My Portfolio Experience On Personal Branding And Creative Strategies by Rokayah Al Moaliem
Nowadays, it requires a great deal of effort to produce an effective advertisement that sells. Many factors can contribute to the success of a product or service. But the top of it is building a strong brand strategy through creative advertisement.
I’ve taken the time to compose this fundamental knowledge in a single album that I call: My Portfolio Experience On Brand Advertising And Creative Strategies.
Over the years, I developed a keen interest in advertising due to how it has helped and still shaping the modern world.
The sole purpose of brand advertising is to communicate by creating public awareness to establish and build strong connections and long-lasting relationships with consumers over time.
Here, the keyword is communication. This means that the success or failure of brand advertisement is determined by how the brand communicates with the public.
So, let me take you on tour as I will be showing you some of the fascinating experiences I garnered from relevant advertising classes so far.
Throughout my four-year study, research, and various theses at Lasell University, I learned the importance of, and how I can build an effective personal brand. This knowledge resonates so well with the communication classes that I took at Lasell.
It also became clear that while planning to build my brand, I realized that personal brand is all about establishing a credible identity that connects with the public. All this can be achieved through a viable means of communication.
I hope to connect some of the courses I took at Lasell to how I intend to build a personal brand identity for my profession.
Personal Branding Begins With Good Communication
I believe that communication processes are fundamental to human life, for it affects virtually every aspect of our life. Many of the classes I took at Lasell provided me with the opportunities needed to develop practical communication skills. For instance, I learned how to articulate my thoughts in a clearly written form.
The early stages of my study were challenging. However, numerous class presentations, such as Human communication, helped develop my verbal and non-verbal communication skills. Besides, it's just what I needed for basic communication skills as I look to establishing a personal brand for myself in the coming future.
The road to building a personal brand can be chaotic. Intercultural communication and communication research classes are two fundamental classes that helped shape my knowledge on this crucial path to successful branding.
Personal Branding And Social Media Tech
There’s been a lot of buzz about branding and social media. These days, branding and social media are like bread and cheese. They compliment each other so well with the actual result to back it up. After all, the result is all that matters the most in branding.
In one of my most recent classes, I did a project that significantly influenced my creativity on social media branding. The project involved a case study on one of my favorites brands – UGG company.
For a specific target audience, I focused on creating brand awareness for the UGG boots product line.There are three essential elements I must considered in order to achieve this goal.
I followed each process (this includes situation analysis, creative brief, and creative execution).
I conducted in-depth background research to get an insight into the company. The class walked me through the processes of creating an effective and compelling social media profile.
Developing An Effective Marketing Strategy For Personal Brand
All the talks about building a personal brand without a marketing strategy in place would be pointless. In my marketing strategy class (COM 330), I saw how crucial it is for every organization to consider some ethical questions that surround marketing strategies.
Applying these strategies would aid me in creating successful customer engagement. Also, I learned much about strategic thinking and handling competitors.
Let me share with you one practical project that helped my strategic thinking concerning building effective marketing practices. I did a project on Nike’s Air Jordan.
The “Nike Air Jordan” Marketing Strategy Project
Much could be admired about how Nike could still maintain stable ground in the sports market despite fierce competition from the likes of Adidas and Under Armor.
There’s one undebatable fact; social media is an essential piece to creating successful marketing.
Becoming a successful advertising manager requires developing and combining a variety of digital skills, including creative design. One of my classes highlighted the importance of innovative design in the way of appealing to the right audience.
I developed relevant digital skills in creative design best practices. One such digital skill taught me how to use InDesign software to design a simple advertising poster for a perfume brand with women as the target audience.
At this point, several questions begin to run through my mind. How do I design a poster that would portray Dior Perfume the way it is – a high-end luxury fragrance for women. Yet, the advertisement must persuade consumers that a less expensive Dior fragrance can be just as desirable as the costly ones.
Again, how do I communicate to consumers that they can buy this product at Macy’s?. So, I put my thinking cap on and began to put some essential things into consideration.
From what I came up with within the poster, the goal is to show that even younger women with low income can equally afford to buy this new line of Dior fragrance with the same global appeal.
The Applebee’s Grill & Bar projects is yet another classwork that enhanced my marketing skills both in creating and designing an effective restaurant menu.
