I have done my bachelors (first degree) in advertising and I believed that those were the best times of my life where I have learnt a lot about management and marketing and also it gave me an idea of how things are supposed to be done when starting up your business, but since I came to Kingston university and choose to do the designing a business module my whole perception of business has changed. I have learned to think, research, experiment, prototype, and plan, make strategies and take feedback from appropriate people to see where my idea lacks behind.
My future plan is to start a full service advertising agency that that gives all types of advertising service to the costumers i.e. any kind of advertising it can be electronic, print or digital or a mix campaign of the three which we can design and plan for the costumer. In our advertising agency we would like to make available all types of advertising from the internet to leaflets which would make us a company of complete advertising solutions. We want to make our business global for which UK can be the perfect place to start as in UK we find people from all around the world which will help us in growing our network and reach of the business overseas. We have been researching the market for a advertising agency in UK to do service of the kind that we wish to make available in our advertising agency and the first thing we came across is that there is a lot of opportunities in this market as there are so many products and services in UK from all around the world and there is a lot of competition advertising becomes a very important part for any product or service to grow and run successfully. Another thing that we learned from the research is that any product or service that requires to be success in UK needs to make a brand name for itself and has to innovate with time as people demand something new every day it might be just a change in the packaging design but the products do need a little innovation every time.
In today’s world with so much of competition around and so many organizations shutting down because of lack of innovation and opportunities to expand and grow globally. This is also a curcial thing for my future plan as there is a lot of competition and big leaders in this industry like Abbott Mead Vickers (AMV BBDO), AdamandEveDDB, BETC LONDON, etc. are on a completely different level which is a dream of every advertising agency. Studying designing a business module at Kingston University, I learned a deeper and broader aspect of leadership and entrepreneurship which every person wanting to start a new business needs. Throughout the module i learned the importance of designing business strategies, branding, innovation, team work, and skills required for running a successful business.
Branding is the most crucial part for every product and as an advertiser i must be very clear in my idea of branding a product because if the branding of the product is not done right it would never achieve the goals that it is meant to achieve. The right kind of branding can make a product and the wrong one can break a well established product the company’s logo, name, packaging, location, distributed channel, employees, etc. All contribute to the company’s image and make it a successful brand. The organization must focus on targeting good quality product as their primary goal to achieve costumer satisfaction by providing value for money products and services. Whereas as a advertising agency we need to understand our costumers product and what is the perception of the organization selling the product about its product that they want their costumers to see in their advertisements. Experts also suggest that for the initial stages of any organization there should be low cost risks and quality results for the development of goodwill of the organization in the industry. In the advertising industry one failed campaign can ruin any organization’s success in just a flick and this risk of defamation increases with the growth and success of the organization and because of being a mass communication industry the credibility of the organization is not only lost in the industry but also among the masses. Today organizations focus too much on the new media i.e. the virtual world or online world of internet for their advertising forgetting the traditional media i.e. radio, television and print media which makes it difficult to reach the right kind of audience which is possible with the traditional media. In class we learnt about tribes and storytelling too which is discussed below and is also a important part of the traditional advertising strategy.
Tribes and storytelling as taught to us by Beaumont, C. In class makes us understand the deep connection between the two as only when we know what is our product tribe we can ris search on the psychology of our tribe and what culture and system of life they follow and accordingly how can the product or service that we are selling can really solve the problem of that tribe that we aim to solve. We learn how we can create demand for our product with storytelling about the product and how it help someone who needed a product like ours to solve their similar problem that our tribe might face too. The credibility of the organization also works wonders in storytelling because if the organization is well reputed in the target tribe it is more likely that the tribe accepts the story told to them but might not accept a really strong story if the reputation of the organization is not good among the target tribe. Storytelling makes it easy for the organization to make a place in the minds of the tribe it wants to target and gives it a upper hand compared to its competitors when making the purchase decision.
