1.0 Introduction of LG Electronics Inc.
LG Electronics Inc. is a South Korea multinational electronics company which is also known as the global leader and technology innovator in consumer electronics. The LG Company was a merger of two Korean companies, Lucky and Goldstar, from which the “LG” abbreviation was derived. (Mariush,2012) The company’s headquarter is located in Yeouido-dong, Seoul and the flagship subsidiary of the LG Group. LG has a global sales of KRW (Korean Won) 54.26 trillion which is equal to USD 49 billion in the year 2011. The company operates its business with four business units: mobile communication, air conditioning & energy solution, home entertainment and home appliance. (LG, 2012) It has 75 subsidiaries operates around the world that design and manufacture its products. LG is the world’s second largest flat screen television-set maker after Samsung Electronics Co. (Lee, 2012)
Home Entertainment The LG Electronics which is also known as the top global players in home entertainment produces flat panel displays, audio players, video products, monitors, commercial displays and security systems for the consumers and also the commercial markets. LG is not only focusing on creating full-features devices but it is also emphasizing on following the technology boundaries to improve the products.

Mobile Communication LG has committed to provide the best ever user experience to expand the next generation of communication by inventing new technologies and innovative in smart phone devices. Mobile handset (CDMA/GSM/3G), mobile accessory, PCB and WLL are some of the examples of mobile communication that produced by LG.
Home Appliance
LG is a global leader in creating complete home solutions through advanced products to boost consumers’ daily lives. The home appliances produced LG including washing machines, cooking appliances, refrigerator, and vacuum cleaners and so on. LG goal in this industry is to be the most trusted company that provide home appliance with the eco-friendly and health-conscious innovations embedded in their products.
Air conditioning & Energy Solution The LG Electronic Air Conditioning and Energy Solution Company produce a complete heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) and energy solution to the people around the world. LG has been an independent company in this industry since 2009.

Year | History | 1958 | Founded as GoldStar | 1985 | GoldStar Electronics develops its first solar cell multi-crystalline Research&Development | 1988 | GoldStar Industrial System develops “Solar Lantern” – portable cell technology | 1989 | GoldStar Central R&D Lab and Lucky Chemical develop their solar cell manufacturing technology | 1992 | GoldStar Electronics get qualification to manufacture heaters and solar panels on naturally circulating solar heat | 1995 | LG Industrial Systems sets up PV traffic signs (LG Industrial Systems establishes PV clock towers) | 1998 | 17 PV streetlights was established in Incheon Park, Korea | 1999 | PV power generation systems at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Techonology (KAIST) was established | 2005 | LG chemical conducts its solar cell polycrystalline R&D | 2007 | LG Solar Energy operates its first 14MW solar farm in Taean, Korea | 2008 | Solar Cell Research Team in LG Chemical integrates with LG Electronics | 2009 | PV cell and a module factories in Gumi, Korea was constructed |

2.1 The Mission and Vision Statement

* The Mission Statement of LG Electronics Inc:
“LG Electronics pursues its 21st century vision of becoming a true global digital leader who can make its customers worldwide happy through its innovation digital products and services.” (LG, 2012) * The Vision Statement:
“Its mission explains that its goal to become a top innovative electronics provider in the world. It takes pride in its company and employees and believes that this will make it into one of the most innovative companies if the 21st century.”

2.0 Marketing Objectives
The marketing objectives of LG Electronics Inc. are as follow: * To provide world class product to the upper and upper middle class to enjoy the real luxury in their life. * Focus on the premium segment of the market that fetches greater margin opposed to volumes. * LG aims to utilize their core capabilities of product leadership, market leadership and people leadership and boost their corporate culture of team work and fun workplace to achieve their mission.

