1.

0 Introduction
First of all, the company that we have chosen to survey is Great Eastern Life. It was one of
the most popular Life Insurance company in Malaysia. By doing this assignment, we get to
know how the company actually works in marketing activities. For example, Market
Targeting, Positioning and Differentiation. Hence, Great Eastern Life can make itself more
efficient and effective. They go beyond by offering you access to the best financial protection
solutions. A unique program dedicated to helping you live better.

2.0 Company Background

Great Eastern Life is an insurance company that established in 1908 as a branch office of The
Great Eastern Life Assurance Company Limited. The Malaysian operation was then
transferred to a locally incorporated public company named as Great Eastern Life Assurance
(Malaysia) Berhad (Great Eastern Life) under the Scheme of Transfer of Business. Besides,
Great Eastern was denominated as the Oldest and Largest Life Insurer in Singapore and
Malaysia.
Great Eastern Life is the first and only insurance company in the region with two distribution
channels which are tied agency and bancassurance. The company is also the insurance market
leader in ASEAN which own RM63.5 billion in assets, over 2.9 million policies in force and
a network of 17,000 agents nationwide in 2013. The company was also operated in Brunei,
Indonesia, China and Vietnam. In addition, Great Eastern Life is a member of the OCBC
Group ( Appendix 1).
Great Eastern Life believes that a long-term partnership begins with great customer services.
With this inspiration, the company continually develops innovative and consumer-centric
financial planning products. The targeted customers that selected by Great Eastern Life are
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corporate and public sectors employees
and their families. On the other hand, Great Eastern

Life continues to explore and tap potential market through alternative distribution channel, as
well as in the retirement segment and medical health segment.

Great Eastern Lifes vision is to be the leading financial service provider in Asia, recognized
for our excellence. It is a vision build on the core values of integrity, initiative and
involvement. The mission of Great Eastern Life is to makes life great by providing financial
security, and promoting good health and meaningful relationship which supported by the
slogan Life is Great. The objectives and goals of Great Eastern Life are continues to meet
its customers needs with regard to financial planning, protection and savings ( Appendix 2)
Furthermore, the Headquarters of Great Eastern Life is located at Menara Great Eastern,
Kuala Lumpur. Also, the company has around 21 branches around the Malaysia. ( Appendix 3
) Lastly, Great Eastern Life has won a lot of awards and accolades since all the way it started
the business. ( Appendix 4 )
The Corporate Social Responsibility that offered by Great Eastern Life is Childrencare
Charity Project. This project is a long-term community project launched in 1995. The
purpose of this charity project is benefits children charities under the umbrella of the Social
Welfare Department across Malaysia. (Appendix 5 )

Marketing Mix
3.0 Product
Great Eastern Life is selling a various of unsought products consists of Great Wealth
Accumulation, Life Protection, Health Protection, Debt Cancellation plan and Retirement
planning. Great Wealth Accumulation is an endowment plan affordable and a smart way
towards wealth accumulation. With it, the insured get to enjoy a regular stream of cash along
the way. The purposes of it are to settle PTPTN loan settlement, down payment for housing
loan, future travel fund and career fund. Life Protection is a protection against the loss of
income if the insured passed away. The named beneficiary receives the proceeds and is thus
guaranteed from the financial impact of the death of the insured. Health Protection is a
protection against the risk of getting critical illnesses. The examples of critical illnesses are
stroke, cancer, heart attack and etc. With it, the insured will not be burdened by the financial
obligations resulted from hospitalization and treatment received from the critical illness. Debt
Cancellation Plan is a protection against the leave of a legacy of debts. The common
household debts in Malayisa are credit card, securities, transportation and mortgages. With it,
the debts that the insured owed will be settle and the burden of debt repayment will not
passing to the insureds family. Retirement planning is a plan that provides the insured a
stream of guaranteed income to supplement retirement fund. With it, the insured may not be
suffer in the effect of inflation in retirement and be enough to secure their ideal retirement
lifestyle. ( Appendix 6. )

Branding

The products that provided by Great Eastern Life is under National Brand. It can be said that
because the companys products are compete with local and private brands. Also, the
products are produce, distribute, and carry the name of Great Eastern Life.

Packaging

Insurance policy is an unsought goods that guaranteed by the company to the insured but not
a tangible product. Therefore, there is no any packaging process develops on the product.

