Final Thoughts on Blogs...or is it....?

Final thoughts on blogs...

So the end is neigh...well not in my books, over the past months I have found myself seriously lacking in the blogging department, and as usual I have left everything to the last miniute.


But, as I sat here working my way through each blog I found myself strickend by time and other assignments, yet in all the confusion, when it came down to reading and finding my own research, I have learnt sooo much, it may noy show too much in my previous blogs, but I wish I had more time to add to them now that I have found my flow..if only I found it sooner. Up next is the last of my assignments on the module, and yes...its about blogs. I feel confident in completion and I have already found useful references from online and academic journals (I wish I could have prepared like this for my blogs). In all the experience of creating and miantaing blogs it has forced me to be creative and open to discussion not only in my blogs but as a person and in my assignments aswell. It has helped me tremendoulsy in lerning how to gather information and successfully complete a topic of discussion.

I can successfuly say that I am now completly aware of what a blog is... Blogs are web logs that are updated on a regular basis by their author. 'They can contain information related to a specific topic creators’ http://www.mednet-tech.com/newsletter/blogs/what-are-blogs .
Here is a great little video that explains what a blog is and how they are used...

http://www.commoncraft.com/blogs

Her are few things I have learnt along the way..

1. Take notes and listen well...

2. Research your finding and support them...

3. Make sure not to write too much...

Lokking at this from a marketing prospective the use of blogs can be very beneficial to a marketing campaign, product or brand. The marketers will post blogs of these things and are able to see how the consumers react. This is a very cheap and cost effective way of obtaing information from the public

Fianlly I would like to say that this is NOT the end, using these blogs it has shown me that this is an exciting way of doing research (and I hate research). This to me is the perfect teaching aid and I feel that all subjects should have a conpulsary blog on them. Is is soo useful and effective.
I will continue with my blogs and I hope to see more of peoples comments. They realy do help! Thank you for reading my blogs and more will be up soon! X

Enterprise Week

For this Blog I was unable to attend a very key part for my course. In November our university held a special week called, Enterprise Week. This consisted of stand around the uni and activities for the students to participate in. The most impportant part of the week was the discussion panel. This consisted of very important compannies visiting and taking part in a discusison board, theses comanies were
• Milward Brown
• Mediacom
• Burson Marstelle
• Billets
Sadly I missed the opportunity so for this blog I will research two of the companies that I can hopefully be apart of someday.

Milward Brown is A Marketing and PR company that was founded in 1973, it is a part of Kantar, the information and consultancy division of WPP. Here are afew interesting Facts about the company,
• 78 offices in 51 countries
• Over 1,000 brand sales modeled
• 11 years of Digital experience
• Specialist practices for mobile, gaming and social media
• 100 mobile research studies conducted
• Over 4,400 separate BrandZ™ studies completed
• BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Brands ranking released annually in April
• More than 5,300 BrandDynamics™ projects covering over 45,000 brands
• 65,000 Link™ copytests conducted
After studying there website Millward brown is a very well established and successful company. With Milward Brown having expanded there company over to 51 countries. They are able to gather information from the market on such a large scale that there knowledge of how there campaigns, products or brands will be received successfully.

Another Company that was at Enterprise Week was Mediacom. Here are afew facts abotu Mediacom..
• One of the worlds largest media communications agency networks
• Leading Communications Agency in the Age of Dialogue
Although Medicom has less to say about there statistics it has a very impressionable website with much information of the goals and ambitions.

Although I missed Enterprise I have possibly found where I wish to apply for an internship. Out of the the two companies I would choosa Mediscom, theoverall approach and use of language has more appeal to me and I feel that I would possibly be a valuable asset to there fast moving company. For more information check out there websites at...

http://www.millwardbrown.com/Home.aspx

http://mediacomuk.com/

A Special Guest Speaker....

For this session we had a very special visit from a former student of Bucks and the very course that I am studying. Our guests name was Siobhan Sleet, She graduated in 2008, with a 2.1 in BA (HONS) PR Management!

The company that took Siobhan on is called Primal PR. She is not a successful member of this company and has even earned herself the title of Senior Account Executive in just 18 Months.
Primal PR is a1 of 3 departments . It was established in 1995 and consists of 3 Departments
BWP in2 - strategic planning, design & creativity, media planning
BWP Primal -experiential, events, PR
BWP Digital - digital, web. SMS, social media
Here are afew examples of the clients that Primal PR and siobhan have worked with.






