I was in Lumut last Friday. It was a 4-hour exciting drive, via the Klang-Teluk Intan-Lumut route. The scenery was nothing short of beautiful. It’s been a while since I last hung out in Lumut.
That night I was given the privilege by Yang Berbahagia Prof Dato’ Ts Dr Zaliman Sauli, the Vice Chancellor of Universiti Malaysia Perlis and Assoc Prof Dr Nor’izah to share my thoughts on branding and marketing strategy with the management of UniMAP. I was deeply honoured to share the stage with Yang Berbahagia Prof Datuk Ir Dr Wahid Omar, the former Vice Chancellor of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and a few new friends from the UNIMAS Corporate Communication Department.
Universiti Malaysia Perlis is a state-of-the-art technology and engineering-focused public university. Despite the fact that it is located in Perlis, the smallest and most northern state in Malaysia—bordering Thailand, UniMAP indeed has world-class facilities, support systems, programs and courses. How do I know all these you asked? Well, I’ve been to the UniMAP campus a few times already. And the most recent one was last month.
For now, many people aren’t aware of all these. That’s right. You aren’t aware of it too, are you? That’s because UniMAP has yet to commence its marketing push aggressively. The marketing push is at its minimum—for now. I have the impression that the university prefers to focus on end-to-end quality first before making its marketing move. They wish to go all out on putting UniMAP into the regional market however taking care of the fundamental layers needs to be prioritised first.
At the surface level, many do not see UniMAP as a mainstream public university of choice. The first impression is that it’s too far from Kuala Lumpur. Second, it is located in the state of Perlis which practically has nothing much to offer—a dry transit state for people to go to Langkawi Island or Hatyai, Thailand. And third, there’s not much information about UniMAP available on the web making them decide to go with the ‘normal’ 5 choices; Universiti Malaya, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and Universiti Putra Malaysia. Well, I do not blame those people for the lack of information on the higher learning education vertical in Malaysia. UniMAP is the 17th public university in Malaysia, making it among the new universities being built in this country. One of the reasons it is located in the state of Perlis is that the state itself is one of Malaysia’s education hubs—where there are various higher learning education institutions located in Perlis. Being away from the cities makes the campus peaceful and suitable for the students to focus on their studies, avoiding all the unnecessary distractions away from it.
I was told that UniMAP is about to go ahead with its marketing push. Once they do, which I believe will happen real soon, the internet will wreak havoc and students will start to flock in big time—I’m sure of it.