3.0 Target Audience 4.2 Target Market LG has targeted the market based on their product they offering to the customers. The target audiences for LG Electronics Inc. will be based on these two target markets. 1. Upper-class segment 2. Upper end The main reason of both target market selection is that they have the highest potential of using and purchase the luxury electronic products. Those consumers are more concern of the lifestyle product and want quality product as the best. By targeting to a specific target, the market coverage strategy will be set forth to targets which are well-defined, specific segment of the consumer population. 4.3 Market Segmentation In order to have a specific target market of wider target coverage, market segmenting is recommendable to reach effectively the consumers. Below is the overview of the LG Electronics market segmentation of the demographic, psychographic and behavioral segment. (Mingu, 2011) 1. Demographic * Sex: LG products major buyer is a man especially business man. * Age Group: Working adult, mostly from 30 to 35 years old. * Income: The consumer of LG electronics have high level of income because most of the price of LG products is slightly expensive than their competitor such as Samsung. * Life Cycle: Single as well as married with children. * Religion/ Ethnicity: Asian, American, Europe, Muslims and etc. 2. Psychographic * Education: Customers of LG have higher education level because more higher the education level, they will concern more about products quality. * Lifestyle: Consumers with upper middle class lifestyle. 3. Behavioral * The increase of education development in the country also affects the perception and behavior of the society towards high quality products of LG. The reason is because high educated people are more concern about their self fulfillment, esteem need and social needs. The LG products are all high in quality which can enjoy by the consumers. By focusing on behavioral marketing, it will widen the company’s coverage and boosts the market sales.

4.0 S.W.O.T Analysis (Pathikary, 2010) Strengths 1. Market leader in home appliances industry. 2. Manufacturing unit in tax incentives areas. 3. Wide range of products available to the middle class, upper-middle class and high class group of people. 4. LG have the widest distribution network in this industry all over the world ( 47 branches, 175 area offices and over 10,000 trade partners). 5. Shifting the rural market. | Weaknesses 1. Consumers compare LG products only with Samsung but not other brands. 2. Samsung being its competitor produces similar products. 3. Lack of expert operators for complicated machines in some countries such as India. | Opportunities 1. Fast growth of the home appliances market 2. Shifting to rural markets. 3. Control over the market and the highest share in home appliances market. | Threats 1. Price war with its closest competitor, Samsung 2. Samsung is also from Korea and consumers LG products with Samsung products 3. Competitors from Indian brands and from new entrants | 6.0 Competitors of LG Electronics Inc. In Malaysia, there are many electronic companies around the world and the most threat to LG is the Samsung, Electrolux, BPL, Sony, Videocom, Whirlpool, Sansui and some of the China electronic companies. From the competitive analysis done by LG (2012), the market share of electronic company is as follow. From the pie chart above, we can conclude that the market share shows that Samsung is the closest competitor of LG Eletronics Inc. The targets of both of the companies are more or less the same. The product categories are almost the same and therefore, it creates close fight between the two companies. Also, the biggest threat to LG is the price offered by Samsung is cheaper than LG. Therefore, LG need to create brand awareness in Malaysia.
6.0 Slogan and Celebrity Endorsement
The logo of LG Electronics Inc. is the face of future. The LG logo is a fairly interesting logo. The LG logo is the combination of “L” and “G” alphabet which form a face. It comes in two elements: the LG logo in grey and the stylized image of a human face in red color.

The letters L and G in a circle has its definition – the world, future, youth, humanity and technology. This symbol is also representing the LG efforts want to maintain good relationship with their customers worldwide. Furthermore, the main red color represents friendliness and also gives a definition that LG commit to the best.
The Slogan of LG is “Life’s Good” which also represents LG’s determination to provide delightfully smart products that will make your life good.
In Malaysia, there is no any local celebrity endorsed in any LG advertisement. When it comes to product endorsement, a local celebrity, an athlete, an actor or model are the best to choose.(BizReport, 2009) Therefore, I would like to use Amber Chia acted as spokesperson to advertise and promote the LG 3D flat screen television. Amber Chia is an international supermodel & actress is undoubtedly one of the most recognizable celebrities in Malaysia. With her beauty and elegant appears which can represent the luxury and the quality of LG products, I believe this will be the right choice.
7.0 Integrated Marketing Communication
According to Hil (2007), “Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) is a strategic business process used to plan, develop, execute and evaluate coordinated, measurable, persuasive brand communication programs with consumers, customers, prospects employees and other relevant external and internal audiences.” It is an approach to brand communications where different types of media work together to create brand awareness for the customer and to present the brand’s core message. There are few tools of marketing communication such as advertising, sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing, online communication, and social media. Among the all, advertisement campaign is the best choice to strengthen LG brand for the following years 2013.
Advertisement is a form of paid mass communication or promotion for products, services or ideas. (managementstudyguide.com, 2012) The functions of advertising is to create awareness to the people and to ensure correct delivery of message and finally to buying action. Advertisement includes various media vehicles such as television, digital, print ads and etc. To well localize LG in Malaysia, I would like to choose newspaper advertising, social media advertising as well as outdoors advertising.

