Serving Stories, Spreading Smiles: IMC Students Empower Local and Inclusive Entrepreneurs at Gombak Food Festival 3.0

Entrepreneurships that are based locally, use pop-ups or those that employ or train persons with disabilities (PwDs) are always on the lookout for marketplaces to sell their products and grow their businesses.

Having products that are innovative, priced fairly for the target market and promotions that are effective alone are inadequate as strategic places for selling products need to be available as well. Integrated marketing communication (IMC) when executed well ensures that entrepreneurs are visible through an amalgamation of marketing communication messages carried by a clever media mix of traditional and digital media embracing artificial intelligence.

This was the goal of the Gombak Food Festival 3.0 organised by IMC students at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) as part of their assessments. Two productive, hard-working days at IIUM Gombak, that served as a hub for the entrepreneurs, featured a combination of hard selling and soft selling techniques practised by the students as they promoted a wide array of delicious foods to the IIUM community.

The festival, organized from 6 to 7 January 2026, was themed, COMMic: Serving Stories, Spreading Smiles.

The ethical dimension was also taught and upheld by the students. By helping these entrepreneurs promote their products, the students carried out their role in being beneficial to others by empowering the entrepreneurs - a value accentuated in Islam.

The Gombak Food Festival 3.0 marked the peak of the individual campaigns the IMC students planned and executed for their clients in the semester, while forming their own IMC agency.

It was a special moment with the launch of the festival by the IIUM Deputy Rector (Student Development and Community Engagement), Prof. Dato' Dr. Mohamad Fauzan Noordin who was accompanied by the Dean of AbdulHamid AbuSulayman Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences (AHAS KIRKHS), Prof. Dr. Hafiz Zakariya and the Head of the Department of Communication, Dr. Rizalawati Ismail.

The goals of the launch were to create awareness and spark intense excitement of the festival and to appreciate the students' efforts, as the main organisers of the event and their efforts in conducting IMC campaigns since the outset of the semester.

The festival attracted colossal crowds which contributed to impressive sales. Indeed, smiles were spread everywhere as the theme suggested.

The feel-good factor as the outcome of helping these entrepreneurs was apparent. Some students expressed a deeper understanding of autism after working with their client, Autism Café Project. They were mesmerized by the passion demonstrated by its founder, Mohd. Adli Yahya. Another client, Akademia Remaja Islam Autisma (ARISMA), had a comparably enthusiastic founder, Siti Khadijah Mohd Zamin, that gently guided the students as they sold Malaysian snacks. Community-Based Rehabilitation Centre KAMII or Pusat Pemulihan dalam Komuniti KAMII (PPDK KAMII) had a team of teachers visit the festival, led by Cikgu Shima while observing a group of IMC students selling products made by PwDs at the centre. The inclusion of entrepreneurs involving PwDs in the festival was to instill in the students a sense of empathy and the importance of inclusivity.

There were pop-up entrepreneurs such as kukii and Brew & Blossom and other entrepreneurs in Gombak such as Ahmad Fried Chicken, Cendol Batu 7, Tuns Anuar, My QT Bites in addition to DindaKanda Food that is nearby Gombak. The festival also included a special vendor for the first time, Cinchaus, that was a hit with the students as it sold an assortment of cincau drinks.

IMC students persuaded customers to buy from them through the wonderful displays and sales promotions tactics through special discounts. They inoculated a sense of excitement by having games encouraging people to interact, be involved and have fun. Concurrently, the festival social media posts were persistent to attract visitors, reflecting the students' unwavering motivation and determination to maximise the event's visibility.

The festival's reach extended further as it included the International Virtual Seminar on IMC with a Conscience 2026 featuring eight papers with speakers from Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, Thailand, Bangladesh, Timor-Leste, and China. The presentations upheld the use of IMC morally, ethically and responsibly from academic and practitioner dimensions. The importance of using IMC with a conscience needs to be a constant reminder and the seminar was an effort in this direction.

IIUM greatly supports activities that centre on community engagement and AHAS KIRKHS formalizes this through the synergised academic activity programme (SAA) which is conducted in essence by, "integrating teaching, consultancy, research, innovation, and publication, while inculcating Islamic values and purpose," as mentioned on IslamiCity (see: https://tinyurl.com/mr3p7m58) thus, giving birth to the Gombak Food Festival 3.0.

University students are imminent members of the industry and events such as the Gombak Food Festival 3.0, ensure that IIUM plays a pivotal role in nurturing them to be graduates who are holistically developed; academically competent and spiritually grounded as they contribute meaningfully to society.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Aida Mokhtar, of the Department of Communication, AbdulHamid AbuSulayman Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences of the International Islamic University Malaysia. She is the lecturer of COMM3315: Integrated Marketing Communication and programme advisor of Gombak Food Festival 3.0.