Much of the content from the Enterprise Lectures can be applied to our final major project and the creative process’ we are using to create the theory behind our ideas and promotion.
In thinking up ways to promote ourselves as a team we create a value proposition, which sets out to explain why agencies would benefit from having us as part of their wider creative team. The first section of the final major project brief asks us to question who we are as a team, what makes us both individual and creative, as well as working well as a team. We looked at what makes us unique and creative as individuals, how this affects us working as a team and how everything combines to make an effective team. Using creative strategy, we discussed what our unique selling point would be and tried to write a value proposition that reflects us, in both our creative mindset and our attitude to work, why it is that we enjoy working together and the humor and enthusiasm that we have when facing our projects.
From this we created a value proposition, which stated:
We are weird and weird is good. Working together we draw the more unusual side out of one another, always finding enjoyment in situations and always accepting that there is more that can be learnt and achieved. With our unusual attitude and fresh interpretations we will be able to offer something different and unique. Together we are not just weirder but better.
The basic principles of marketing talk about the 4P’s, which are price, promotion, place and product. It is essential that you get the right combination of these four points in order for your business to be successful and your product or service to sell.
Our product is the service that we offer. This service is our creativity and strategy; the two-combined offer a unique product which when applied directly to advertising creates fresh thinking and ideas. This will prove essential to any advertising agency wishing to get ahead or stay ahead in a market, which is constantly demanding new, fresh and unique ideas. The current price of our service is free. We offer our creative knowledge, talent and weirdness in exchange for experience. We ask agencies to set us briefs so that we may experience working in real life situations, gain feedback from people other than our tutors and also set up networks that may be useful to us in later life. We intend to place our product in direct contact with agencies, contacting them via a variety of methods using our promotion techniques and sending then links to a website containing examples of our work. Showcasing both us, and our work. We intend to promote ourselves as ‘The Greatest Show on Earth”, we have taken inspiration from P.T Barnum who was referenced during the first lecture, we intend to create a hype around ourselves similar to that of when he would enter a new town with his circus. The use of circus imagery and presenting ourselves as the characters of the show, we will hope to convey the message that something new has arrived, and it is something, which agencies will want to see, experience and be involved with.
We will be marketing our small ‘business’ to other larger business’ this is known as Business to business marketing, this can be defined as:
“B2B Marketing is the management process responsible for the facilitation of exchange between producers of goods and services and their organisational customers” (Brassington & Pettitt, 2006, pg 146).
In terms of our business the relationship would be between an agency and us. The exchange will be the transfer of our creative ideas and design in exchange for the experience and opportunities they can offer us. There is also the relationship between an advertising agency and its clients, the agency exchanges a mixture of knowledge, skills and talent for money to bring the client the publicity that they need for their product to be a success.
Within our promotion we try to keep the message consistent, that we are weird wonderful and the next big thing you will want to see. We intend to use the characters related to our creative personalities, keeping the theme and the message consistent. And using this to show agencies that we have the qualities they require to keep their firm ahead of the rest.
Throughout all of our self-promotion we had to use creative strategy in our thinking, in order to make sure that our message made sense and remained consistent. We had to consider our unique selling point and how that can set us apart from not just other students but also other people in the industry. We looked at how we work as a creative team and how this is beneficial to agencies; applying it to the strategy we have been taught which looks at the benefits to the ego, practically, socially and sensory. Our partnership working so well will have many benefits to agencies as “Partnership power means that we will witness the emergence of dynamic clusters of expertise and knowledge.” Ridderstrale & Nordstrom, 2002, pg 242). So this was important to highlight in our strategy.
Brassington & Pettit, 'Principles of Marketing', Pitman Publishing 2006.
Ridderstrale & Nordstrom, 'Funky Business', Bookhouse Publishing 2002.
Throughout this Agency project, so far, I feel we have maintained a good combination of Marketing, Branding and creative strategy to create a campaign that is not only effective but also accurately represents our creative partnership.