Newspaper Advertisement

Newspaper advertisement is considered as traditional way of advertising but it is also the first kind of advertising a business will consider doing. This type of advertisement allows to do more than just advertising one item. Newspaper advertisement is a good way to reach wider audiences, especially those aged 30-plus who tend to read newspaper more frequently than younger groups. Like all forms of advertisement, the advertising costs will depend on the size of the ad what publication was used, what sections of the paper your ad in, the frequency with which the ad runs, and whether to use color in ads. When it comes to price, daily advertising is the costliest, and the best handle is with annual contract.
The above advertisement is promoting the LG washing machine and the dryer machine with only RM 599.99 for both. All the details were listed in the newspaper and readers might not get confused about our products. The word “Murah Bhaaa!” in a yellow box is a unique and creative way to catch readers’ eye to read the advertisement. It is write in Malaysia language which means “Very Cheap!”
However, there are some limitations of using newspaper advertisement. Ad space sometimes can be expensive depends on seasons and it has to compete with against the clutter of other advertisers. (Pleshette, 2012) Besides that, the ad has a short shelf life because most of the people are usually read once and then discarded. Moreover, newspaper are highly visible media, therefore, your competitors can quickly react to your prices.
Social Media Advertisement

Social media advertising is a type of online marketing to get attention from people through the social media websites. (Marshable, 2012) This type of advertising has getting more popular as many people are using social media every day. Social media technology has gives huge changes in the way people communicate and express their opinion. These advancements in communication channel have increased the users’ daily activities. The most common and popular websites such as Facebook and Twitter, as a manner of advertising the business, have experienced a great boom in the business world today. Therefore, LG has the option to create a fan page (only for Malaysia) to advertise their company products. The above picture is the LG advertisement of 3D television on their home page. The main advantage of social media is cost-related. Most of the social media sites are free of charge to access, create profile and post information. It also encourages the creativeness of advertisement as compared to newspaper advertisement.
However, there are some limitations of it. Updating information and advertisements might take time and effort. Sometimes, visitors go to social media is to socialize and are not interested in advertising. This will result in low ROI as visitors do not convert. In some cases, it can be backfire by turning into negative publicity. This is true when your advertisement marketers try to use social media dishonestly. If the products were misrepresent, the company most likely will get caught and suffer the consequences. This will result in lost sales, public outrage and etc.

Outdoor Advertising

The above is a billboard advertisement on purpose to advertise on LG Nexus 4 smart phone. A billboard is a large outdoor advertising structure with the typical size of larger than 480x60. Normally, the billboard can be found in high traffic areas such as high way. From the above billboard, the billboard is advertised by the supermodel Amber Chia. Her image shows the beauty and elegant which also represents the features of Nexus 4.
Since the billboard is placed along the busy street, the ad will be guaranteed that people will see it. Unlike magazines or newspaper where people can flip the channel or turn to other page, billboard allows people to consider whether they like it or not rather than compare with other advertisements offered. Another benefit is that some of the people repeatedly pass the same route, therefore, they will see the billboard regularly and it makes more likely to stick in their mind. However, there are limitations of billboard advertising too. According to marketing scoop, on average, time taken of people will see on the billboard is roughly around 2 – 3 seconds only. This means that billboard needs to be designed in short and clear to the point and showing image is better than text. Besides that, sometimes, growing usage of popup and ad blockers will prevent people from seeing the ads.

