Changes

I have been into University today and spoke to my Lecturer about collaborating the Early Learning Centre with Longleat Safari Park. His feeling was that Longleat is not large enough to be attractive to children who do not live in the area of the Safari Park. After thinking about Longleat and contacting them, my idea was to focus on schools within the Wiltshire or Somerset area or just the South West of England. However, my Lecturer felt this would not make a big enough campaign. I can definitely see his point of view and appreciate that he told me this now before continuing with the idea.

A suggestion was made that I revisit the Disney idea and produce an educational scheme for the UK and adapt my target audience as it is likely to be only Primary School (ages 4-11) that will be interested in this brand. The typical characters, such as Mickey and Minnie mouse, Goofy, Donald Duck, etc are likely to be enjoyable for the younger years, say ages 4-7 but then other characters/programmes owned by Disney, such as Cars or The Muppets are likely to be more attractive to ages 7-9 and maybe Pirates of the Caribbean for aged 11 and over children. These are just examples of how the different Disney characters could be used to approach the different age groups with a Primary School. 

This project idea will take two avenues - promoting the Disney Educational Scheme to Teachers and promoting the scheme to the schoolchildren.

Therefore, I need to define my target audiences
- Teachers, average age, gender ratio, etc...
- Children, age groups, lifestyles, etc...

So, my next aims are to:

• Research into Disney further
• Select my Target Audience and define into Primary, Secondary and Tertiary target groups, to guide my promotional methods and visuals. (For Teachers and Children)
• Establish my brand values
• Write my 6P's and Vectors
• Write my proposal ready for my tutorial on Thursday
• Once target audiences established, contact local Primary Schools so I can collate my primary research.

More brands/manufacturers and Charities

After my last post I have been looking at other toy brands and manufacturers which I could use instead of Early Learning Centre, just to give me more options before deciding for certain on a brand and charity for my project proposal. All of these can be seen in my research. The Lego brand has a very strong educational program in place in which I may take inspiration from as it focuses on the mechanics of learning as well as the making and building of structures/figures. The programme is structured to be age appropriate and thus has different modules for different year groups within education. Other companies which I looked at were Hasbro, an umbrella brand for a few toy manufacturers and also Disney. The latter do not have an educational scheme in the UK but do have an existing scheme in the USA suited for 4-18 year olds.

I have also been looking at charities to link my project with. As I have mentioned earlier, I wanted to focus on a charity like World Wildlife Fund, RSPCA, or The Countryside Alliance, as these give children information about other topics and areas that they have not been privileged enough to visit or experience. The problem that I encountered though, was that every charity that I researched had an existing educational programme or strong resources available to teachers which supported the National Curriculum and were promoted well. Therefore, I was unable to produce a scheme for them or linked with them, or even re-promote/edit their existing schemes as they are already visually strong and seem to be marketed well.

Another idea, as I wanted to keep in with the theme of animals, was to look at The Galapagos Trust, they are the only UK based charity helping to conserve the Galapagos Islands. As I visited these Islands and Ecuador last summer, I have the primary photography and the experience of being there and knowing the work that is done and what needs to continue. However, after some research, this charity also have an excellent scheme for children to become young ambassadors of the Islands and they receive lots of information and fun activities to keep them interested in the charity's work.

Seeing all these charities having such educational schemes was panicking me as I was really needing to find an opportunity somewhere. I felt it was important to have an additional charity alongside the Early Learning Centre, to make the idea stronger and more interesting, allowing more persuasion to the teachers to use my scheme and be enjoyable for the school pupils.

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Another idea I have had is to link up with Safari Parks or Zoos. I have looked at the main locations within the UK, with the only one without a scheme as such being Longleat Safari Park. This is the home of BBC's Animal Park and CBBC's Roar television programmes, they offer school visits and talks at the Park but not an in-school module of work. 

I have emailed Longleat to propose the idea to them, and would they (hypothetically) ever be interested in such a scheme? In other words, would it be viable in their point of view?

Waiting for a reply while I carry on my research to take to University tomorrow!

Research update

Tuesday and Wednesday I was pleased with the amount of secondary research I conducted around the area of my idea. I have looked at predicted consumer trends for 2012 and those that I feel are going to be directly relevant to my campaign. I want to yet look at further predicted consumer trends and attitudes beyond 2012 to get a clearer view on whether my idea will be viable, useful and relevant in say the next 5 years...

