The Game Plan

This project will be a very challenging one, because it is not about handling objects and technicalities anymore; it’s about handling people. Also, it’s because nobody in the advertising industry in UK knows 95% or Janet Lee for the matter, whereas Janet Lee is well known and respected in Malaysia. I would need to approach this first from the angle of understanding the internal processes of the local advertising industry before thinking about marketing this to them.


Phase 1 : Know Thy Target

This will perhaps be the longest and most challenging part of this project. I will need to research about the advertising industry through the below methods :-

1. Researching online and printed materials how the UK advertising industry works;
2. Try to gain access to a few practitioners who have undergone the IPA Excellence Diploma and speak to them regarding the programme and their experience; and
3. Try to gain access to the HR departments of a few advertising agencies regarding their efforts to train their staff.

The aim of this phase is to understand the UK advertising industry. Methods of contact will include making calls, emailing and perhaps occasional trips to the agencies. 

Some of the other things I will also need to look at are :-

1. What exactly does IPA Excellence Diploma teach? What topics do they cover? 
2. What do the graduates think about it? Based on some of their testimonials, they mentioned that their lives are being changed – why so? What exactly did IPA Excellence Diploma bring into their lives? 
3. What kinds of advertisements are currently being churned out in our local papers (the bare minimum)? 

Phase 2 : Strategise

Like every campaign, the advertising practitioner will always need to strategise and devise a game plan. Likewise, after doing sufficient research, I will need to strategise and build a strategy. Some of the questions I will need to answer are :

1. Why does the UK advertising industry need training?
2. Why is the IPA Excellence Diploma insufficient? Is my assumption about it being ineffective right or wrong? 
3. How to position 95% The Advertising Academy? 

Once this phase is done, a 9-point marketing strategy should be ready. The strategy will consist of :-

1. Marketing Objective
2. Advertising Objective
3. Target Audience
4. SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)
5. Consumer Benefit - physical benefit (if any) and/or emotional benefit (if any)
6. Support – details that support the above claims
7. Consumer Perception – before and after
8. Tone and Manner
9. Positioning Statement

Phase 3 : Idea Generation 

This is where I will brainstorm for ideas to introduce 95% to the advertising industries. Because I am marketing it to people who are in the business of bringing creativity to life and engaging people, my ideas will need to be up to par, if not better, to get their attention. 

As of this moment, I will not be able to ascertain what kind of ideas exactly will be produced. Hence, I can’t say for sure what exactly will the outcome of my project look like – I don’t know if I will write a script or produce a storyboard or develop a website. 

Once the idea is constructed and developed, I will proceed to the final phase – execution. 

Phase 4 – Execution

Depending on what the final idea is, I will try to execute it. However, I must stress that I have not been trained in design, writing copy or shooting a movie. Hence, should I decide to produce a 30-seconds advertisement, I will attempt to draw a storyboard to show the idea. Should I need to develop a website, I can give an idea about how the website would look like with either sketches or words. 

This is what I ask of my supervisor and examiner – that the scores be based on the thought process and the idea generated, instead of the final executed work as I’ve been trained in neither of the areas, and I doubt that I will have enough time to master any of the skills, as I will only know what skills I need after I am done with generating and developing ideas.