Enterprise Week

Networking - Get Yourself Connected

This was a talk taken by David McQeen, a professional speaker and also TV presenter in his own shows: "Vocation, Vocation, Vocation" and "It's me you want!". He is a person with bags of enthusiasm and passion for the job he does. He made it so influential and inspiring, combining the talk with humour and facts.

Networking is not selling or smooching, it is a case of building friendships, relationships and referrals without a hidden agenda. It is important throughout life to build a portfolio of contacts in order to build on your reputation by referrals from people saying a good word about you. It is imperative to gain contacts but also keep in touch and make notes against the contacts. Referrals are so important in business and throughout life as very often many business opportunities arise through referrals building a good reputation and increase the value of who you are, rather than through agencies, TV or newspaper.

Speaking in Public

In a social anxiety survey carried out by the New York Times, it was astonishingly discovered that speaking in public topped the ranking of fears - even higher than spiders AND the fear of death!! When required to speak in public, be yourself - don't try to be anyone else as it will not come across as natural to the audience. Make sure you know the type of language you need or want to use in view of the prospective target audience - who do you need to talk to? What do you want to talk about? Concentrate on your style of communication, remember good manners at al times as this will take you very far. Whether you are introvert or extrovert, whatever your style be who you are. Use blogs and social networking sites to communicate with people, what is it that makes you differnt from the rest? What unique qualities do you have that would be attractive to a business?
The World is a Complex Place

The speaker in this event was Tom Vick, Group Business Director of JWT, a leading communications agency in London.

“Anybody who believes that life is going to become simpler in this day and age needs to have their head examined” (Sir Martin Sorrell, Group Chief Executive, WPP Group).

In view of advertising, Tom Vick explains that they “create ideas that people want to spend time with”. Marketing and advertising is now far more complex a process than it ever has been. There is the constant demand for more exposure due to changing technology and consumer priorities such as advertising having less opportunity on TV with the “30 second ad” because of the creation of Sky+ etc. It is fascinating to compare uses of advertising in technology is now to how is was nearly two decades ago. In the 1990’s, there were less TV channels with no Sky or digital TV. Advertising was extremely successful on TV during this time due to the limitations on variety of technology available. People had no other option than to watch the adverts that followed popular soaps during the breaks. Mobile phones were simple and barely mobile due to their size – the majority of people who used a mobile during this time were business people, although they could only phone out, no calls could be made to the phone. No internet was available and the only people who had computers, which were not nearly as advanced as they are today, were secretaries in businesses. This shows that advertising and marketing through media which we now take for granted was completely non-existent only 20 or so years ago. Communication had to be made face to face or through a landline phone, one factor being that there was very limited mobile signal for the mobile phones that were available.

Today times have changed. Technology is buzzing all around us and it will be only the very small minority that do not rely on a mobile phone or laptop in all aspects of their lives. Communication has changed dramatically with most people turning to email or text messaging as acceptable forms of contact. These changes have had a huge impact on the world of advertising by altering the proportions of different media that dominate the most popular or successful forms of communication to consumers. New types of media tend to be shifting towards the use of outdoor advertising such as the digital escalator screens used in the underground as outlined in the event “What Next?”, featuring cross-track projections but no sound. These have proven to be more appealing to the viewer. TV media is getting a lower proportion of the ad spend, with the shift to digital advertising or direct marketing with the use of social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace which can target a specific audience. It is important to remember that no form of advertising has been “killed”; everything has just got more complex. TV is still being used but in a much more targeted way than ever before, “word of mouth” is becoming the new marketing sensation. Advertising is seen as an investment designed to take money and turn it into more money.

Tom Vick explained about a 5-point plan that will help in the building of successful advertising in the future:

1. Forget above and below the line marketing and advertising ever existed;
   Bring back the true definition of advertising;


2. Restructure businesses around brands and communication schemes to focus more on the clients’ objectives;


3. Invest in re-training agency employees as some may only have the knowledge of a small part of advertising and marketing communications, there is the need to understand how a business works;


4. Learn from youth – use younger staff to train older employees as an advantage to the company due to the fact that the younger emerging generation have grown up with the developing technology.

Advertising has become more complex than a decade ago due to the change in lifestyle of consumers, and the constant changing and emerging technological industry. Some agencies failed to “move with the times” and so as a result, did not survive the huge change. It has been proven that advertising has not been a necessity for some businesses that have grown so successfully through mainly “word of mouth”. These companies include eBay, Amazon, and Google. Innocent, the smoothies drink producer also built a very successful enterprise on “word of mouth” advertising. The only way to communicate a message without it being adapted or diluted is by word of mouth. An example of a company that struggled through lack of advertising is Marks and Spencer. It was flourishing business up until a decade ago surviving with no advertising. Consumers’ lifestyles then changed dramatically with a much higher emphasis on style and fashion especially as a higher percentage of women were emerging into the workplace. M&S became unappealing and regular customers began to shop elsewhere, causing a massive decline in profits. The advertising campaign “Your M&S” was developed and helped turn round the image, being more high profile and more personal to the individual customer making the company the success it is today.

