Reflections of Bridgnorth Aluminium

I completed my years internship on Tuesday, and have had chance to do a little bit of a reflection upon my 12 months there. Each section begins with surprised me about work, followed by how this made me feel. Whilst this is a blog post, it’s not really meant for anybody’s enjoyment, but more of a documentation of my feelings so that I can use it again in the future.

Brag Responsibly

Just a quick acknowledgement for 3 mobiles latest advert. It is simply genius! How do I know? Well because me whole family sat there with the biggest look of shock on their faces at the average looking man apologising to them.

We are all 3 customers, and we were all immediately concerned, but as the advert continued, you could see their shocked faces change to that face you do when your thinking “How cheeky are they, that was really clever!”. They were truly engrossed by this simple deceptive headline and when followed with terms such as “Selfie, hot dog legs, and #nofilter”, they all let out a little sigh of relief. If you haven’t seen the advert yet, I think it’s about time:

6 Fundamentals of great social media management

The 6th conference I attended at MWL14 was led by Julia Monro, head of social media and PR at Pret a Manger. Julia has had a seemingly fortunate business career however it is one that is extremely aspirational. As a graduate at M&S, Julia wanted to takeover/get involved with Social media and thus became an online marketer. This position, which involved video, social media and creating content elevated Julia to the position of Community manager, closely followed by a further promotion to the position of social media manager. This elevation took place over a 6 year period (2008-2014) and Julia has now sought pastures new in her role at Pret.  So whilst this experience could be a one-off, it does show that progression in large corporate business is possible, even if you may need to be in the right place at the right time.

Maintaining a Client-Agency Relationship

In a theatre packed full of digital marketing agency executives, it was enlightening to hear Dominic Grounsell (Marketing Director at the RSA Group) put focus on the client, and what the client wants, something I think is more valuable to an agency than telling them how to be succesful etc. Maintaining a client-agency relationship is not only beneficial in regards to ease of use, but is also far cheaper, more personable and quicker than inviting agencies to pitch. Dominic argued however that even though these benefits are so visible, agencies still believe their clients are simply going to throw them out, potentially because or three main client types. As I have worked for an agency and am now working with an agency, I believe I understand what an agency wants and doesn’t want, what they do and don’t want to know, and how they want to be treated on a personal level.

So I am trying my up most not to be any of the following characters:

Can Responsive web design be engaging?

After David Pemsels truly inspiring conference, it was always going to be hard for the next speaker to fulfil the same expectations. And to begin with it seemed that I wasn’t far wrong! After a rather lack luster introduction, Andrew Towers, the head of product development at The trainline.com began discussing ideas regarding the removal of Customer struggle, and creating a stress free user experience. This user experience idea centred around the usability of digital platforms, which I believe is not just relevant to external marketing communication, but also internally.

To buy or not to buy?

I think I may have an unhealthy obsession for spending money on materialistic items that aren’t really going to benefit my day-to-day existence. So when someone else gets involved and starts encouraging me to buy things, it really is a downward money spending spiral.

Does this relate to marketing or advertising or even anything other than me ranting? Well, maybe….as this one time at band camp………………..

Internal Marketing, why bother?

Throughout University, and many modules of different marketing formats, one area that has never been covered, is internal marketing, and the benefit it can have on the both motivation and communication given to your employees. Whilst I agree that external marketing will always have monetary gains, from experience, I believe that this is dependent upon the Industry you are in, and that in some industry’s, especially the heavily manufacturing industry, internal marketing could be as/if not more important.

When I refer to internal marketing, I believe it can be summarised as: an employee motivational tool to effectively satisfy its customers. So it is not just about displaying information about the business, or about news and events that are happening (although they do play an important role), it is about providing your employees with information that will focus their judgments and decisions on customer satisfaction. Having the recognition and therefore the motivation to go beyond your day-to-day duty, could change the perspective a customer has of your organisation. If this can be achieved through simple recognition, and a greater emphasis on pushing key information to your employees, then this should be facilitated within your organisation. As identified by ‘thesocialworkplace’, employee recognition is not just about employee motivation, or working harder, but could also give an increased employee retention, which is now very hard to sustain within the UK’s ‘itchy feet’ culture.

So does your organisation focus heavily on external marketing? Does it not do any marketing at all? Would you, as an employee feel more wanted and valued if you had access to up to date information or are you in a position to offer greater information to your employees? Internal marketing will only create a more informed workforce, and the time and resources to manage such a project, are far smaller than the potential ROI that it could have.

It’s not a complicated topic, but it is one that I think is often overlooked because it is not seen as a physical or monetary gain, and this is a real shame.

James

Ps. I’m as shocked as you are about how serious I was just then. My comical genius will be back soon, but just then, for five minutes, I enjoyed being serious.

Marketing Week Live 2014

The Countdown has begun!

On the 25th and 26th June, I will be attending my first Marketing Week Live exhibition at the Olympia Grand in London. The event has four main conference stages, and this is my real interest and purpose of attending this event. I want to be able to listen to experienced industry experts about a wide range of topics, that could not be heard anywhere else.

There are four conferences happening every hour so choosing which ones to go to has been difficult, however I think that this is my final list:

Wednesday:

10am Creativity in the digital today (David Pemsel, Deputy Chief Executive of the Guardian News and Media)

11am Can responsive web design be engaging (Andrew Towers, Head of product development at the Trainline)

12am Taking the transience out of client-agency relationships ( Dominic Grounsell, Marketing Director at the RSA Group)

1pm Aligning Social and Brand for ROI ( Simon Nicholson, Media Director at Honda Europe)

2pm Putting Innovation at the heart of growth in a cluttered market (Mike Magee, Vice President of Marketing at Mars Chocolate Uk)

3pm 6 Fundamentals of great social media management ( Julia Monro, Head of social media and PR at Pret a Manger)

4pm Brand friend forever (Sarah Mansfield, Uk Media Director for Unilever)

Thursday:

10am Creating power brands to stand out from the crowd (Ed Pilkington, Marketing and Innovation Director at Diageo)

11am Getting the X factor in Mobile (Nick Dutch, Head of digital at Domino’s)

12am Building great client agency relationships (Andy Portsmouth, Vision Express and John Owen, Dare)

1pm Ten latest trends in website and user experience  ( Jamers Cherkoff, Course Director at CIM)

2pm Stories aren’t just for kids! (Bernadette Andrietti, VP and Marketing Director at Intel)

3pm Bringing the customer into the boardroom (Amanda Mackenzie, CMO of Aviva)

4pm Engage 6-24 million visitors online per week (Simon Swan, Head of marketing at the Met Office)

If your still with me at this point you’re doing well! But what I hope I have achieved, is a list of conferences that are both relevant to my current situation at Bridgnorth Aluminium (Such as Branding and ROI) as well as visiting talks regards agencies, social media trends etc, as this is where I wish to work in the future. From my perspective, I am most looking forward to the conference regarding client-agency relationships, as I have worked both with and for an agency, so Andy and Johns views will be fascinating.

I will be tweeting throughout the day, and attempting to summarise each talk within the 15 minute breaks in between them, but If I don’t, it’s because I’m drinking Relentless or stressing about where I should be next. All that I can confirm is that I will have a large notepad with me so there will be some comprehensive blogging going on after both days.

This is my first experience of such event and I seriously cannot wait for it to start so if you are interested in my views during the event follow my twitter at: @__jamesellis__ . Also look out for my swanky badge! I wish it didn’t have the Intern bit on it though, what a mistake that was. I could have gotten away with being the marketing director or even the CEO!

Only 7 days to go! Best get booking a ridiculously expensive train journey!

James