Winter holidays, oh yeahh! This blog post will be little different than my other posts because we didn't have lectures at all. I'm gonna give you little glimpse to my outside of school life and it's not my style at all. I'm gonna keep this post short, so I don't reveal too much;)
On Monday we had little Fifa 16 session with my friends. After tournament, not much to tell, I won as always. Maybe home field gave me little advantage but I don't admit.
The greatest game ever
On Tuesday we had planned to go see Champions League match Arsenal - Barcelona to Sports Academy. Me as a Barcelona fan since 2004 and Roni and Miro true Arsenal fans. I also got Henri and Tommi along side with me to support Barcelona. After couple of beers and wine bottles Barcelona won 2-0! Sorry guys but I'm not sorry at all. I don't want to brag too much because one game still left and anything can happen in football.
Messi scored 2 goals against Arsenal and led Barcelona to victory
On Saturday I had my old work mate's going away party which made me little bit tired on Sunday if you know what i mean;) And of course I had left all school stuff for Sunday but no worries I got everything done on time. Our only task on this week was to watch Kyla Mitsunaga's video. My hangover little bit distracted my thinking but the video was simply amazing. At first she talked about how different words with and at can be. After that the topic brightened to me. One point was that teachers should learn with their students and me as a student should think am I learning with teacher or am I learning from teacher Just watch the video, very nice points there. I've actually always thought that learning with others is very good educational method because if you think about it, there's much more possibilities and ideas in group, just pick the best ones and add your own thinking there and VOILÀ. All in all pretty footballish week but what can I say, the best sports in the world!
See you on next week, probably little bit more school related stuff!
Week 5 started on Monday with lecture about marketing in social media, again held by Anna Ikonen. First of all I have to thank the teachers for the timing of this lecture because as I told in my last post, we had this assignment from Lacybox to make a social media marketing campaign for them. In lecture we talked about what have to be taken in consideration when starting campaign in social media. What, when, where, who and how is the main guestions basically in every marketing campaign but when going online there are lots of other things to think about. It is a long process from customer's awareness of product to actually buying it and there's different kind of buying scenarios too. Couple of scenarios are webrooming vs showrooming. In webrooming customer searches information from internet and make the purchase in store but in showrooming customer checks the product in store and then makes the purchase online. I thought this through and I came up that I'm mixing of these two. Usually I search from the internet the best solution and then go to store to check it out and then I decide is it cheaper or easier to buy from internet or in store. In my work I hate customers who come to the store and takes my time for half an hour asking questions about something and then says: "Yeah i get it cheaper from online", that's why I search the information first so i don't have to waste salesman valuable time more than I have to.
Process of making purchase
Anna also showed us examples what kind of things can impact on our minds when it comes to marketing in social media. Especially in videos or pictures you have to think for example coloring, effects, sounds, lenght, pictures, face impressions, texts and much more if you want to succeed and get wanted outcome in marketing campaign in social media. Our group took the lesson and we tried to think all of those things when we did the assignment for Lacybox. Anna also showed us some examples how effective videos can be and this one below I've checked couple of times more because it was absolutely great and I felt united and happy after that. Try also think the combination of all of the effects I mentioned before. By the way I actually didn't realize the lenght of it at all. Enjoy!
On Friday we presented our social media marketing campaign to Lacybox and feedback was mostly positive and owner of Lacybox Lynn-Marie Sederlöf Airisto thought that she could use some of the material in her future Instagram posts. She also liked our humor in the posts. Our team got also little bit criticism because we had used so many pictures instead of using same pictures in different platforms. Sometimes simpler is better. That actually reminded me that in last weeks post I forgot to mention team Funking's idea to SSM which was great. Their idea was that distributors also collect the adverts away from households and recycle them. Effective, environmental, doable and most of all simple. I'm, so idealistic, some also might say sometimes ADHD, I usually got so many ideas right away that I forget that sometimes simple solution could be more effective than hundred ideas. All in all Lacybox assignment was thoughtful and we learned a lot from it.