Labeling

In insurance industry, labelling is done in the policy book. The policy book is distributed to
the insured when the policy is in force and the payment was made. The policy book consists
of certain product information such as policy number, insurance bills, protection, maturity
date and etc. The purpose that Great Eastern Life does this is convenience. It can be said that
because it allows customer to check their product information whenever they want.
Therefore, customers do not have to call customer service department or agent to seek for
product information.

4.0 Price

In Life Insurance industry, different kind of product have different price. Besides, the pricing
value is computed in terms of age, gender, occupation and smoker or non smoker. In Great
Wealth Accumulation, Great Eastern Life chooses to focus their target on 18-23 age students.
The price setting for students are around RM150 to RM250 saving per month. In Life
Protection, Great Eastern Life targets their market segment at working adults and elderly. The
price setting for them are starting from RM300 to RM800 saving per month. The price setting
is variable due to occupation which means higher income followed by higher premium. In
Health Protection, Great Eastern Life selects their target at baby, teenagers, adults and elderly.
The stand price rate for each level is around RM150 to RM400 premium per month. Besides,
smokers and non smokers have different premium to pay. In Debt Cancellation Plan, Great
Eastern Life chooses to focus their target at working age adults. The price setting for them is
around RM150 to RM300 premium per month. In Retirement planning, Great Eastern Life
targets their market segment at elderly within the age of 35 to 60. The standard pricing
method is around RM300 to RM 800 premium per month.

Pricing Strategies

The pricing strategy that uses by Great Eastern Life is customer value-based pricing. It can
be said that because each of the policy is definitely designed based on the insured will and
condition.

Price Adjustment Strategies

Great Eastern Life adjusts the product price through customer-segment pricing. The
company charges different price at the different customer-segment. Actually, the company has
divided customer-segment into few classes which are government workers, office staffs, high
risk workers and students. With these, different classes of customer has different policy
premium.

5.0 Place

Number of Channel

Great Eastern Life is an insurance company, therefore the type of marketing channel it uses is
starting from principal (GE Life) to insurer (agent) and end up with insured (customer).
Firstly, the principal presents the products course to the insurer. Then, the insurer has to
attend the product course and achieves satisfactory attendance. Next, the insurer has to take
part in the product examination. Only if the insurer passes the examination, he or she has the
qualification to sell the product. After the examination, insurer can start presenting the
product to its insured. In addition, insurer can only sells the product that they passed in the
product examination. For example, if the insurer fails to pass the Health Protection, he or she
may not be able to sell the products regard to Health Protection. ( Appendix 7 )

Location

Great Eastern Life has operated around 21 branches in whole Malaysia. Each states in
Malaysia have at least one branches located there. The headquarters of Great Eastern Life is
located at Menara Great Eastern 303 Jalan Ampang 50450 Kuala Lumpur. With all the
branches, customers can make their customer service, compliments and complaint and
insurance enquiry. ( Appendix 8. )

Multichannel distribution system

Great Eastern Life uses multichannel distribution system to sets up a few marketing channels
to reach its customer segments. The company cooperates with a few proxy settings to help
the company by selling the products. For example, Super Group is one of the agencies that
help Great Eastern Life to sell its products. Apart from this, Super Group may also provide
customer services to the companys customers. ( Appendix 9. )

6.0 Promotion

In this modern generation, most of the company use promotion variables to attract customers.
Promotion can be said as activities that communicate the merits of the product and convince
target customers to purchase it. The dominant aim of promotion is to attract the publics
attention about the companys product and its attractiveness. Apart from attract attention from
the public, promotion may also helps to generate information about the products to their
actual buyers and potential buyers. Thus, the products will be hotly debated among the
society in order to help to raise the quantity demand of a product.
Great Eastern Life is not a retailer or wholesaler in the market, therefore they dont promote
their products by sales promotion and public relations. The major promotion tools that
implemented by the company are advertising and direct marketing.