Does advertising have any relevance into the success of a product or a brand? It may be insignificant compared to many life events including world wars, natural disasters, poverty etc, but it does create a huge amount of awareness in a particular product or brand. Advertising is a significant global industry giving figures of £1.5 billion making it second in the world behind the USA. Taking the Cadbury’s Gorilla advert: did it have any impact on the overall performance of the business; were dramatic changes in profit visible? This advert was hugely successful in one sense: it got people talking, having the ability to connect with people emotionally working in a similar way to theatre, dance or art forms.

During the current economic climate, no-one can predict what will happen to advertising in the next year, let alone the next decade. The industry has seen a hugely dramatic change in the past 5 years compared to the previous 150 years. The following points show how the advertising industry may change over the next 5 years:

1. We may see the return to full-service advertising, both creative and media in a new format. There may be a decline in the clients’ marketing budget in the very near future but this may expand in order to fight off competition and survive the recession to come out the other side stronger than ever. More sophisticated agency techniques may be offered to clients, and it will be only a matter of time before clients are offered more creative solutions by the agencies;


2. The disciplines of account planning and channel planning will merge;
   
3. We will see an increase in global outsourcing, including less expensive labour costs on the production of advertising. Advertising networks may have contacts internationally to create a 24/7 basis of work so when the company in the UK finishes, another company in a different country will take over;


4. There will be no clear separation between digital agencies and ad agencies as they will all have to do both in order to survive. There are approximately 12,500 agencies in the UK and only the strongest and the fittest will survive. The agencies that get there first and who are seen to be the best will succeed;


5. The emergence of mobile as a marketing channel will develop as it is one of the most dominant screens in the majority of peoples’ lives, especially the younger generation allowing agencies to target audiences more directly and accurately.

As a result of the credit crunch, there is a greater focus on cost, efficiency and investment over the next 5 years, giving online marketing a boost in increasing popularity between clients’ and consumers’.

The expectation of graduates during the changing times is seen to be getting tougher and increasingly more competitive with the key qualities including a passion for the subject, a bright image, a successful ability to argue their case and selling qualities for use when selling ideas to a client. They should be able to examine their likes and dislikes in advertisements critically.

"What Next?"

A panel of 8 top executives from Marketing, Advertising, PR backgrounds chaired by Don Cowley. The invited industry panel members included: Jayne Barr MD of Creative Consulting Ltd, ex Managing partner of TBWA, Leagas Delaney and Grey; Andrew Canter Founder CEO ‘Contentsworx’, the Brand Content Agency; Steve Cox MD Titan Outdoor Group; Rob Laurence TGI Strategic Director; Jamie Matthews MD of Initials Marketing; Ivor Peters MD Primal PR and Allan Rich Chairman of Cello Group, ex Chairman Mediacom.

In view of the current threat of recession in the UK, Allan Rich of Cello Group stated that “well run businesses will survive through the recession”.The advertising/marketing industry is busier now than it ever has been.

The key to success is to show intense enthusiasm for your chosen industry/career choice. The three key elements in creating a successful business include: measurement – whether a TV, outdoor, radio or internet advertisement is working, is it reaching the target audience successfully? Accountability and innovation/enthusiasm – all linking in with the SMART objectives (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-based).

“I know that 50% of my advertising works, I’m just not sure which 50%”. (Lord Leverhulme)

“There are a lot of great technicians in advertising; and unfortunately they talk the best game. They know all the rules...but there’s one little rub. They forget that advertising is persuasion, and persuasion is not a science but an art. Advertising is the art of persuasion”. (William Bernbach)

Ikea is an example of an experiential ad campaign where it is seen that there is now a greater move towards integration and more communicators to promote a product or brand.
It has been noticed that recently there has been a greater change in terms of employment connected to gender, race, age, class etc when recruiting a new employee. Rather than taking a stereotypical image of a middle-upper class, white British male graduate from Oxbridge, companies are now being seen to “step outside the box” to change habits and decrease any visible discrimination.



