So after a lovely weekend free of pitch work it was straight into project three on Monday morning...
Project three is all about increasing a charity's online value according to a live brief that will be presented back to some of the big dogs in the UK media industry (many from our own agencies) and sent over to the charities themselves.
As per usual, we were split into teams and given our charities. My team was given the ileostomy and internal pouch support group- a very niche charity that, to be honest, I had never heard of before! Our task was to improve the website and suggest potential media opportunities to combat the challenges included in the brief. Luckily we cracked on with all the nitty gritty and so were in a good position for when the Squared team moved the day of presentation forward from next Friday to next Thursday. I will of course keep you posted on how this goes next weekend, but for now, all is well. I will urge you if you have friends or family affected by an ileostomy or internal pouch to direct them to http://www.iasupport.org/- the charity is doing some great work and the site hosts an outstanding network of support!
Aside from project work, we have had a panel session around Search Engine Marketing which really reinforced that search is an integral part any media plan/ activity. It has become something the majority of the population do every day and is something that can no longer be ignored by any brand that wants to be taken seriously in the digital world. It is the bread and butter of modern marketing, as it is a clear channel that links the offline world with online allowing for maximum conversion opportunity. It also allows for brands to learn a lot about their consumer's behaviour and tap into their searching mindset; allowing for creativity within search campaigns that are based on the people themselves. As Mark Mitchell (Heard of Search UK at Omnicom Media Group) "let's make search sexy"!
Had a bit of a personal achievement this week- Lizzie (a fellow square) and I made a short presentation about squared in our company meeting. It was hands down the most terrifying thing I have done in my short 21 years and marked a milestone in how much this programme has helped me improve my confidence. To say I am proud of myself would be an under statement. This was a great week.
Again, bit of short post but this week has largely been about project time! Follow @kerrydatlen for regular updates on squared life.
Saturday, 21 April 2012
Saturday, 14 April 2012
What a Week!
First of all, I had an early morning (slightly hungover) epiphany which spurred me to get up and write this week's blog...
On the train home I was a little bit inebriated (post pitch booze up) and took that opportunity to catch up on some games in Draw Something. It was only when I read messages commenting on the quality of my drawings that I likened playing Draw Something pissed to the advertising industry. Because I wasn't focused on who I was drawing to and the quality of my drawing (or message if you like) I completely ruined our turn ranking (if you don't know what I am going on about- get Draw Something) meaning we had to start back at the beginning. I liken this to the ad industry because all too often a message is delivered by a brand that doesn't really consider it's audience who then goes back to the first stages of consideration. I suppose this analogy links back to everything I have heard throughout the course- be simple and considerate, know your audience and take time to plan the message and the channels to reach them. I just don't understand why something so simple isn't being put into practice a lot more? And what can I do to change it?
Ramblings aside, this week has been hard, tiring, stressful, but most of all rewarding. It was the final week of project three, so we were all frantically getting our pitches together for Friday afternoon. Each group pitched their idea and media plan to Paul Ridsdale (Head of marketing at ITV) and Helen Lawrence (Marketing Manager of new platforms at ASOS) and we impressed them so much Helen later tweeted:
""Wow. Amazing day judging incredible work from the Squared 2012 teams. So impressed. Amazing talent, they're sure to be millionaires by 30"
Other than project work, we had a toolbox session on Google Analytics, where we were asked to analyse the Google Store Website using real time data. I found it really insightful as it helped me consider where websites go wrong and potential solutions to problems. This is something I would like to take back in my agency work as it would definitely aid in effective digital planning. It was also nice to go back to looking at numbers #imissmyspreadsheets.
Simon Rogers (editor at the Guardian) gave a talk on "beautiful data" and the use of infographics in supporting explanation. He gave multiple examples of how data can be used in interesting ways, for example: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/interactive/2011/dec/07/london-riots-twitter and opened up new ways of thinking about and combining different data sources in order to create something people actually care about.
This week has been very full on, so apologies for the brief post as I am off to make the most of the sunshine and fresh air! As ever, keep up to date following @kerrydatlen. Project 3 starts Monday...
