Global digital imaging and printing solutions provider Epson has won two awards at the prestigious Marketing Excellence Awards 2016—a bronze award for Excellence in B2B Marketing in Singapore for its ENGAGE2WIN Regional Dealers Program, and a bronze award for excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility for its initiative to sponsor youth footballers from the National Football Academy on holistic overseas training stints.
The Marketing Excellence Awards organized by Marketing Magazine, is Singapore’s main event recognizing excellence across the marketing communications services industry. The B2B Marketing category at the awards recognizes the best organization that effectively reaches its B2B audience through creative marketing efforts which encompass advertising, branding, marketing, and communications work for B2B brands; while the Corporate Social Responsibility category recognizes the best marketing campaign, initiative, or program by an organization for a charity or cause the organization had a partnership or association with, resulting in positive effects and outcomes for society or the cause.
The ENGAGE2WIN dealer program is a point-based reward program for Epson’s dealers for its large format printers across five countries, enabling dealers to redeem rewards through an online catalog. Dealers from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines are awarded points based on the sales of large format printers they make.
The program has helped to improve dealer relationship management and increased loyalty towards Epson products. In the first quarter of 2016 of the program launch, dealers from 3 out of the 5 countries had more than 90 percent registration rate, with an average participation rate of 79 percent for all countries. 100 percent of the rewards budget had been fully expended by the second quarter of 2016, and points issued to dealers increased by 34 percent compared to the first quarter.
Additionally, as part of a three-year sponsorship to the Football Association of Singapore, Epson embarked on a campaign to raise awareness of the local football scene in Singapore and to support local football talent.
Leveraging on its strategic relationships with sporting giants, Epson provided a series of training stints to Singapore’s young footballers, with one of Japan’s J2 League teams, Matsumoto Yamaga FC in June 2015. In December 2015, Epson Singapore offered Singapore national goalkeeper Izwan Mahbud the opportunity to train and be “talent-scouted” by the region’s best football managers at Yamaga FC.
And in June 2016, Epson offered six U-14 and U-15 youth players a training and cultural exchange experience where they trained with top J-League players and were exposed to new training techniques.
“Both the awards are recognition of our strength and success of our regional marketing efforts and local CSR outreach. We would like to highlight that collaboration with the local football community and youth development is one of the ways we give back to the community and is integrated with our marketing efforts. We look to continue building the Epson brand in Singapore and the region, and to seek to support and inspire our youths to pursue their passions,” said Toshimitsu Tanaka, managing director (Southeast Asia), Epson Singapore.