It has been highly recommended that we take the IPA diagonal thinking test which is a recognised test within the industry showing prospective employers whether someone is a diagonal thinker or whether they tend to steer more towards logic or creativeness.
In this industry, everything must start with the consumer/customer in terms of demographics – who the target audience will be in relation to the specific product/brand to be promoted.
In recent years, it has been proven that the “30 second ad” no longer has so much impact on the consumer, although it isn’t “dead”, due to many factors including the constant development and change of new technology, for example Sky+ which now has a feature that allows the viewer to

fast-forward through the adverts between TV programmes, making these particular ads effectively useless as there is a much lower proportion of people actually viewing the ads. Changes such as this have resulted in a need to discover and innovate new alternatives. Examples of these are the digital posters visible in the London Underground which also have a Bluetooth capability allowing companies to connect with the consumers, allowing them to visibly see if the product is reaching out to the target audience by enabling them to measure the specific set objectives. Types of advertising such as this must combine contact and context as well as content which will in turn create a highly powerful message. According to Jamie Matthews, MD of Initials Marketing, in the 1970’s, an advertiser could reach 90% of its target audience with 30, 30 second ads. It now takes approximately 170 ads to hit the same spot – this shows that the marketing/advertising industry now has to work so much harder to reach the same volume. It has been noted that sponsorship advertisements are far more powerful and convey an influential message to the consumer. Content is required in an advert to create awareness of a product encouraging the audience to talk about it. Engagement from the consumer is a vital factor in making an advert successful.

Advertising is now moving heavily towards digital media in terms of gaining the highest volume of consumer awareness, the internet being one of the most influential. Outside the internet, the fastest growing form of media is posters. This change in types of media being used is opening a wide door for new and expanding opportunities.

Green marketing is seen to be attractive to consumers due to the many benefits for the environment and the increase in changing behaviour towards recycling products. An example of this new innovative idea is the Marks and Spencer’s “5p per bag” from which all proceeds are donated to charity, although the main purpose of this is to discourage customers from taking new carrier bags each time they shop and encourage them to recycle. Corporate Social Responsibility and ethical trading can be linked in with this as it addresses the company’s role in society and the community and also the running of the businesses successfully. It can be seen as being parallel to changing consumer attitudes towards environmentalism and sustainability, tracing changing attitudes among companies and businesses as they recognise the nature of their customer. Three key points that can determine the success and CSR of a business include the ethics and opportunities used, being incarnate in the development of the product/brand and the outcome – what people are doing with their products in relation to the advertisements. Building a successful relationship with the client is key to maintaining a successful business partnership and a highly respectable reputation in the industry – it is such a small world within this industry that a good reputation can lead you far but a bad reputation can drag you down. Something a previous boss, the MD and founder of The Validium Group, said to me was “always be nice to the people you meet on the way up as you will most definitely meet them on the way back down.” I gained so much respect for him, as well as the Executive Director of his company as I learned about the highs and lows of the building the business and making it what it is today – one of the leading and most reputable companies in its industry of EAP’s (Employee Assistance Programmes) with a substantial portfolio of very well-known UK clients, and are now also expanding internationally. This has always stuck with me and has made me understand how important it is in business or in anything that you do to build yourself a good reputation in order to succeed.

Putting Theory into Practice - A discussion by a panel of past Bucks New University Graduates currently working in the industry.

This session was an extremely valuable source of information for us as present students, allowing us to see how achieving a successful degree can lead into our chosen career path – in my case this is marketing. Through asking many relevant questions to the panel, I gained a valuable insight into many methods that will guide me and allow me to seek more and more knowledge into the subject which I am so passionate about going into. I am 100% for work experience in the chosen vocation for many reasons, one being the fact that you can literally put theory into practice. From linking back to my personal experiences working in many business environments, all very different, over the past four years I am now able to relate to certain things I may have seen or tasks I may have been asked to carry out. It is a fantastic way to experience whether that specific role or career path is right and satisfies your needs and what you aim to get out of the job. A great emphasis was made by all of the graduates to constantly be reading up on the subjects learnt during lectures, reading other relevant materials including publications such as Marketing Week, Marketing and Campaign, case studies for the industry and also Brand Republic. Making sure that preparation is utmost when gearing up for an interview – researching into companies and recent events in the industry, taking note of any images seen whilst travelling to an interview, explaining how relevant the course is and how the knowledge learned would be applied when working in the industry. Once an interview has been successful and a job has been offered it is so important for graduates to make themselves indispensible to the company, constantly thinking creatively “outside the box”, thinking along the lines of accountability, using celebrity endorsements in ad campaigns, creating maximum profit and awareness on a product/brand with minimum amount of spend, time-management, multi-tasking and deadlines.

Great blog by Graeme Crossley, founder member of Brand Reputation Ltd - a communications agency that builds trust in consumer brands by developing & implementing strategies related to corporate social responsibility & sustainability. Take a look at http://www.brandrep.blogspot.com/ it's well worth a look!