Weekend Classes......
Anyway for Creative Communication, it gave
me a whole new perspective on Advertising and Marketing. How Brands today was
once upon a time an aspiration, today it is a personality. How Advertising was
once upon a time a means to communicate a key message, today it is a way of
life. Worked with Denyse, Janneke, Maria, Janet and Baron for the main
assignment for this unit. The persistent streak in Maria (who is Spanish)
eagerly asking questions to get past her language barrier never ceases to amaze
me. Our task was to brand an organic foodstore. Sure was a hell lot of fun. Though Denyse and I did most of the work, I guess I was happy about it when we
saw our work bear fruit. Really enjoyed the “post-class” session where Denyse
and I would go for coffee and we brainstormed among ourselves till crazy just
to define our brand essence and what we want to be about. Finally, Denyse came
up with the killer storename and I found it easy to attach the emotional
benefits and stuff like that to it….
We called this organic foodstore Relish…..as we are more than just a foodstore and being healthy. We wanted people to enjoy the experience of being healthy. And this experience is so important, that everything else in the world does not matter. Being healthy is secondary. Enjoying the process of being healthy is primary. Therefore we came up with this Advertising Campaign, “All Else Can Wait”, using outdoor media as our main advertising vehicle and with the copy “All Else Can Wait”, I believe we effectively would have the recipient interact with the bus-stop ad while waiting for the bus. Same goes for trains and stuff. We even had membership cards man. Haha.
The presentation was a blast. We had drinks after that at The Rose and got to know other people in the class FOR THE FIRST TIME AFTER 3 WEEKS. Hahaha. Well, got to know people like Linh and Niek a lot better. This American-Vietnamese babe and this Dutch dude. They are pretty cool.
Anyway right now I am taking this class known as Brand Management. This was one class that I was so looking forward to. So much enthusiasm, so much anticipation. I just finished my fourth out of six lectures for this unit. Till now I don’t get a thing about the whole topic about branding. It sucks. I mean, I used to think my knowledge gathered because of my passion about this field was good enough to hold some water. But branding is just about so much more. So much more than what I know. What I know was the tip of the iceberg. In fact what I used to live by is the exact anti-statement of what this lecture is teaching. Sometimes I feel as if I was out of date. Sometimes I don’t know who is out of date. Positioning and Differentiation isn’t about it all in the world of branding. We have other terms like “points of parity” and “frame of reference”. I can’t seem to explain it cos up till now, I haven’t fully grasped the concept of it yet. I don’t know if such terms are actually used in the real world aka the industry I so want to break my legs just to get in. I sure hope that it is not commonly used in Singapore so that it would give me that assurance my choice of opting to study and gain more knowledge as opposed to joining the workforce is a good one. Also, there are so many classification of branding that sometimes it looks like it could dilute brands, yet it looks like it could strengthen brands. There are so many things going on like Branded House, House of Brands, Brand as Endorsers, Brand as Shadow Endorsers, Sub Brands…. Co-Drivers, Parent Driver, Sub Driver….etc
What I am saying is that I really do not know whether whatever that I have learnt before was wrong or what I am learning today is right. Somehow it makes me feel stupid yet it also makes me inspired to want to excel in this field. OK. Fine I haven’t been reading my readings cos I really lack the time (actually I don’t if I could manage it better). Linh said that if I read it before class, I would actually know what the lecture is about. Oh well…guess I must make time to read for the last 2 lectures to redeem myself
Like I said, branding has evolved into a state where today it is a personality or an idea, not a trademark or a mere form of identification. It is ideas that we live by. Every freaking thing can be a brand, whether it is tangible or intangible. Guess what, there are actually 7Ps in the marketing mix for intangible brands. Interesting.
For this class, we have an interesting group project going on. We are to create a new brand opportunity for an existing brand by coming up with new and original product ideas. What we came up with was a wireless headphone equipped with Bluetooth technology so that people could do away with the hassle of tangled wires and also it could be deployed for many uses. The one problem my group faced for 4 days was actually deciding what parent brand to adopt. The lecturer rejected our initial parent brand of it being Apple. He thought that it won’t be a good challenge cos it would be really easy to add an ‘I’ to whatever we have. Next we thought of going into the entertainment accessories industry. However, something as revolutionary as this would end up cannibalising the existing product range carried by this brand in this category. We thought about it for quite awhile, had many many discussions but we can’t seem to be able to come to a consensus. However today when I was spacing out during lecture because once again I didn’t understand what the lecturer was talking about, suddenly the answer dawned upon me. It is just amazing when you actually don’t bother to THINK about something, the answer would just unfold naturally. Yeah, could be the creative process like incubation and maturity.
