The International Event for Entrepreneurship, Business Opportunities & Intellectual Property Rights in Asia Success Story: LINGUAPHONE, UK The Linguaphone Group is a world-leading provider of distance & classroom-based language training solutions. In their stable is Pingu’s English, an educational & entertaining children’s English course for those aged 3-7+ years old based on the animated television character, Pingu. Sarah Cole, the Head of Marketing at Linguaphone, shares with us more about their business expansion success. Teaching English naturally leads to business expansion overseas. Why did you choose Southeast Asia as one of your areas of focus? As an international publisher based in the UK, we have been selling self-study language courses to the South East Asian market for over 100 years. Over the last 50 years we have developed experience in face-to-face English language training for adults. We have partners across Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines and Thailand. We know how important South East Asian markets take their child’s education. This is one of the reasons why South East Asia is a key priority for Pingu’s English through 2009 -10. Linguaphone Group exhibited at FLAsia 2008. How did you come to hear about FLAsia, and decide to exhibit? We are a member of the International Franchise Association and heard about FLAsia through them. We decided to exhibit there as our research showed that the exhibition had a good reputation in South East Asia and was a key place to meet new potential Master Licensees. What were your objectives in exhibiting at FLAsia? Did you meet them? We were looking to talk to potential business partners who had the experience, resources and enthusiasm to develop a network of Pingu’s English Schools across a number of markets, including Singapore. We were also interested to meet companies with experience in distributing products to kindergartens and schools in the market. In terms of our experience of working with FLAsia, we were impressed by all the support we received from FLAsia staff before the event, and also when we arrived! At the event itself, we were overwhelmed by the response on the stand and three months later we signed a partner. So yes I would say that our expectations were more than met! How did you sign Apple Tree Pte Ltd as your Master Licensee? What were the deciding factors in signing Apple Tree? We started talking to Apple Tree Pte Ltd immediately after FLAsia 2008 and had a follow-up meeting a few weeks later. There were many reasons why we were interested in Apple Tree Ptd Ltd as a potential business partner for Pingu’s English. They have become a leading provider of kindergarten and playgroup programs for pre-school children in Singapore over the last 18 years. During our discussions we were also very impressed by their ideas and strategies for developing Pingu’s English. They were appointed as our exclusive Pingu’s English Master Licensee for Singapore in January 2009. Following their training, we are now working with them to support the launch of their first Pingu’s English School opening in July. What advice would you give to exhibitors at FLAsia 2009? Allow plenty of time before the exhibition to promote your presence there as much possible through your own website, e-marketing, press and PR activity. On the stand make sure you have plenty of give-away items and forms to capture each prospects’ full contact details. Prompt follow-up after the show is also key – aim to make contact with all of your prospects from the show within 48 hours if possible. « Back to the Mailer