" folder which I had specially created for her. (& is now in the recycle bin)
Caroline (Report Compiler & Editor)My roomie from UBC!!! Haha. The one that I ponned class with in Vancouver to travel 18 hours by bus to Rocky Mountains!
Very proficient at compiling data & she got the coverted ExxonMobil internship! Rich intern who pang-seh me for my modules next term. =(
Ker Choon (FGI Analyst & Editor)My 'supervisor' from Convocation 2006, the one that I went to to beg for complimentary parking tickets at Suntec City. Never did expect we will be in the same project group just 2 weeks later.
Kenny (Free-rider)
I basically play the "devil's advocate" in the group, disagreeing and questioning everything that they say, (only to be shot down by SPSS Goddess and her fellow rest of the world.)
I would like to believe that I play a pivotal role in the team's success by eliminating any faults or flaws in our approach but they obviously don't see it that way. haha.
Julie (Minute Lady)
She does other stuff like tabulating survey results but I will always remember her as the minute lady, the one that notes down all the stuff & email it to all of us.
A role which I didn't think was important till the day she was absent. Halfway through the meeting, I started panicking when I realized that nobody might be taking notes.
The minute lady is very important.
***
Essentailly, our diagnosis of Tiger Beer's problem was that it lacked variety & the current Tiger Classic is too "ah-pek" ish & common to attract the tertiary student crowd & executives. And Tiger lacks variety to appeal to people with different taste.
We likened our proposed strategy to that of Toyota. Corolla is a common, cheap & good car. A car that appeals to commoners but not to that of its other target segments. To appeal to the niche crowds without reducing the appeal to the core consumers, Toyota introduced the hip & trendy Yaris & the more executive Camry.
Likewise, we suggested a Tiger Light to appeal to the younger crowd & Tiger Gold to appeal to the executives.
The idea for the Tiger Lite advert is for it to be in a comic-book Batman style to herald its arrival in the market & image-wise, it's funky enough for youngsters to be seen with it.
Tiger Gold, on the other hand, is well, a cut above the rest of the beers, & the advert tries to be special & extraordinary.
***
I actually like the URA project better than the Tiger Beer one, just that it wasn't executed as well. Our topic idea was probably better than other groups that I saw on that day, which were focused mainly on more mundane products & customer beheviors at shops.
I was the one who pitched the idea of doing on URA pretty insistently & I felt so bad during the observation study period when the girls & I had to stand in the hot sun recording motorists' parking habits at URA carparks. It was much harder & tedious than I thought it would be & some of the girls didn't quite know how coupons work & stuff like that.
On hindsight, I realized that carparks & women can be like men & Forever21, maybe I shouldnt have been so pro-URA in the initial topic generation. But our observation study results was quite interesting, only 44% of motorists return to their vehicles on time. The rest either overstayed the time stipulated on the coupon or didn't even put coupons. And there was carpark attendant bias as well. They only check certain portion of the URA Somerset carpark while leaving the other half unchecked.
So after the usual FGI & surveys, we conclude that the system is ineffective & unpopular. We suggested it adopts an electronic system & to leverage on its many carparks around Singapore, URA should consider adopting a membership discount system which works like SMU's preferential parking.
Part of the makeover was to introduce a new logo, which is a heart shape made up of cars.
URA carparks are not attractions on their own, & nobody goes to Orchard just to park at the carparks... So for the print ads, we suggested creating associations with key activities around the carparks. Such that when they think of going to Borders, subconsciously URA Wheelock will be a top-of-mind choice in the driver's consideration set.
I'm quite (shamelessly) proud of this print ad because I did it in 3 minutes, while waiting for the printer to finish printing the 46 pg report. Quite a stupid ad actually, but it incorporates what the prof taught; introducing the product as a bundle of benefits, being explicit in the consequences of using the product yada yada...