As wise man once said
That reminded me that Anna gave us also task to analyse one of the quotes she gave us. I chose Wendy Piersall's ''Google only loves you when everyone else loves you first''. In my opinion there's something wrong in this quote. I understand that it means basically that how popular you are in social media channels, how active you are in social media and how much followers you have there, the higher you get in Google. BUT something is forgotten... It's $$$ money $$$, you can buy your place in google if you have enough money. Based on this I made up my own quote '' Money rules the world if you let it ''. Somebody else might have made something similar but either way something to think about.
Right on
Friday's second lecture we got to the point that everyone had waited, presenting the promotion videos which all teams made for Superpark. WOW was the reaction after seen all of them. I really loved the different ankles and stories that teams had came up with. Got to give little bit respect to other teams, I've checked Funking team's and DigiInspiration team's videos again couple of times because I really liked them. But got to stand our team's ground I think that our team's video is supercool too and our ankle was to shoot it for (local) sport clubs and that's why we had our football jerseys on. Our second point was that Superpark should widen their target group because all of our team members are over 20 years old and Superpark's target group is 9-16 years old and we had so much fun there. They could advertise it more like an sport event than fun day at the park because sporty lifestyle is on the surface at the moment. So without further ado, below is our video, ENJOY!
On Monday we presented our ideas to SSM (Suomen suoramainonta). Like I told in the last post our task was come up with a solution(s) what else distributors can do than distribute adverts and how SSM can improve their marketing in social media. Our idea to them was that they should create a website where is possible to customer put help needed for example cutting lawn, cleaning, snow work or babysit. Then worker can take the jobs from the website. Point was that those are pretty easy skills that most of the distributors can do. When the job is done, customer confirm it, gives feedback to worker and worker gets paid. Check out Handy.com so you might get the idea better. Other point was that in today's economic situation it is so difficult to get any kind of job without experience and this is good way for younger people to get that. This kind of thing also gives good picture and respect for company also because youths are Finland's future. Our point was also that our solution creates value for every part of it for example job experience for younger people, respect and visibility for SSM and of course for customer that somebody helps them with tasks they don't have time to do. We also encouraged SSM to be more active in social media and if they want to reach young people they must speak their "language". Group Fantastic four had taken this idea little bit further and they made an example of the website and how it should look. Well done again!!
Feedback from SSM representatives was only positive and they liked our idea very much because of our viewpoint of young people and how they should be treated. Ilkka also gave us positive feedback about presentations marketing style. All in all SSM representatives were wondering on and on how they are impressed what every group had came up with. Anna also told that they needed convincing to come co-operate with us. Shame on them!! I'm pretty sure that they are thinking differently now and hope they realize to apply projects like this more often because we are the future's working force and we know how our generation thinks
On Wednesday we went to check out the Superpark and shoot some video material for our promotion video to them. WHAT A PLACE IT WAS! We literally went crazy there, we were like kids again. We had such a good time there playing football, floorball, baseball, basketball etc. And we got pretty good material for the video too, you'll see! At the end of the day we were exhausted and we didn't realize it until we left there. What a great way to do sports. We would definitely recommend this place to everyone because you don't even realize how much you get exercise there. For the most people (like myself), I hate just to go jogging, I need something else there, that's probably why I play football;D just kidding football is the greatest sport ever! But Superpark is another solution for people who needs something else there.
Yeah we had our football jerseys on in Superpark for a reason
On Friday I missed the bus and i missed the first 15 minutes of presentation that Lynn-Marie Sederlöf gave us. I catched up pretty fast and we actually got our fourth assignment. When I heard what was it I was little bit disappointed to be honest. Task is to make marketing campaign for subscribe webpage Lacybox. It includes land page designing, Facebook posting, Instagram posting, okay at this point it doesn't sound so bad, wait when you hear what the product is...:D WOMEN'S UNDERWEAR and our group should target the campaign to hen parties. Okay i'm not afraid of women's underwear I've seen them before but I really don't know how to advertise them or how to advertise hen parties. But when I taught this through it actually doesn't sound so bad because i'm willing to improve myself all the time and I really hate if I suck at something, so i'm gonna take this as self development and we will nail this campaign.
