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My experiences with Media Trust's Creativity Works 10 week course, visiting London's top TV, Marketing, Video spaces and offices

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Inside Google and YouTube's offices

I had the best experience when attending Google & YouTube’s Masterclasses in their London offices. And lots of questions answered!

I spent week 9 of my journey with the Creativity Works, in the London offices of Google. A huge privilage to attend industry-led masterclasses.

A bit of history: Does anyone remember Teletext? Well, Teletext was Google before Google. Even though I dibbed in exploring it before I hit my teens, I still remember seeing many of its various and adventurous properties: I remember I could dig in and read my horoscope, weekly or daily; I could go and check the weather out, I had access to the programmes list (Oh My Gosh!) – that’s a big thing for someone who did not grow up with internet. I also remember cringing when seeing the dating ads like, “a middle age woman is looking for a good respectful man”, aren’t we all hun? Ha-ha! I would always skip through the news, because it was mainly politics or sports based, and I barely understood any of it, but I would sometimes look at the weather forecast. Not that a rainy day would stop me from going outside to play! I remember entering a number and having to wait a few minutes before it would open a page!

However, with the arrival of Google in 1998, things were swift to change. Fast-forward 20 years later, and we have all of good-old-fashioned Teletext’s properties and even more, in the click of a button. Or touch of a finger – depending if you’re on a laptop or a mobile device.

I will concentrate on talking about some Google’s unique and FREE marketing tools. Now, did you know you could make your own ad, without having to pay anyone else for doing so? Before doing so, you’ll need to evaluate and research your market using Google Analytics, where you can find all the sufficient data like demographics, location, etc. Then, you can go to Google Trends to find out the popularity of top searches, using keywords, (but make sure to change the location to your current one, as the default one is the US). After all of that, you can use AdWorks to create your well thought out ad campaign.

Also remember something very vital:

“Consumer behaviour is dictating how the business world is changing.”

Bear this in mind when you take a step further in your marketing for your business.

Also, do you know about all those long and short, skippable and nonskippable YouTube advertisement videos coming up right before the video we actually want to watch? Well there’s a science to understand them! (Not rocket science, just usual common sense!)

Let’s start off with the kinds of YouTube Video Ads, (bear in mind, I’m not talking about the other pop up ads):

NONSKIPPABLEs:

BUMPER ad is a video advertisement, which has to catch the consumer’s attention for 6 seconds, either about a well-known product or something new. Still, you may consider 6 seconds too short, but this bitesize glimpse is designed to catch your attention about a product.

The second kind of ad is a bit longer than the bumper - 20-seconds, which you still cannot skip. This NONSKIPPABLE is still designed to catch your attention, but this time, while having a bit of a longer story, rather than a glimpse.

For those two NONSKIPPABLE ad kinds, you have to pay.

Moving on to the TRUVIEW SKIPPABLE advertisement video. The good thing about it is that you don’t need to pay if they press the SKIP BUTTON, but you wouldn’t want that, would you? The goal for this one is to tell the whole story of the product with a touch of emotion, which will instantly connect with the consumer. All of which should be done, without having to press the SKIP BUTTON. An important point to remember is that, if the consumer has seen both the 6 second & 20 second video advertisements, prior to being shown the TRUVIEW SKIPPABLE advertisement video, there’s a bigger chance with them engaging, and a bigger chance for them becoming a potential consumer.

This is all I learned in a “bitesize” format, from my visit to Google & YouTube with the Media Trust. I hope it’s made clear sense.

#CreativityWorks #season8 #week9 #Google #mediatrust #maggiemlado #maggiemladenova #youtube #masterclass #london

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Jamie Oliver gives young Londoners

By Maggie Mlado

In week 4 of my journey with the Creativity Works, I visited Jamie Oliver Productions where I got an overall first-hand insight of how the company works with an unexpected surprise.

Jamie Oliver Productions is actually part of a Jamie Oliver Group, which produces TV, photography & advertisement content, books and much more!

JO’s audiences are worldwide and different in age from 25 to 45. That establishes a challenge for providing the right content at the right time of the day, on the right digital platform. Their social media team is doing quite a great job on Instagram, providing content of balanced & healthy food ideas and recommendations throughout the week.

Working with selected companies like Tesco, the JO group made a platform for balanced food, excluding processed food and put a tax on sugar. This is so relevant and important right now, because of 1) (unhealthy) junk food is praised too much in the media & 2) young people eat fast food because they’re influenced to.

The second part of the masterclass day and tour of the building, I got involved in one of the studios, where a lot of the all-round content is shot. Working in different groups, with everyone having a go, we managed to create a short cooking video with two presenters. Using technical terms such as TURNOVER (used only by the director), SPEED (by the sound and camera people), CUT (advised to not use all the time as it comes off as confusing), everyone undertook roles such as sound and boom operator, 2x camera operators, director/producer (often those two roles are undertaken by one person), production assistant and food stylist.

I underwent the role of a director/producer for my turn, and did my best to navigate the small team I worked with. What I learned from this challenge is: 1) KNOW YOUR STUFF, 2) expect t ALWAYS BRAINSTORM because nothing is certain, 3) expect to KNOW EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING – regardless if you’re on camera/ sound or just running – you have to KNOW THE WAY THE PROCESS GOES, in order for it to go smoother ad more efficient.

The production team get very limited time with Jamie himself; hence using every second wisely, is extremely vital.