On the train home I was a little bit inebriated (post pitch booze up) and took that opportunity to catch up on some games in Draw Something. It was only when I read messages commenting on the quality of my drawings that I likened playing Draw Something pissed to the advertising industry. Because I wasn't focused on who I was drawing to and the quality of my drawing (or message if you like) I completely ruined our turn ranking (if you don't know what I am going on about- get Draw Something) meaning we had to start back at the beginning. I liken this to the ad industry because all too often a message is delivered by a brand that doesn't really consider it's audience who then goes back to the first stages of consideration. I suppose this analogy links back to everything I have heard throughout the course- be simple and considerate, know your audience and take time to plan the message and the channels to reach them. I just don't understand why something so simple isn't being put into practice a lot more? And what can I do to change it?
Ramblings aside, this week has been hard, tiring, stressful, but most of all rewarding. It was the final week of project three, so we were all frantically getting our pitches together for Friday afternoon. Each group pitched their idea and media plan to Paul Ridsdale (Head of marketing at ITV) and Helen Lawrence (Marketing Manager of new platforms at ASOS) and we impressed them so much Helen later tweeted:
""Wow. Amazing day judging incredible work from the Squared 2012 teams. So impressed. Amazing talent, they're sure to be millionaires by 30"
Other than project work, we had a toolbox session on Google Analytics, where we were asked to analyse the Google Store Website using real time data. I found it really insightful as it helped me consider where websites go wrong and potential solutions to problems. This is something I would like to take back in my agency work as it would definitely aid in effective digital planning. It was also nice to go back to looking at numbers #imissmyspreadsheets.
Simon Rogers (editor at the Guardian) gave a talk on "beautiful data" and the use of infographics in supporting explanation. He gave multiple examples of how data can be used in interesting ways, for example: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/interactive/2011/dec/07/london-riots-twitter and opened up new ways of thinking about and combining different data sources in order to create something people actually care about.
This week has been very full on, so apologies for the brief post as I am off to make the most of the sunshine and fresh air! As ever, keep up to date following @kerrydatlen. Project 3 starts Monday...
Sunday, 8 April 2012
Sir John Hegarty and Rory Sutherland all in one week...
As the title suggests, it has been a pretty epic week in terms of guest speakers!
We heard from Sir John Hegarty on Tuesday who addressed the problems we are having with creativity in today's media world. He went on to say that TV is not dead, we are just creating "fucking boring" ads for it. He suggested that TV should be used as a starting point for brands to create more interesting conversations then proceeded to play The Guardian Three little pigs advert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP88d87AV1k proving that TV ads can be extremely creative. What I liked about John was his no nonsense approach, he was asked multiple wanky media questions which all drove back to one answer: "It's simple, just be bloody interesting!". He kept his points concise and described technology as turning leaks into waterfalls- a point which many of the guest speakers have alluded to. Technology has given the consumer the tools with which to voice their opinions openly and publicly and the ability to share without limitations. This means that the consumer has the power to do a lot of the media work for brands- something I coined as "freedia". Like Sir John Hegarty said- it's simple, give the consumer something to talk about and they will do the work for you. I liked to look at it from the point of view that technology is creativity's wingman- who can both enhance/destroy an idea's game in one fail swoop.
The majority of the week has been taken up with project work for project 2, which is going well! We had our first client meeting that put a spanner in the works but all in all we are on track and I will give a full update once we have pitched on Friday (although we are doing karaoke Friday night so I may not be in a fit state to write on Saturday!). Aside from project work we also had a toolbox session around coding- although very interesting I doubt I will be a web producer any time soon!
The second talk of the week came from Rory Sutherland a man who is unbelievably eloquent and side splittingly humorous. At one point he compared queue jumping in Britain to paedophilia which basically demonstrates the tone of the whole talk. Rory largely spoke about behavioural psychology and our innate desire to rationalise everything. He stated that people always want to attribute success to a strategic decision instead of just accepting that it was pure luck or other factors that generate that success. He likened it to the riding of an elephant in that by in large the elephant will go where it wants to go, yet the individual riding it believes they have control over it. Rory suggested that we need to embrace system 1 thinking in order to produce successful advertising and go back to what people really want. It seems that simplifying the message according to what motivates the audience is the success SO WHY ISN'T THIS HAPPENING?!
In order to filter the media BS out of my vocab and get back to a simpler way of thinking, I have generated a list (work in progress) of words that are over-used and quite frankly irritating:
Silo, Zeitgeist, Beta, Adhoc, Caveat, moving forward....