This is how i would describe this task: Even though it seems to be hard, it's still possible
On Tuesday we had two interesting guest speakers telling about companies they work for. First was representative from Superpark. It's indoor activity park where you can do lots of fun stuff for example skate, cycle, try baseball, shoot football in radar etc. So basically fun park for duracell bunnies like me. Superpark is actually first client for our team and our task is to make an advertising video for them and choose the ankle to whom we are going to advertise it. YEEES finally we get down to real business! In my opininon Superpark has very cool idea because they are trying to combine activity and digitalisation which is very important in nowday's world. Kids, youngsters and also adults should move much more to keep healthy lifestyle in today's digital world. Actually I've never heard about the company before and have lived in Vantaa for quite some time. Something is clearly wrong in their marketing because in my head they should've reached Vantaa already and this kind of activity park should be on everybody's lips. Hope our video will help them reach more audience. Their main target group according to presentation is young people aged 9 to 16. I think that there is a gap in markets for older people, I mean like ages 20 to 50 for example Christmas party's and for the sport clubs. They have mentioned those in their websites but when I asked my football team mates have they heard of Superpark, they hadn't'. I also asked from my working mates and neither had they. Oh did I mention that my football team is from Vantaa and I'm working in Jumbo which is walking distance from Superpark. Something to think about.
Even though you have reached one target group it doesn't mean that your job is finished
Our second speaker was from SSM (Suomen suoramainonta) and we got our second task from them. They distribute advertisements and their distribution channel reaches 85 % of households in Finland which is quite impressive. So 15 more percent to go;D. Question why stayed in my mind because according to presentation it's the key word of understanding things. After you understand why, you can move to the next questions how and what. Representative also talked about purpose of doing work. That is actually what I have taught of a lot. Companies main target is to make money but my purpose for working is not make money for the company. That's one of the main reasons why I got back in school, I want make something that matters to me, something I can be proud of, something I really like to do. Those are the motivators I need, if I'm not interested in something, I do it with half a lights (puolivaloilla). Money should come to my pocket and company's pocket side of those things. We also talked about passion and how it's one of the key things which leads to actions. Got to agree with that because when I'm passionate about something I'm usually very good at it. In today's world money is not good motivator enough. Our task was to think some other things that their distributors can do than distribute and how to improve their communication and marketing styles. They got mounting to climb on that, got to say. Their only social media channel was Facebook and last post was two months ago. I also think that companies should understand how good actually message application Whatsapp is, we actually use it in our work everyday. In my first blog I told my rebellious attitude towards social media, I meant it in personal life BUT for companies it's crucial if they want to keep themselves in competition. There is no digital strategy anymore just strategy in a digital world. They have many young distributors in SSM working for them and to young people social media is everyday life. In my opinion that is huge possibility to think wider. There's a lots of other things that distributors can do side of distributing and we are presenting our ideas of it to SSM on Monday. On next week's post I will tell our ideas, did they like them and feedback.
Think of your purposes
Thursday Anna gave us a lecture about cultures and how different they can be. It is vital to everybody understand differences between cultures. Also companies should be aware of that going global doesn't mean that you are international, companies should know the differences between cultures where they are expanding to. Cultures can be categorized so many different ways that it is impossible me to open all of them to you. There's a coffee culture, food culture, time culture, cultures in different continentals and of course in different countries, Laurea has different culture than Haaga Helia etc. Everybody knows that Finnish people are for example more undemonstrative than Thai people but there can be similar behavior in Thailand also than in Finland. In my opinion culture is a behavior model that you learn when you are a kid and when you grow you add there continuously something. What I mean that everybody has their own culture inside of them because we are individuals. It is also important to think of your own behavior for example in discussion situations with somebody who's from the different culture. They might understand your tone wrong, your gestures wrong, your jokes differently. It is iceberg because you only see 1% of a person and other 99% hidden. BUT remember trying to understand the cultural differences is gesture itself and I think that it is one of the things that everybody appreciates.