I have also researched other brands which I could possibly use instead of Early Learning Centre. These include, Toys r Us, Smyths, The Entertainer as well as brands such as Lego, Meccano and Hasbro. Further still, I want to research into Fisher Price, Vtech, Chad Valley...etc. This gives me a lot of information about what other brands could offer as well as giving me an overview of the market and competitors.

I need to look at relevant charities to be involved in the scheme also. My current vision is to use WWF (World Wildlife Fund) as this gives school pupils an interest in animals from other parts of the world, bringing in geography, science and art as well as an emotional and caring aspect.

Today's lecture at University was about Vectors and Branding. The Vectors are similar to, and link in with, the 6P's. The additional core values and ideas to consider within our current campaign ideas makes things seem complicated and slightly confusing. However, I feel I just need to sit down and make a large brainstorm of my core idea and the 6P's and Vectors and make sure the concept fits together well. Once this is done, I will be able to produce ideas of how to show the Vectors visually within my promotion...

So the next plan of action is to carry on researching toy brands, charities and future consumer trends. Create a brainstorm, clearly write 6P's and Vectors and then write Proposal to send to my Lecturer. He can then check through this and send back to me for any amendments.

Result!

Today, I went into University for my seminar about our Project proposals, our ideas and learning about General Touch Points - the Pre, Present and Post points of the promotional campaign.

I found this seminar useful, as the smaller class size enabled us to discuss our campaign ideas in a more successful manner as we were not each constrained to time to put our idea across and I feel we each received good feedback and opinions from the other seminar members and our Lecturer. I feel it was one of the more successful classes that I have had so far and will therefore try to attend this seminar time (12-1pm) more often as previous times the classes have felt rushed (due to large numbers of people) and not very progressive or successful.

I was able to have a tutorial with my Lecturer and have sorted my idea for my final campaign, which I am very relieved about.

The Plan:

To create an Educational Scheme in association with Early Learning Centre and a charity (possibly WWF), to inspire and stimulate artistic ideas within schoolchildren (initial target age range - Infants to Year 9). Having stages of the scheme appropriate for different ages of children, will implant creativity and an artistic basis of thinking/approaching things at different ages, hoping to evolve more creative thinkers and an increase in those wanting to study more artistic courses later in their education (if more creative people are needed?, like Engineers or Scientists needed in UK at the moment).

• ELC will supply the mechanics and analysis of learning.
• WWF (or similar charity) will supply awareness of animals and nature with an emotional, caring aspect.

• Both will work together to produce an informative module catering for different school ages/stages, with incentives for both the children involved, the charity - spreading awareness, donations likely to be given, and ELC - also brand awareness, but they can learn about the older child outside of their current target range and possibly make their product ranges larger to cater for the older ages.

These sessions will be taught in school during the usual hours. This integrates the activities with the usual educational curriculum, allows all children in the selected schools to participate and does not create any logistical problems (e.g. if the classes were held pre- or after-school or at an ELC store, like my original idea).

A pilot scheme is likely to be positioned in a number of schools in a certain area, for example, disadvantaged areas within London, or a central region within the Midlands, or Manchester, Liverpool, etc. This will develop with further research.

My next step is to look into:

Secondary research

• Any similar projects which are currently or have been present in the past and their results.
• Get Mintel and News reports to set the grounding for my rationale. Why do this scheme?!
• How children learn, integrate and participate.
• Look at suitable charities to associate my scheme with.
• Look at brand values of ELC.
• Lego, Blue Peter, CBeebies and other educational children programmes, how their competitions work, etc.
• Write my proposal to send to my Lecturer, so he can read and send back to me if any changes need to be made.
• Thinking very carefully about my Project Objectives, as these will direct my promotional campaign greatly and all my 'visuals' and decisions will relate back to my set objectives.
• Read and take notes from Brand Marketing books that I have taken out of the university Library.

I am setting Wednesday night as my target deadline for most of these tasks, however this is not realistic for all of them. Another personal deadline is to have all this research complete by next Monday, giving me under a week. As from next Monday, I will be target customer profiling and moving onto my primary research stage.

Developing the last 3 ideas

Since my last blog post, I have been researching into the favourable 2 ideas from the 3 that I described. 

