Entertainment Marketing Master Class
Tweeting was the first assignment of the
Entertainment Marketing Master Class held across the 11th to 15th
of June. We were to introduce ourselves
to Professor Cory O’Connor via twitter, and that marked the start of an
enriching learning experience that I am only halfway through.
Hailing from the sunny city of Newport
Beach in California, Professor Cory O’Connor of Chapman University began day one
of the master class by sharing his experience as a lecturer and as an
entertainment marketer. Having worked for multinational diversified mass media
organisations such as The Walt Disney Company and Home Box Office (HBO), Professor
Cory kept us on the edge of our seats with animated stories of how he began his
career working as a salesman, progressively climbed the market ladder to vice
president of public relations and eventually found comfort in being an educator
to twenty-year-olds.
Students
hungry to learn from the esteemed Professor Cory!
We too, had the opportunity to share our
thoughts on what we expected to attain from the master class. A common goal was
to learn something new and we most definitely had our work cut out for us when
we were presented with The Marketing Plan.
Fantastic
work by Professor Cory’s Students!
The aim of this project is to create a
viable strategic plan to market and monetize a film which serves to provide us
with cumulative and applicable knowledge of Strategic Marketing, Public
Relations, advertising, media and design. A story was assigned to each group
and after some analysis, we got down to identifying and constructing some
pivotal components for our film such as a synopsis, suitable target audiences,
a tagline and even some marketable elements and obstacles
Brainstorming session!
Day two was another exciting session of
learning about research methods and further developing our marketing plan. That
being said, the highlight of the day was having lunch with Professor Cory. Each
day, a team would have the opportunity to take our charming guest out for lunch
and my group had the pleasure of being the first.
Casual conversation intermingled with the
clang of cutleries as we exchanged stories about our cultures over Mee Goreng
and Fried Rice. It was enlightening to hear Professor Cory talk about how
passionate his students are in California and share about his adopted pet dog.
We, on the other hand, relayed to him what we learn in school and encouraged
him to try our exotic food items like the durian and century egg before he
leaves Singapore. All in all, it was a
lovely meal that strengthened the relationships between teacher and students
spurred us to maximize the remaining time left in our week with Professor Cory.
Back
in class, we began working on the different phases of our marketing plan. From
formulating guerilla and marketing strategies to selecting suitable film
festivals and distributions companies, the five teams spent the afternoon generating
ideas upon ideas that will serve as building blocks for our big pitch on
Friday.
Gathering
inspiration for The Marketing Plan!
With still so much in store, all of us are
most definitely looking forward to the final three days of our master class!
SPMCC: Behind the Scenes
The Singapore Polytechnic Media and Communication Conference (SPMCC) is finally over. To be honest, the past week has been one of the most amazing weeks of my two years in DMC. I miss the SPMCC.
We owe the success of the event to ourselves really, all of us, every student and every lecturer. Weeks of hard work and sleepless nights, planning workshops and designing posters, I’m glad we got this far, I’m glad the event worked out.
Brainstorming
“Hard work pays off”. I know it sounds clichéd. But it’s true. We started planning for the event way back in October 2011, coming up with event concepts and schedules. We brainstormed for workshop ideas and worked on mock-ups and videos.
It wasn’t always easy, and we’ve all had own fair share of disagreements too, but in the end, after a lot of hard work and deliberation, one of our groups came up with the brilliant theme “Click to Connect”, the theme for this year’s conference.
In the weeks leading up to the SPMCC…
We worked very hard. Yes. Hard work again. On top of our busy schedules, we liaised with sponsors and secondary schools, industry partners and speakers. Sometimes things worked out, sometimes they didn’t. But there’s a saying “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade” and then sell it. I kid. But there’s something about all of us I’m proud of, it’s the fact that we never gave up no matter what happened. And when the going got tough, we kept going.
The SPMCC week
Some might have thought that once the SPMCC started, we’d all be able to take a back seat and enjoy the fruits of our labour. But there was still more to do.
From the packing of goodie bags to the confirmation of participants our students never stopped working towards making the SPMCC a huge success. For each day of the event, we came early and left late, making sure nothing could go wrong. And when it did, we helped each other.
Special mention goes out to the Mass Media Research (MMR) team, who stayed back in school every day(sometimes till ungodly hours even)to ensure their presentation to the press was perfect.
“We’ve come too far to let this go to waste.” - Clare, group leader of one of the presenting teams.
To cut a long story short, it was.
Upon Reflection...
The SPMCC was probably the real highlight of our year two experience. We’ve made many friends during the event, and we’ve certainly learnt a lot. The SPMCC may have been a challenge, but it was a challenge we overcame together.
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