At this point of Siobhans slide show I was amazed and so iniguied by her ability to do so much, so quickly and still have hair at the end of the day.(from some of her stories I would have definately pulled ma hair out by now)
She continued to tell us about the average day for her in the office.
Every thing from 10am onwards seems to get VERY hectic..with the bussle ofMedia List, Press Releases, Media Liaison and Copywriting to do.
Along with all the work that may be waiting for her, such as Client Liaison.
Building Relationships
Reporting & Evaluation
Site Visits
Events
Status Meetings

Here is an example of some of Siobhans work,





She organised the location and photographer for this spread. Very impressive.
Have Siobhan come in and visit us was extremely helpful. It was exciting to see where siodhan got in such a short amount of time, and with such alot of hard work involved it look like it was paying off for her. Having someone tell us what 1 of our future roles may be was a very helpful and inspiring thing to be apart of. And I would love to see how she is and if Siobhan has been promoted yet!!!

Social class
Our session began with discussion of social class. ‘Status hierarchy in which individuals and groups are classified on the basis of esteem and prestige acquired mainly through economic success and accumulation of wealth’ http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/social-class.html Social class plays a very important role, as a person’s social class can determine the brand, product or service that they may purchase. There are four categories in the social class status,

1. Upper Class
2. Middle Class
3. Working Class
4. Lower Class


Here are two short YouTube clips that help give a comedic view the social class terms;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ9CxInz23Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mYY1QGK0jQ&feature=related

From these clips it’s easy to see how the views on class have changed over the years. To help define who belongs to which social class, these terms were created to help measure social class.
A, B, C1, C2, D, E
A-Upper Middle Class
B-Middle Class
C1-Lower Middle Class
C2- Skilled Working Class
D-Working Class
E-Lower Class
A number of things can determine what social group a person belongs to. For example a Plumber who has his own will be a C2. And a person with no job or very little income and make a person E class.
In earlier years a person who was wealth was seen as upper class have, but in today’s society a person could have a physically demanding job, and earn allot of money.






A persons social class can influence a persons bying habits. For instance person may but expensive clothes if they feel that they belong to a high social status, even if they may appear to be of a lower status.
Marketers us the consumers craving for a higher soicial status to influence thei brand or product. Consumer will by product that look expersive, classy and sometimes abit extravagent, as long as its just within there price range.

Marketing to children

Marketing to children
For this session we looked at advertising to children. Children play a huge part in the marketing world. If the advertisers are able to target the young childen then the child is more than likely to grow up with this product and then teach others around them and hopefully stay loyal to the brand or product.
We then took a quick look into the differences between the Victorian Times compared with the 21st Century. In Victorian Times the more children you had the more of an income. Children were seen and not herd.

Were as compared with how a child are viewed now in the 21st Century is a very different picture altogether.









We were asked to create a thought bubble on a large piece of paper with the question ‘ Little Princess? Why?’ inside. From this question we had to give our own thoughts and views as to why and how we fill this has changed over time.











As you can see from this picture that the reason we felt that children were being spoilt was that the overall apperance and how well of the child appeared would help increase there social status.
With the use of the term KGOY (kids getting older younger) they are exposed to older programming on television and more advertisements aaround them. With kids getting older younger they are easily influenced and if a marketing campaign aims for children they have a strong chance of the child growing up with there brand or product.
There are many problems that can arise when marketing to children @children tend to accept what they see on television as real, they do not necessarily understand the persuasive intent of commercials’ (Solomom 3rd Edition pg.418)

Generational Marketing

Generational Marketing
For this session we delved in to the ins and outs of generational marketing. Over the years generations morals and outlook on life has changed drematically, and this is very important to marketers of the world to keep upto date with if they wish to market to the correct target.
The Different types of generations are,
• Pre-school
• Children
• Tweens
• Teens
• Generation Y
• Generation X
• Baby Boomers (Young)
• Baby Boomers (Old)
• Grey £
Within theses group now comes the term of sub cultures that can change which where people fall dependent on there age. For example a teenagers spends the same if not more than the other geneation. This has changed because the familile values have changed. They are willing to give there child pocket money and more expenses. In the late 1800’s children were not offered this luxury. So as you can see the use of subcultures can effect the main generation groups.
We were then asked to split into groups of 4 and given a generation at random. We were given teens. Teens are aged between 15 -18. We chose a few pictures and advertisments that help represent this generation. Here are a few examples...


The teens are massivly influenced by there parent and what they have been brought up with, so marketers see the teens branching off slightly and seeking new products or brands. The see teens as very influencial and see this as an opportunity.

Memory and Nostalgia...

Blog 9
Sadly I was unable to attend this session due to a bad flu, but I have conducted my own research on the subject.
The subject for this blog in memory and nostalgia.
There are two types of behavioural learning theories, there is classical conditioning and operant conditioning discovered by Russion Physiologist Ivan Pavlov. Classical conditioning is ‘a learning process that occurs through associations between an environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus.’
http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/classcond.htm
A conditioned theory is that of which a person experiences something, for example the smell of a dentist, and they may then recall a past experience be that good or bad.

And the other theory is operant conditioning. a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior
http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/introopcond.htm
This theory was created by B.F.SKINNER.
As an example, the teachings of a child through right and wrong. If the child is bad they are punished, if the child acts in a correct manner then the child is rewarded.