The idea that I least wanted to develop further was the Ford KA and designer collaboration, as visually I would find it very hard to convey the products and vehicle options to the viewer with my skills in Illustrator and Photoshop. This would mean commissioning a Graphic Designer or Artist (which I may do anyway) to spend lots of time drawing the Ford KA's interior and exterior parts.

Therefore, I have spent the last couple of days looking into both ideas of having art groups for either schoolchildren (in association with Early Learning Centre) or for adults (with clothing brand Desigual). 

All of my research can be seen in my accompanying research folder.

Since researching, I have found out that Early Learning Centre already conduct a 'Playtime' session in selected stores on a Tuesday morning; this is aimed at pre-school children being able to sample the range of toys and products sold by ELC, however, I am doubting that ELC would accommodate a similar type of session for school age children. So this needs some more thought...

In terms of Desigual, they often have marketing events, such as the Desigual Kiss Tour which ventured to London, Paris and Berlin and involved various music bands and DJs and a kiss countdown, a 'Come in your underwear and get a free outfit' event which was open to the first 100 people to enter selected Desigual stores in their underwear. Other events have included free clothing customisation by Desigual staff and a 'Friends & Family' event which promoted each person to take a family member or friend along with them to a store and get 20% off a new collection. All the events are targeted at the same audience, young adults, and promote the brand's values - having fun, being creative and standing out from the crowd.

Out of the two, I feel the schoolchildren and ELC idea is going to be most viable and fulfilling for me to produce, as the Desigual event (even though art classes will be weekly/bi-weekly/monthly rather than one-offs like the past events mentioned) will just appear to be 'another Desigual event' whereas with the ELC and schoolchildren a new scheme could benefit kids directly and spread brand awareness with the ELC who do not currently do very much notable promotion.

I am going into University tomorrow and whilst I am there I will have a tutorial with my Lecturer to discuss these ideas further. I am really hoping that I leave my lecture with a stronger idea of what I am going to do for my final campaign and will have a list of research to do. At the moment, I feel like I am running out of time and need to be relieved by having a clear direction.

Back to the drawing board

Since returning from University yesterday, I have been looking at some other ideas that I would be interested in pursuing further.

These are:

1. Creating a collaboration with the Ford KA car and a Designer, similarly to the Citroen DS3 range with Orla Kiely and the Range Rover Evoque with Victoria Beckham. This would be a case of matching the brand ethos, values and target audience of both the Ford KA and a Designer. Both would have to be reflective of each other to create a successful promotional campaign. 
2. Piloting a scheme to get children involved in creative activities, irrelevant of their backgrounds, race or affluence. Arts and Craft sessions would be funded by Arts Council England and a brand involved could be the Early Learning Centre as both have values which include promoting child creativity. This would be available for all children, at first in piloted areas, with a vision to spread nationally. Sessions would be after school, held in their school, a local youth centre or larger Early Learning Centre stores. Being located in the store environment would promote sales.
3. Similarly to the revolutionary 'Stitch n Bitch' idea which formed in the USA a few years ago, I would create trend forward art sessions for adults, in association with the clothing brand Desigual. This brand is known for its unusual and contrasting art inspired clothing and having brand values which include having fun, being very creative and enjoying life. These are values that would be shared by an art based group similar to the 'Stitch n Bitch' movement. Desigual managed to secure huge turnover despite the economic climate in 2010, grossing 450 million Euros worldwide.

 Other ideas I have thought about but not yet researched:

1. Promoting the Countryside Alliance to a younger audience.
2. Producing a Loyalty Card Scheme for Gap Adventures.

I have emailed these options to my Lecturer to see if he has any comments on their viability.

These plans are very sketchy at the moment and will fill out in greater detail with likely changes to happen through more research.

Development of Ideas

Since my last blog post, I have had a thorough look into the App Market and not many Apps are currently available for Visual Merchandising (VM), which initially gave me confidence of  being able to develop this further as my campaign idea...

I looked into current retail and business related magazines and websites, such as Drapers, Retail Week and Mode...Information (a trend prediction company based in London). I noted that Drapers only have an App for the Jobs section of their site and A mini guide to mobile retail App, thus, a gap for a VM related App. However, after gathering other information and returning to researching more into the placement of an App in drapers, I came across an online magazine named Interiors and created by Retail Week (Drapers sister company). This magazine includes the latest VM information and case studies of stores and brands using innovative VM...basically, the information that I wanted to produce within an App. This made this idea no longer viable as Drapers are not going to create and fund an App which gives the same information to the retailer for free within the sister company.