For example, I learned the importance of product priority and writing clear and concise content descriptions. Did I also mention that I dabbled a little into the copywriting niche? Let me show a few fascinating things I did in the Applebee’s Grill & Bar’s menu.
I highlighted the bestselling items first and placed are neatly arranged in categories, each with its pricing tag.
For this project, you would probably notice that I have made significant improvements with my graphic design skill.
Intercultural And Professional Communication Classes Helped Shaped My View On Group Work And Collaborations
Working alongside my classmates has exposed me to a new culture, new people, unique personalities, and new ideas. It does not matter my ability and skill; team collaboration is crucial.
The truth is, I may not be the outspoken type of person, but I learned to be more social, accept people, and see the uniqueness of each group member. From my group members, I learned how to use new digital tools and how best to approach projects.
About a year ago, with my group, we did a “Care on the Go Advertising Campaign” project for the “Envior Natural SkinCare” product. The product exposed me to making in-depth research such as product research, company research, competitive research, before starting on a project.
The Go Advertising Campaign Care on “Envior Natural SkinCare”
From the project, I understand the big concept and practices of advertising, such as brand mission statement, target market, and campaign strategy. Getting the right campaign strategy is the most challenging part of the project.
This allows me to apply some of the things I learned in class, but we have to get through it together as a group. For instance, we have to think about creating a unique brand identity from color matching to logo design, to social media ads, and media planning.
The good thing, though, is that collaborative effort paid off. We delegated the project in bits and agreed on an agreed time for submission. Each member was able to bring ideas to the table, and this helped me a lot.
Learning From Experts In The Field Of Advertising
At some point in my life, I had to meet with the experts to tap from their vast wealth of experience. Thankfully, one of my courses opened the door of opportunity. Along the way, my experience further develop my skills in personal branding as a communication tool. I undertook an assignment in the field to interview with Prof. Frank Irizarry.
He is the Assistant Professor at Suffolk University, who has had over 25 years of experience in the Advertising profession. In my interview with Professor Irizarry, I learned a great deal from his experience in advertising and public relations.
Among many things that stood to me were his passion, resilience, creativity, and readiness to accept scrutiny from others. He then advised me to be creative and focus more on group testing.
I would not fail to mention that Prof. Irizarry has an excellent eye for innovative and effective advertising. He would always refer to the acronym “MMP” which means “message, medium, public,” alluding to the importance of synchronizing these three concepts to make compelling media choices.
The professor equally stressed that to be successful in the advertising field, it is essential to get people to buy a product—and that is what measures the effectiveness of the advertisement.
Above all, I must state that the conversation I had with Prof. Irizarry was an excellent eye-opener for me, and I gained new insight into what it takes to be a successful professional advertising Manager.
Then comes another expert I learned from, the author of the book, The Creative Process Illustrated: How Advertising Big Ideas Are Born. Early in the semester, I took a course on creative advertising.
For one thing, I’ll admit that the book helped mirror down the process of advertising so tightly that I can see the solutions to advertising challenges right before my eyes.
The book got me hooked by the way it examines how different creative directors, advertising copywriters, and some other great artists and thinkers tackle the problem of being creative.
The book illustratively inspired me to visualize my search for a great idea in the advertising industry. A part of the book says: “Creativity is advertising’s most valuable resource.” How true that statement was! While self-creativity is crucial, I learned that I could also get an insight into another person’s creative ideas to help polish my own.
Something else I gleaned from the book is that I need to develop skills beyond just putting my ideas into writing, crafting the ideas out like a graphic designer. Above all, the book is quite insightful and full of creative perks, especially for an aspiring advertising manager like me.
So, I worked more on improving my creativity. Gradually, I began to learn that I would need some tough skin to be creative and to stay relevant in the advertising field.
Content creating is one of the toughest challenges I have. First, my English needs to stay sharp for people to read and respond to the message I’m trying to pass across.
Then again, content creation is not all about what I want but what my target audience want. With my little knowledge and skills gathered from relevant courses in school, I saw where exactly to improve and to work hard to being consistent.
Above it all, brand advertisement is about creativity and putting ideas to work. I know I still have a lot to learn and improve on. But what matters most is that I keep learning and developing in my skills.