8.0 Integrated Marketing Communication Budget on 2013 Integrated Marketing Communication | Budget (RM’000) | Newspaper | RM9,190.20 | Social Media | RM 1000 | Billboard | RM 5,000 |

The above budget list is based on monthly fee. 1. Newspaper: This is based on the advertising rates from DAILY EXPRESS. * Monthly fee: RM9190.20 * Daily Fee: RM9190.20/30days = RM306.34 * Total Annual Fee: Rm 9190.20 x 12months = Rm 110,282.40

2. Social Media: * Monthly Fee: RM 1,000 * Daily Fee : RM 1,000/30days = RM 33.33 * Total Annual Fee: RM 1,000 x 12months = RM 12,000 3. Billboard: 40 x 10 ft billboard * Monthly Fee: RM 5,000 * Daily Fee: RM 5,000/30days = RM 166.67 * Total Annual Fee: RM 5,000 x 12months = RM 60,000
The total budget integrated media communication is RM110,282.40 + RM12,000 + RM60,000 = RM 182,282.40 9.0 Integrated Marketing Communication Timeline Integrated Marketing Communication | January | February | March | April | May | June | Newspaper | | | | | | | Social Media | | | | | | | Billboard | | | | | | |

Integrated Marketing Communication | July | August | September | October | November | December | Newspaper | | | | | | | Social Media | | | | | | | Billboard | | | | | | |

10.0 Conclusion
As a conclusion, in order to create brand awareness as well as strengthen company image, first we need to discover the marketing objectives. Following that, we need to understand our company strengths and weaknesses as well as opportunities and threats from the competitors. The strength is to let us know what is the competitive product is and a weakness is for us to improve. The threat is for us to improve as a reference so that we know what and how to improve in order to make our company the best. After that, to attract local customers, advertising is very important together with the local celebrity endorsement. Lastly, is to choose what kind of media to be used for advertising and also design a budget list so that company will not over budget.

11.0 Referencing * The Wall Street Journal, 2012, update :lg electronics swings to 3Q et profit; shares boosted, viewed on 1st October 2012, < http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20121024-700796.html
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* LG, 2012, Products Information, viewed on 1st October 2012, < http://www.lg.com/global/about-lg/corporate-information/at-a-glance/overview > * Knight, 2009, How to choose the right endorsement for your brand, viewed on 1st October 2012, < http://www.bizreport.com/2009/11/how_to_choose_the_right_endorsement_for_your_brand.html# > * Datamonitor, 2010, LG electronics Inc, Swot analysis, viewed on 2nd October 2012, < http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/551645/lg_electronics_inc_swot_analysis > * Adam, 2010, LG corporation SWOT analysis, viewed on 2nd October 2012, < http://www.freeswotanalysis.com/electronic/60-lg-corporation-swot-analysis.html > * Ahmed, 2011, LG Life’s Good, viewed on 2nd October 2012, < http://www.scribd.com/doc/57155523/LG-Swot-Analysis > * McGrew, 2007, An introduction to integrated marketing communication, viewed on 3rd October 2012, < http://www.slideshare.net/tushn/integrated-marketing-communication-presentation > * ManagementStudyGuide, 2012, Tools of promotion- advertising, sales promotion, public relation, and direct marketing, viewed on 3rd October 2012, < http://www.managementstudyguide.com/tools-of-promotion.htm > * Entrepreneur, 2012, Newspaper advertising, viewed on 4th October 2012, < http://www.entrepreneur.com/encyclopedia/term/82572.html > * Pleshette, n.d., Choosing the right advertisement for your small business, 4th October 2012,< http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol118/admediums.htm > * Marshable, 2012, Social Media Marketing, viewed on 4th October 2012, < http://mashable.com/follow/topics/social-media-marketing/ >