Advertising

The way that Great Eastern Life advertises is through LIVE GREAT Programme. Live Great
Programme offers several of activities and charity work to the members. The programme
consists of Health and Beauty, Diet and Fitness, Wellbeing and Success, Parenting and Life
Great Guide. As Live Great members, they will be entitled to a wide range of health and
wellness privileges, member-only invitation to seminars and useful tips from health experts.
This programme may really helps the company to build up good customer relationship. (
Appendix 10 )
In addition, Great Eastern Life has being provided the Live Great card under the membership
scheme which helps its members to save money while shopping. With it, members get to
enjoy the promotion offered by the company. For example, members get to enjoy 20%
discount off for GNC supplement, 10% discount off for BMS Organic product and 10%
discount off for World of Sports items and etc. ( Appendix 11 )
Furthermore, Great Eastern Life has offered some wellness tools to the members. These
handy tools helps member to define where you stand and what to aim for. The wellness tools
consist of body mass index calculator, daily calorie needs calculator, exercise calorie
calculator, body fat calculator and
7 so on. With it, member gets to looking for some references
and be able to maintain healthy lifestyle. Through advertising, the company may build up
long-term image for its product. Not only that, advertising can trigger quick sales. ( Appendix
12 )

Direct Marketing

The way that Great Eastern Life implements the direct marketing is through set up a
Workshop and Events. The workshop and events that organised by the company are lectured
by the expertise and its mostly free of charge. Apart from that, the company is going to set
up the events at each sates around Malaysia. With this event, product information and
message is directed to a specific customer. The message that brings out by workshop is
immediate and customized. Moreover, the event may allow a dialogue between the marketing
team and the consumer. Thus, customers are getting easier to understand the products and
information. ( Appendixe 13 )

7.0 Recommendations

Although Great Eastern Life was the largest and most established life insurance company in
Malaysia, as they have 21 branches nationwide and more than 17,000 agents in providing
solutions on financial planning, protection and savings to solve their customers' needs, but
most of their company agents are Chinese.
Since Malaysia is a multiethnical society, Great Eastern Life should consider the importance
of this issue. They should hire more other races agents other than Chinese. Different races of
agents can be more understanding what the same races of customers are actually needs. As
Government always said that we are Satu Malaysia, hiring different races of agents do help
and leads more peoples to begin.
Not only that, different races of agents can makes customers feel more approachable and
comfy to talk to. By doing so, Great Eastern Life can increase more different races of
customers.
Furthermore, Great Eastern Life only sells life insurance. The company is not selling other
insurance such as general life insurance. It should make more consideration on this sector as
the company was the leader of insurance company.
Many of the loyal customer of Great Eastern Life that wish to buy general life insurance
forced to purchase from other insurance company as they are not selling. Selling a general
life insurance do helps them increase their companys profit as well.
Moreover, Great Eastern Life was under the umbrella of the Social Welfare Department
across Malaysia to help children that need help. Actually not only humans, but animals need
help too.
As the biggest insurance company in Malaysia, the company should do an example to show
other first. Compare to children, animals seriously need more help because most of the
peoples only concern on humans and ignored that many of the animals are actually pity too.
Helping animals do help them create a good image as well.

8.0 Conclusion

As a conclusion, we learn about the marketing strategy that implemented by Great Eastern
Life after the research and report that we done for this assignment. Since marketing is
extremely important in business development, so this is a great chances for us to know about
how a company doing their marketing process. Therefore, we will have better experience and
information based on the business development. Besides, we can understand how Great
Eastern Life becomes a leading insurances service provider in Malaysia. It is due to their
distinctive marketing strategy and successful marketing research about the behaviour of
consumer, to understand what they needs and wants Knowing what consumer needs and
wants is the first step of marketing research. Lastly, all of the members have fully contributed
to complete this assignment.

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References

1) https://www.greateasternlife.com
2) https://www.greateasternlife.com/my/en/insurance/corporate/c_abt_core.htm
3) https://www.greateasternlife.com/my/en/insurance/corporate/c_abt_mt.htm
4) https://www.greateasternlife.com/my/en/insurance/corporate/c_Accolades.htm
5) https://www.greateasternlife.com/my/en/insurance/products/products_wealth.htm
6) https://livegreat.greateasternlife.com/my/whylivegreat.htm
7) https://livegreat.greateasternlife.com/my/healthandwellness.htm
8) https://livegreat.greateasternlife.com/my/memberprivileges.htm
9) https://livegreat.greateasternlife.com/my/wellnesstools.htm
10) https://www.greateasternlife.com/my/en/insurance/pdf/Love.pdf

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