Well you see, the answer laid right in front of us the whole time and we just didn’t realise it. For the whole time, our lecturer enjoyed using this particular brand as a case study or example. The answer to our dilemma was a knight - Sir Richard Branson and his brand Virgin. We talked about it even further and concluded that it was the way to go. We consulted the lecturer and he was very fine with it, even offering us some suggestions on how to take this thing with Virgin as our parent brand. I am sure we are on the right track.. This feeling of satisfaction just came over me. I was glad that I finally cracked it. At least it’s something I have done right in this class.
We called this organic foodstore Relish…..as we are more than just a foodstore and being healthy. We wanted people to enjoy the experience of being healthy. And this experience is so important, that everything else in the world does not matter. Being healthy is secondary. Enjoying the process of being healthy is primary. Therefore we came up with this Advertising Campaign, “All Else Can Wait”, using outdoor media as our main advertising vehicle and with the copy “All Else Can Wait”, I believe we effectively would have the recipient interact with the bus-stop ad while waiting for the bus. Same goes for trains and stuff. We even had membership cards man. Haha.
The presentation was a blast. We had drinks after that at The Rose and got to know other people in the class FOR THE FIRST TIME AFTER 3 WEEKS. Hahaha. Well, got to know people like Linh and Niek a lot better. This American-Vietnamese babe and this Dutch dude. They are pretty cool.
Anyway right now I am taking this class known as Brand Management. This was one class that I was so looking forward to. So much enthusiasm, so much anticipation. I just finished my fourth out of six lectures for this unit. Till now I don’t get a thing about the whole topic about branding. It sucks. I mean, I used to think my knowledge gathered because of my passion about this field was good enough to hold some water. But branding is just about so much more. So much more than what I know. What I know was the tip of the iceberg. In fact what I used to live by is the exact anti-statement of what this lecture is teaching. Sometimes I feel as if I was out of date. Sometimes I don’t know who is out of date. Positioning and Differentiation isn’t about it all in the world of branding. We have other terms like “points of parity” and “frame of reference”. I can’t seem to explain it cos up till now, I haven’t fully grasped the concept of it yet. I don’t know if such terms are actually used in the real world aka the industry I so want to break my legs just to get in. I sure hope that it is not commonly used in Singapore so that it would give me that assurance my choice of opting to study and gain more knowledge as opposed to joining the workforce is a good one. Also, there are so many classification of branding that sometimes it looks like it could dilute brands, yet it looks like it could strengthen brands. There are so many things going on like Branded House, House of Brands, Brand as Endorsers, Brand as Shadow Endorsers, Sub Brands…. Co-Drivers, Parent Driver, Sub Driver….etc
What I am saying is that I really do not know whether whatever that I have learnt before was wrong or what I am learning today is right. Somehow it makes me feel stupid yet it also makes me inspired to want to excel in this field. OK. Fine I haven’t been reading my readings cos I really lack the time (actually I don’t if I could manage it better). Linh said that if I read it before class, I would actually know what the lecture is about. Oh well…guess I must make time to read for the last 2 lectures to redeem myself
Like I said, branding has evolved into a state where today it is a personality or an idea, not a trademark or a mere form of identification. It is ideas that we live by. Every freaking thing can be a brand, whether it is tangible or intangible. Guess what, there are actually 7Ps in the marketing mix for intangible brands. Interesting.
For this class, we have an interesting group project going on. We are to create a new brand opportunity for an existing brand by coming up with new and original product ideas. What we came up with was a wireless headphone equipped with Bluetooth technology so that people could do away with the hassle of tangled wires and also it could be deployed for many uses. The one problem my group faced for 4 days was actually deciding what parent brand to adopt. The lecturer rejected our initial parent brand of it being Apple. He thought that it won’t be a good challenge cos it would be really easy to add an ‘I’ to whatever we have. Next we thought of going into the entertainment accessories industry. However, something as revolutionary as this would end up cannibalising the existing product range carried by this brand in this category. We thought about it for quite awhile, had many many discussions but we can’t seem to be able to come to a consensus. However today when I was spacing out during lecture because once again I didn’t understand what the lecturer was talking about, suddenly the answer dawned upon me. It is just amazing when you actually don’t bother to THINK about something, the answer would just unfold naturally. Yeah, could be the creative process like incubation and maturity.
Well you see, the answer laid right in front of us the whole time and we just didn’t realise it. For the whole time, our lecturer enjoyed using this particular brand as a case study or example. The answer to our dilemma was a knight - Sir Richard Branson and his brand Virgin. We talked about it even further and concluded that it was the way to go. We consulted the lecturer and he was very fine with it, even offering us some suggestions on how to take this thing with Virgin as our parent brand. I am sure we are on the right track.. This feeling of satisfaction just came over me. I was glad that I finally cracked it. At least it’s something I have done right in this class.