Surprisingly, I was lucky enough, to be able to stand less than 5 feet away from Jamie Oliver, and take in the advice he gave the Creativity Works team. (I have paraphrased and structured it into bullet points):

Be yourself, and be as authentic as you can in this media industry;

You don’t have to be highly educated to succeed, we’re in 2019, so ->

-> work smart and hard

we need a diverse industry, everyone’s voices need to be heard.

A day well spent in a modern thinking, boundaries-pushing company.

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Karen Williams gives fashion advice for interviews

By Maggie Mlado

In week 6 of my journey on the Creativity Works course, Channel 5’s 100% hotter presenter Karen Williams came in to a masterclass.

The purpose of her masterclass was to give the best professional advice on dressing for an upcoming job interview and how to dress appropriately when on the job.

Open your wardrobe, get that cuppa and let’s started. :)

Do I need to buy new clothes every time I go to an interview?

You can’t afford to buy new clothes for every interview. So what will you wear? Will you borrow money off your mum/ partner? Not unless there’s holes in all of your clothes!

So what can you do?

Easy. >

> Just go through your wardrobe and find clothes with a retro vibe, yes those clothes at the back of the wardrobe, which you forgot about. For example, a loose, plain t-shirt, or (your mum’s old) trousers and combine them with a statement blazer! Take your time and be creative;)

How many colours can you combine within an outfit?

Up to four (4!!) colours. But you need to be mindful, because there’s a thin line between being stylish and going a over the top! Head over to her Instagram to get some inspo!

How should I coordinate my colours?

Trick 1

Pick a check/pattern (no cats or flowers or anything!) colour top, it doesn’t have to be new, dig it out from your wardrobe and to pair it with neutral coloured choice for chinos or loose trousers. Also, as much as jeans are comfortable, do avoid them on for interviews.

Trick 2

Another way to coordinate colours is vice versa to the previous said: choose a simple, neutral colour top and combine it with some coloured/ check chinos or trousers.

Add the finishing touches by adding small heal (!!) shoes and a (bright, up to you how bright), one-colour blazer.

And there you go! You’ll leave a great first impression when walking in and out of the interview room and building.

Also, don’t forget to smile, it’s better than make up!:)

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Podcast and a cup of *insert your favourite hot/cold drink here*

by Maggie Mlado

We all love drinking hot or cold drinks such as coffee or tea, as a morning ritual either at home, on the go, in the afternoon at work, what have you, but have we actually stopped and enjoyed its taste?

We also consume (a bit too much of) content on a daily basis, either scrolling through Instagram, being on Youtube, listening to the radio in the car, but have we actually stopped to actually comprehend the content we are investing ourselves in?

Picture this:

What if you were only drinking your beverage of choice, no distractions around you?

And the content to absorb was only audio?

No, not the radio, or music, or YouTube. Something different instead. A podcast.

Fun facts about podcasts:

they are various in lenghts, (10-2hour ~ish),

you can pause them and return to them whenever you wish,

there’s so many platforms, (paid for and free)

Back to your zen mode and favourite drink of choice, whilst you’ve chosen a podcast to listen to. Do you apprecite the taste of the drink? Are you following the podcast’s narrative, phone display off, smartwatch display off too?

And, if you really need to, you can resume listening to it later on!

***

Here 5 Podcasts That Will Help Change How You Think Enjoy :)

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Into the ad zone of Adam & Eve

by Maggie Mlado

The experience at the offices of international advertising company Adam and Eve was quick and to the point - the same way as advertisements go.

Before we go into what the advertising works on, let’s acknowledge that it’s is a subdivision of a larger global group, falling under the umbrella of DDB network.

One of the masterclasses touched on the various departments, and their responsibilities when working on a project campaign. Adam and Eve’ aim to work closely with the client’s marketing department, in order to fulfil the creative brief, as well as to create an engagement around the client’s brand and product.

I was amazed by the number of job tittles involved in completing a client’s brief; a creative team, consisting of an art director and a copywriter, who are responsible for coming up with the core concept for a campaign; additionally to that there is an innovation team, a planning team, a small in-house production team etc. All those people work together, across departments, to create the best strategy and carry out effectively the brief given.

After scratching the surface of the company’s workflow, everyone got split in small teams, received a practical real-life brief, which was simply

“to create a poster campaign for superglue.”

Every group had to brainstorm and research ideas with potential, how and why they might work. Everyone worked with the information received in the masterclasses, our creative intuitions and no previous experience. But we did it. we presented our final concepts to Adam & Eve’s employees, who gave us informative and insightful creative criticism. 

The experience of being able to talk with professionals from the advertising industry, about mini-project we created in less than 2 days, was both eye-opening and motivational.

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Channel 4 opened their doors to young people

By Maggie Mlado

Visited Channel 4's London building.

Fun Fact: Margaret Thatcher helped in establishing Channel 4, which is publicly owned! She’s responsible for pushing the idea for advertising funding to replace licensing fees, the way the BBC works.

On the tour around of the building, I got to see some in-house studios; one of which responsible for recording of the “continuity voices” between TV programmes. Another one was an in-house editing suite, where they put together programmes and TV series.

Current C4 apprentices came to lead a masterclass; Jay Patel, Alex Blowey, Hayley Madhani. They gave essential tips for succeeding before and on the apprenticeship scheme, like proactivity, willingness to learn on the go, and being openminded. Moreover, one of 50 commissioners, Christian Kehoe, came in to meet us. He explained the process of commissioning shows and programmes that are currently topical and relatable.

Overall, the visit shed light into the diversity of the teams, how the apprentices got their jobs, and the workflow of the commissioners.