By Gemma Hayton, BSc Business and Management Studies

We are now nearly two weeks into our internship and it has flown by!

For the last two days of our second week, we were with the marketing department. We met at Dentsu One, TIME dotCom’s marketing agency, and heard talks covering all aspects of TIME’s marketing. Mun, from the communications team, told us what she does on a daily basis. She also explained how interdependent her role is with the other departments in the business; particularly, the marketing, corporate, IT and customer service departments. Her job is to ensure that all communications from TIME dotCom are consistent with the business brand image.

Motivational speakers

Grace, the head of marketing, informally shared her tips for interviews and working life with us, as well as the best places to travel. She particularly emphasised the fact that everyone should follow their passions in life so that they can be the best that they can be in whatever they are doing. Her life insights, along with all the other TIME staff we’ve met over last two weeks, were really motivational and inspiring. Their stories really have struck a chord and we are really starting to understand the differences between life in Malaysia compared to the UK. One particular difference we’ve noticed is how patriotic Malaysians are and how proud they are to be Malaysian. However, they are also very inclusive of all nationalities as it is a very diverse country, consisting of Chinese and Indian nationals as well as Malaysian. Another difference we noticed when going for meals is that they don’t use knives. Instead they use forks and spoons or sometimes their hands. This was a big adjustment for us to make as this isn’t done in western countries. We all struggled to cut our food without some of it flying onto the table or each other! 

Following a recommendation from my Sussex friend who is currently studying at Monash Malaysia for one term, Diana and I went for lunch at a restaurant at Fishbowl. It was so delicious and very refreshing to have some vegetables! We have been eating lots of noodles and fried food so the idea of eating a bowl of veggies was so exciting and we skipped the sushi that everyone else was having.

Customer segmentation

After lunch, a member of the marketing department, who is responsible for marketing AIMs data centre (which we’d previously visited), explained their long term goals. We also learned about different types of marketing and how TIME reaches each specific market segment. She also covered the different marketing strategies, such as emotive marketing, which TIME adopts to do this. Appealing to each customer segment’s needs enables TIME to relate to the customers and build relationships with them, allowing for the customers to feel valued and therefore more likely to switch to TIME. These talks were really insightful and allowed us to understand more about how TIME market to their range of customers. 

The day was extremely insightful, and as a business management student who is thinking of a career in marketing, it was very useful for me to learn about different marketing roles. Just before we left to go home for the evening, we were told that we would be visiting Facebook Malaysia the next day. So far our experiences and opportunities at TIME have been incredible and have far exceeded all of our expectations! I can’t wait to see what the next two weeks have to offer.