Ali’s ‘brand’ highlighted throughout media.

Brand management is a common thing for any corporate in creating their credibility and reputation in the market. However, it may sound weird and something new if Mahallah Ali imposed the same thing and managed to do it well. For them, Ali is an important  brand.

Beginning from semester 1 2005/2006, Mahallah Ali Representative Committee (MRC) through Publication & ICT Secretariat,  series of project planned to enhance credibility and reputation of Mahallah Ali as the leading mahallah in International  Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM).

According to Zamri Mohamad, the head of the secretariat, “I may say it is coincidence. At the very beginning, we are planning to market our brand through our achievement in the campus. Yet, things change. Mahallah Ali is not only known inside the campus but also had been given an opportunity to be highlighted in the media.”

After several discussion made with the members of the MRC, the secretariat decided to go for the media, locally and slowly move to the international level.

“We do some research based on several websites and magazines published by students in some universities outside  Malaysia. We noticed that, they are not only focusing in publishing newsletters. Some residential college representative have their own newspaper and create their own ‘television programme’ by recruiting their residents to be the journalists, layout designers and having their own production team,” he said. 

He believed that MRC together with the residents of Mahallah Ali  have significant roles to make it real. It is a goal for MRC to make each of the residents proud to say that Mahallah Ali, is the best place called home in this university.

“We do understand that we have an important role to uphold the good name of IIUM and  try at our best to fulfill the Triple ICE in every aspect of our action. Because of that, we are very concern and careful with every single thing that we choose to be highlighted through the media.”

For the future planning, Publication & ICT Secretariat hopes that the Student Development Division (S-Dev) could help for the future  programmes.

“We need a lot of support and participation from the residents  and some important equipments like a digital camera, camcorder, a computer and things that are related to record  these activities in the form of printed and audio-video materials.”

He mentioned that this is a good investment  for the university for a long term. The materials soon could be a reference for the new members in MRC to plan and do the same thing or better for the mahallah and the university.

“Those equipments are not for us. We are not here forever and soon new members of the board  will take over. We did face some difficulities in getting things recorded and only rely on the committees to provide us with digital cameras and camcorder. Based on this situation, we think the mahallah should have its own equipment and utilize it for good. So far we have our own operational room and it is a  good place for us to start ” he added.

As the final student who is majoring in Print Media and Journalism, he admitted that the role of the lectures  under the department of Communication IIUM played an important role for him to contribute for the mahallah.

“Lectures have done their best to mold us in every aspect. It is up to us on how to turn it into something practical in our life.”

Students  of Print Media have been exposed with several broadcast and newspaper organization through series of educational visit  organized by them. Direct contact with BERNAMA, Utusan Karya, TV3, RTM and Karangkraf had gave an idea for him to develop new ideas in presenting mahallah Ali.

“The main board of  MRC gives a lot of support for the secretariat to presents something new and always working side by side for each project that benefits all.”

Until the end of this year, the new board of  the MRC has organized and participated in more than 16 programmes beginning from January until the end of December 2005.

About the future planning, he added, “Soon we will upload some video presentation on what is going inside the mahallah and the MRC through our own webtv that can be access through www.aliman.cjb.net.  For the moment, we managed to upload two videos so far into a personal blog and it is a  success  to  see it can be watch without any problem.”

Appointed as the editor for Alif’s newletter, he combined the experiences as the freelance writer for 2 Malay national newspapers, columnist for several magazines, books author and became the content development assistant for the 1st Islamic channel in Malaysia to generate exciting ideas for ALIF and MRC.

 “It still not perfect, too many errors which I admit. But I will try my best,” he concluded.

Last December, mahallah Ali appeared in the Utusan Malaysia and in the I magazine, an  islamic monthly published by Karangkraf  for the issue, ‘Mencari Identiti Hiburan Islam.’