With the designing a business module we were given a chance to participate in the young enterprise competition as a part of our assessment as well. In this assessment cum competition we were supposed to think of a product which could be anything and then research on its markets, study the target tribe, understand the ways of selling it, innovate a little on shape size and design to make it look different and unique in the market and make proto types to get feedback on how it can be improved and finally make it a completely new business and sell our product that we made and innovated in two different trade fairs the catch was that this being a part of our assessment the other hand it was also a chance to turn this idea into a real business with a £3000 prize for the best idea from young enterprise competition. under the shadow of the competition we came up with the idea of Enamel London which was a complete nail grooming ‘’ON THE GO’’ product. We came up with enamel London when we were thinking of innovating a product which would solve the problem of nail grooming for the tribe of women age between 25-35 who are a working professional and don’t have the time to take care for themselves. The product had a price of £10.99 and we had won “Best Product Idea” in the first dragons den presentation but we could not make it up to the finals. With this we had done a lot of things together as a team like researching about the markets, surveying the markets, understanding the cosmetics market scenario in UK.
All this work done together taught us the value of teamwork and quality of leadership in every step one of us would lead and decide how and what exactly needs to be done to accomplish team goals. We learn that leadership is to motivate and guide your team members towards the goal that is to be achieved in order to make the business a success. As in today where there is a demand for something new every day a leader has to be innovative in his approach and motivate his team to think innovatively as well. Teamwork is like clockwork if everything works fine the results are perfect if there is some part missing it directly affects the business and productivity. As per my future plan of starting a advertising agency I feel it is very important to know these qualities of leadership and the responsibilities as a team member as otherwise i might fail to run the business successfully.
Finances are the heart of any business. Finance is the very first thing that comes to a person’s mind when he thinks about any business. Not many people understand how to manage finances and accounts for a new start up and till today we see people using traditional techniques like “Money in and money out” to maintain their records and tally accounts. The very important part of any start up is availability of funds for which it is important that new entrepreneurs focus on maintaining cash flow and liquidity of funds at every stage of the business.
Another thing that is a important part of every organization today is the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The Corporate Social Responsibility of an organization keeps it very much in good name and in the eyes of their tribe for good reasons and so this part of organization only takes care of the organization doing enough for the society’s welfare and efficiently taking care of its responsibility towards society. This makes the costumer using our product or service feel a part of it as they have contributed towards it by buying our product or service.
To conclude i would say that the lessons that i learned in class and while working on the business with the team i have learned things that would help me in my future ventures and i will be well prepared of the challenges that might come my way to accomplish my aims for future. Things like leadership, Teamwork, planning, research, innovative thinking can only be learned by practically experimenting and this if done under the academics like we did teaches a lot of things and also safeguards us from making serious mistakes by providing appropriate guidance. Hopefully i will succeed in my future goal that is to start a advertising agency in UK and run it successfully with the help of everything that i have learned in this module in the past year and apply this knowledge in the right way to make the most out of it and succeed in life.
Refrences
List of 50 of the top award winning advertising and marketing agencies in the UK. 2014. List of 50 of the top award winning advertising and marketing agencies in the UK. Available at: http://www.design-intellect.co.uk/top_50_advertising_marketing_agencies_list.html. [Accessed 22 April 2014].
Branding Definition | Small Business Encyclopedia | Entrepreneur.com. Available at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/encyclopedia/branding. [Accessed 22 April 2014].
The Lean Startup | Methodology. 2014. The Lean Startup | Methodology. Available at: http://theleanstartup.com/principles. [Accessed 23 April 2014].
Designing a Business (Design Thinking + Lean Startups) | A module in the MA in the Creative Industries and the Creative Economy programme at Kingston University. Available at:http://macekingston.wordpress.com/. [Accessed 23 April 2014] .
Martin, Roger (2009) The Design of business: Why design thinking is the next competitive advantage, Harvard business School.
danchadley. 2014. danchadley. Available at:http://danchadley.wordpress.com/. [Accessed 24 April 2014].
My Blog | This WordPress.com site is the bee’s knees. 2014. My Blog | This WordPress.com site is the bee’s knees. Available at:http://pposh.wordpress.com/. [Accessed 26 April 2014].
kunalrajpurohit 