Adding to this, I found some websites which were promoting some great products and computer programs which are currently revolutionising VM, such as iShopShape and MockShop. With such brilliant programs available, albeit likely to be expensive, why would a retailer want to use a cheap if not free App? only during the tough economic climate possibly...

By this point, I had also realised that I did not want to produce an App for my final campaign at University. I feel like I would be just producing something for convenience but had no passion about. If there is one thing, I need to find something I am passionate about, as although the next few weeks will go fast, they will not be enjoyable if I am creating something that I am not interested in!

One option which I had been contemplating for a couple of weeks was to create and promote Social Media Marketing for one of the clothing brands that my Father works with. But they already have strong promotional campaigns which are visually very good in targeting their audience. Therefore, I did not know whether i could use the current visuals they have or create my own, but then these would not match the visuals they already have, thus, creating a campaign which is not coherent throughout, looking unprofessional. A brand identity needs to be kept as one.

Another option was to promote my Father's own company. The business was founded 20 years ago but does not include any corporate promotion apart from brand related business cards and a simple, uniform letterhead. I felt this could be an opportunity for both myself and the company to create something beneficial together. But with a small budget (5% of the gross profit), I would have been very limited in my options for promotional methods and creativity. I created a budget to show my Lecturer and he outlined the pros and con's of this venture for me. Basically, I try to be very innovative and produce something very creative with a small budget and see the project as going further than just my final campaign and into the opportunity of staying on within my father's business post Graduation or I am limiting myself and this could be crucial in my marks and thus, my final degree classification, if I do not succeed in showing my skills and staying very safe and do not show much creativity. 

The options were laid out on the table. I stick with where I am or I research further and deeper to find and create something else...and FAST.

Monday 16th January

Today, we had a lecture based on informing our lecturer of our Final Campaign ideas, in terms of what product or service we are wanting to promote. The class was beneficial in that we all heard each others ideas and what we have researched so far. Hearing some of the ideas opened my eyes to people thinking outside the box and being very creative. Most of the ideas were based on simple everyday problems which need a solution but with a fashion and lifestyle bias.

I was a little taken aback when I received the feedback that my idea was not economically viable, which thinking about more is actually true. I had sensed that my idea would be difficult to roll out economically and may not be very sustainable, which already gives a pressure to its viability.

My lecturer has suggested that I take my idea down a notch, rather than thinking of the service as being a mini business with plans etc for myself... find an originating and successful brand which I could branch off from and provide a service, such as a Visual Merchandising App.

Therefore, my aims for today, Tuesday and Wednesday are to look deeply into the App market, see if there are any gaps for Visual Merchandising, Trend, Design, Art or Travel (the latter two being personal interests), either continue with my original service but bringing down a notch to make viable or develop a brand new product or service.

I want to email my lecturer with my ideas on Wednesday so he is able to read these to give feedback to me on Thursday. Ideally, I will have a product or service sorted by Thursday as I really do not want to go any later without my plan finalised. Otherwise, crucial time is being lost.

Research to support ideas

I have beeen researching into VM and mainly innovative window displays, which I have been inspired with but also suprised by how creative these have become with the use of technology.

It seems that the ideas for branching out my window displays with the use of image recognition, motion capture, etc, is and has been already rolled out in many countries from a lot of brands. 

Therefore, I have looked into the predictions for the UK economy to see if my VM Consultancy Agency idea will be able to realistically start up and keep going during the current economic climate. The research that I have done shows mixed views,  a positive, mid range and negative outlook, which gives a balanced view but makes it almost harder to see if the business would stand its own as the outlooks are mixed and not focused on one answer.

All my ideas that I am taking tomorrow (Monday) are VM based and I am hoping that my VM Consultancy Agency idea will hold out. I am thinking of updating this to include an initial face-to-face consultancy and then an online or App based service which allows the retailer to 'login' to a relevant area depending on their store size, geographical location and target customer. The output costs will be high in comparison to the incoming money, which could make this idea difficult to be viable, but it is worth asking my peers and lecturer tomorrow.

