8P- Promotion

As AFA has been around for 5 years and is the biggest Japanese cultural events in South East Asia, many have known about this event. Hence, this is probably the reason why AFA did not do any advertising such as commercials this year. Also, due to the event’s nature, it is unsuitable for them to use one of the promotional tools, “Personal Selling” as well. However, they do practice the other 3 promotional tools: Sales Promotions, Public Relations and Online Presence.

Sales Promotion

There are promotions for the ticketing such as the early bird specials and 2 or 3 day packages, which encourages people to buy their tickets in a package, to save some money (up to $36). This way, tickets may seem more attractive and not only does it boost sales, it reduces the possibility and risk of perishability. 

Public Relations

Public relations build awareness and a positive image for the company by disseminating information in media channels. After the event, XinMSN, Straits Times and mypaper wrote articles about AFA and posted pictures of the events online. These channels are accessed daily by many people and hence, will allow people to learn about this event.

Online Presence

Targeting and accommodating to the characteristics of their target market, “Otakus”, AFA’s main channel of promoting themselves is through the online network.

Firstly, AFA has owns a website and channel. The website provides all the necessary information to the event itself while the channel provides information of the special guests through the form of a video. Fans get to see the interviews with their idols and messages left by them through the channel's webpages. This makes the fans feel closer to their idols by knowing more about them and hence, they will support their idols and experience the atmosphere during the real event.

Besides websites, the platform which everyone is using now is social media. AFA connects to their fans through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Through these platforms, they regularly update statuses, details and photos to their fans which add up to about 229,000.

Secondly, AFA has 5 official regional media partners that supports and promotes their website as well- Culture Japan, Animax, SGCafe, Tokyo OtakuMode and Animavericks.

Culture Japan and Tokyo Otaku Mode are companies that disseminate Japanese cultural information and news to around the World. Danny Choo, who is the owner of Culture Japan as well as the host of AFA, would usually promote the event to his followers and readers in his Facebook and website, making AFA even more noticeable than before. Animax is a television channel that shows anime around the World. SGCafe is an anime and manga forum mainly for Singaporeans and is constantly updated by the community. Lastly, Animavericks is a Japanese entertainment magazine that in based in Australia.

From these, we are able to see that AFA is expanding and promoting itself not only in Singapore, but throughout the world, making fans travel down for the event. Hence, it was a right decision to place the event near the Singapore Changi Airport.