The list will no doubt get longer throughout the remainder of my time in squared so keep up to date by following @kerrydatlen and feel free to add your own!
We heard from Sir John Hegarty on Tuesday who addressed the problems we are having with creativity in today's media world. He went on to say that TV is not dead, we are just creating "fucking boring" ads for it. He suggested that TV should be used as a starting point for brands to create more interesting conversations then proceeded to play The Guardian Three little pigs advert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP88d87AV1k proving that TV ads can be extremely creative. What I liked about John was his no nonsense approach, he was asked multiple wanky media questions which all drove back to one answer: "It's simple, just be bloody interesting!". He kept his points concise and described technology as turning leaks into waterfalls- a point which many of the guest speakers have alluded to. Technology has given the consumer the tools with which to voice their opinions openly and publicly and the ability to share without limitations. This means that the consumer has the power to do a lot of the media work for brands- something I coined as "freedia". Like Sir John Hegarty said- it's simple, give the consumer something to talk about and they will do the work for you. I liked to look at it from the point of view that technology is creativity's wingman- who can both enhance/destroy an idea's game in one fail swoop.
The majority of the week has been taken up with project work for project 2, which is going well! We had our first client meeting that put a spanner in the works but all in all we are on track and I will give a full update once we have pitched on Friday (although we are doing karaoke Friday night so I may not be in a fit state to write on Saturday!). Aside from project work we also had a toolbox session around coding- although very interesting I doubt I will be a web producer any time soon!
The second talk of the week came from Rory Sutherland a man who is unbelievably eloquent and side splittingly humorous. At one point he compared queue jumping in Britain to paedophilia which basically demonstrates the tone of the whole talk. Rory largely spoke about behavioural psychology and our innate desire to rationalise everything. He stated that people always want to attribute success to a strategic decision instead of just accepting that it was pure luck or other factors that generate that success. He likened it to the riding of an elephant in that by in large the elephant will go where it wants to go, yet the individual riding it believes they have control over it. Rory suggested that we need to embrace system 1 thinking in order to produce successful advertising and go back to what people really want. It seems that simplifying the message according to what motivates the audience is the success SO WHY ISN'T THIS HAPPENING?!
In order to filter the media BS out of my vocab and get back to a simpler way of thinking, I have generated a list (work in progress) of words that are over-used and quite frankly irritating:
Silo, Zeitgeist, Beta, Adhoc, Caveat, moving forward....
The list will no doubt get longer throughout the remainder of my time in squared so keep up to date by following @kerrydatlen and feel free to add your own!
Sunday, 1 April 2012
Project Two, Week Three...
The previous week's hard work was used to pitch on Monday to a panel of investors including one of the founders of asuitthatfits.com, David Hathiramani. Although our idea may have had some flaws (ONLY SOME), our pitch went down a treat and overall, it was a great team effort.
As soon as the previous project was over it was time to start a new one. So, on Tuesday, we were given the brief for project two and divided into new teams who we would be working with for the next three weeks. The task for these three weeks would be persuading a brand who has previously only invested marketing money in offline to move some budget into online. Initially, I wasn't really sure I liked the task in hand but as the week progressed I definitely got more into it. Now, I can report- all is going well and my team is working productively too.
So aside from project work, we also had a workshop on the use of Google adwords. I wish I could say I was any good at it, but... I tried! A big pointer I took from these sessions which I suppose I have been thinking for a while is that ads that are successful work well when you put yourself in the shoes of the recipient. Nowadays, I think it's easy for the marketing industry to get carried away with a big idea without really thinking of the people receiving the ads. This tool box session also taught me the skills needed to be a success in biddable media- something that we are seeing great growth in in the media industry.
Jeremy Bullmore (advertising legend) gave an inspirational talk which completely confirmed how simple marketing/advertising should actually be. He reiterated that the conversations between consumers and brands (we now see openly across social media) is not a phenomenon, but one that was previously unheard. People have always had conversations with brands- we are now just able to hear them. However, the amplification of such opinions are a reminder to brands that each receiver interprets their message very differently, and that more time and care should be taken in producing advertising that sends out a clear message.
Yet another busy week in Squared HQ... follow me on @kerrydatlen for daily updates :)
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