Final Campaign Ideas

Since around November last year, my ideas for my final campaign have been based around Visual Merchandising. I have chosen this area due to personal interest and wanting to develop a career in VM after Graduation. Due to this, I have been thinking of ideas and produced a plan/draft proposal in my PDP over Christmas.

During the Christmas break I also visited Milan, supposedly the fashion capital of the world, to take photographs of Visual Merchandising, mainly shop window displays, to gain inspiration and this has deepened my interest in studying this area for my final campaign.

I still need to broaden my ideas for my campaign, but I am hoping to keep VM as my basis. I am working on my ideas today and tomorrrow, so I can attend University on Monday with a list of ideas and research to re-inforce these.

I also want to start my research folder by the end of today. Along with reading and taking notes from the books I borrowed yesterday from the library.

The Starting Points...

My aims for today have been to have a good, long day picking the brief apart and organising how I am going to produce this project.

I feel it is very important to organise now how I am going to record my research and produce the work for both the marketing report and the visual promotional campaign. Choosing the best option for me will help me to sustain interest and hopefully not come across too many problems with transferring information and imagery to various places.

I have considered creating all my research folder/sketchbook work digitally in InDesign and then printing and binding creatively for submission, giving a coherent and professional look. However, I do not work well when I have all my work based on a computer. I sometimes need to work creatively with pen and paper and document my research in a three dimensional way. Doing this can cause problems with using images and information that I have cut and placed in a folder and want to use in research/development boards and in my marketing report.

From previous projects, my research work in a folder has been productive and useful for me, allowing a mix of handwriting, imagery, textile and colour swatches as well as word processed sections. I have decided to do this method again, creating a 'page layout' in InDesign/Illustrator making all the folder pages coherent throughout. I will then save and scan images onto my computer to enable use on my research and development boards. 

Today, I have also set up this new blog. I feel this will be more cohesive than a tabulated time log which I have produced in the past for other projects. Writing blog posts is likely to take more time, but I feel this method will work better for me, as I can analyse my progress and feel like I am informing others of my work.

I have looked at past students Final Campaign work on the 'UCLAN - Fashion & Brand' Facebook page. This has shown me visually what needs to be produced and has set a benchmark. 

After the briefs were given yesterday, I went to the library and borrowed some books on brand management and marketing. I initially went for books about Visual Merchandising but there were none available. A couple of these were also unavailable when I tried to reserve them online. Therefore, I have given in two book requests, so will hopefully be able to get these soon!

I have researched the content of a literature review as I have not written one before and also refreshed on SMART and Marketing Objectives. 

I have also booked a tutorial with Paz, my lecturer, for next Monday as I want to discuss the ins and outs of the project, my campaign ideas and get feedback on my last projects, to evaluate and further my progression as soon as possible. All of this will benefit my Final campaign.

The Start of The Final Campaign!

As my submission for a 'comprehensive personal time management log', I am going to write this blog, which will record my aims, achievements, reflections and evaluations at each stage of the campaign.

I have received both briefs for my final project of BA(Hons) Fashion Brand Management today. This includes a 'Final Promotional Campaign - FM3022' (which this blog will mainly record) and a 'Marketing Report - FM3025'.

To help me understand what needs to be produced and submitted for each module, I am going to re-write a list. I can also refer to this quickly on here whilst writing a blog entry.

Final Promotional Campaign

• A Media Plan (also included in the report and A3 board)
• A Campaign Plan with Time Line (also included in the report and A3 board)
• 2 x A3 Research Boards
• 2 x A3 Development Boards 
• Research and Development folder/sketchbook
• This time log
• A degree show graphic stand
• Mini Report (2,500 words) to put on stand 

Marketing Report 

•  2 x Marketing Report (70%), (1 x print - bound professionally, 1 x digital - easy to navigate)
• Marketing Report to include:
• Introduction, Structure - Contents, in-depth research, customer and brand profiles, market segmentation, SMART Objectives, Vectors, budget details, rationale, 6P's, conclusion, appendices, bibliography, literature review and references.
• All supported by correct references, all imagery and quotes credited.
• Include strong element of visual imagery to illustrate points and promotions. (30%)
• Include examples of questionnaires/summaries, emails, interviews, focus groups etc... (Maybe place in Appendices)
• Paginate and 1.5 line spacing
• Word Count (8,000 to 10,000 max.)