Enterprise week...

This week at Bucks New University was a little bit different than other weeks of lectures. We had a great chance to find out more about enterprise. That’s why this week was called “Enterprise week”. I think that it was a great opportunity for us to meet with people working in industry. I took part in an event called “What next?” taken place in Monday morning. I had been sure that it will be a boring lecture before, but I changed my mind. It wasn’t a lecture it was a conversation between guests and audience (students). I remember only a few surnames of specialist who spent that morning with us: Alan Rich (who has a great surname, what a coincidence), Andrew Canter and Steve Cox. Many people asked questions about modern business and possibilities in industry for the future. It was surprised about an answer given at a question “How recession can affect on PR industry?” Alan Rich said that recession was a good test and what was also important, it could help because only well-run businesses would be able to survive. This selection reduce the number of the brands and ensure clients that they choose the best agencies. He seemed to be a very nice men and he remind us one very important expression “Be enthusiastic!”. Whats more, Andrew Carter claimed that there were three ways to achieve success in business, PR and advertising: measurement, count ability and innovation. During this session we talked little bit about politics and political marketing. I remember one sentence which may be a conclusion of that conversation: if Obama hadn’t won elections, it wouldn’t have been good promotion for marketing, because it was first, completely international and interactive elections.

Second lecture begin shortly after 2 o’clock. It was called “Putting theory into practice”. It was kind of meeting with graduated students of PR and Marketing courses. There were a people who got diploma few years ago and now they work for various agencies. They explained that PR and advertising industry is a very small industry, where everyone know each other and it is very important to have a recognizable surname, to be good not only in theory but also in practice. What is more creativity and self confidence might be a key to success. I think that meeting was very helpful for us (PR students). We got a chance to see people who made their dreams come true and I hope that one day, I will be one of them.

Advertising in magazines....

I’d like to start with to quotation from Ruth this is the end of fun and games. I have always known that something like that can happen someday but I have not expected that I will be in November. Ruth explained that because of new uni grades system we cannot fail any of our assignments. I am totally terrified about it. It is typical for me that I am usually afraid of many things because I do not believe in myself, but this information almost killed me. Repeating a year is one of the worst thing which can happen. I am not even able to imagine myself in similar situation. OK, I know, like Marley said don’t worry be happy.

Coming back to the topic of my post….Ruth made me scared and immediately started lecture. That time we talked about advertisements in magazines. How it is possible that people remember only a few out of thousands seen everyday? Our group had a great chance to check these mechanisms Everyone of us were obliged to write down all ads which we remember out of a dozen or so. Off course everyone has different preferences in chosen ads. Our choice depends on many things, mostly on our gender. Ads for man are usually not as colorfully as these for women. Product should be at the centre to the picture. In the best situation ad affects on more than our sense. Against all odds, it is possible to affect on our feeling using only a picture. (example can be seen at the right). Results of our experiment wasn’t a surprise for me. There are different rules used in adverts for each gender:

WOMAN prefer:

- stars in adverts

- many colors

- bright colors

- big area in the same color

- ad should tell a story

- affecting on many senses

MEN prefer:

- using humor

- one, basic color

- emphasizing strength

- using connotations

- illusion of luxury

Interested in this topic? You should see this film:

Personality and self-concept....

In nowadays world internet is the most common source of information. I am sure that many of us had an occasion to fill in various personality test found in the internet. There are hundreds of such test and we should be aware of the fact that the most part of it is of little worth. During fridays lecture's we filled in two the most popular: Simpson personality and Myers Briggs test. According to first one I am quite similar in my behavior to Ned Flanders :), who is: warm hearted individual who highly value their relationships. Customer focused with the ability to bring out the best of people. but also might be self-sacrificing and may not pay enough attention to their own needs. Ned Flanders is a person whose personality may be described in four letters: ESFJ (extraversion, sensing, feeling judging).

After “ fun and games” we tried to understand the difference between personality and self-esteem. According to Solomon(1999):

Personality: a person’s unique make up, which consistently influences the way the person responds to his or her environment

Self-concept: the beliefs a person holds about his or her own attributes & how he or she evaluates those qualities

McCrae and Cost claimed that there are five scale of personality types:

Openness to experience - appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience.

Conscientiousness - a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement; planned rather than spontaneous behavior.

Extroversion - energy, positive emotions, surgency, and the tendency to seek stimulation and the company of others.

Agreeableness - a tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others

Neuroticism - a tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily, such as anger, anxiety, depression, or vulnerability; sometimes called emotional instability.

The Brand Personality Dimensions of Jennifer Aaker is a framework to describe and measure the 'personality" of a brand in five core dimensions, each divided into a set of facets.

It is an easy to understand model to describe the profile of a brand using an analogy with a human being.

The five core dimensions and their facets are:

• Sincerity (down-to-earth, honest, wholesome, cheerful)
• Excitement (daring, spirited, imaginative, up-to-date)
• Competence (reliable, intelligent, successful)
• Sophistication (upper class, charming)
• Ruggedness (outdoorsy, tough)

Each facet is in turn measured by a set of traits. The trait measures are taken using a five-point scale (1= not at all descriptive, 5=extremely descriptive) rating the extent to which each trait describes the specific brand of interest.

The traits belonging to each of the facets are:

• Down-to-earth (down-to-earth, family-oriented, small-town)
• Honest (honest, sincere, real)
• Wholesome (wholesome, original)
• Cheerful (cheerful, sentimental, friendly)
• Daring (daring, trendy, exciting)
• Spirited (spirited, cool, young)
• Imaginative (imaginative, unique)
• Up-to-date (up-to-date, independent, contemporary)
• Reliable (reliable, hard working, secure)
• Intelligent (intelligent, technical, corporate)
• Successful (successful, leader, confident)
• Upper class (upper class, glamorous, good looking)
• Charming (charming, feminine, smooth)
• Outdoorsy (outdoorsy, masculine, Western)
• Tough (tough, rugged)

What is more, people who create advertisements know that our way of understanding the advertisement depends on personality. More information about this topic can be found in those articles:

Personality and self-concept

Personality and brands