Festive Cheer and The Call of the Beautiful North

Krystle Hall, Campaign Officer

This is possibly the busiest time of the year for Campaigns so apologies for the hurried, garbled blog. As Kylie says it’s all a mad dash to get everything done before the Christmas break. I feel like a manic parent flailing around Debenhams, willing to scratch eyes out to get my hands on the last One Direction calendar for my precious princess. You’d all better back up because I’ve got some hefty deadlines to hit.  I have to keep telling ‘festive cheer’ and ‘the call of the beautiful North’ to pipe down; not yet guys, it’s not time. "But we have music, chocolate, shiny things and bottles filled with joy" 

"No" I say, for it isn't time.

So January Start and UCMK activity is all live and the campaigns are going strong. There will be two advertorials running in January to promote our EmployAble scheme and Business courses, as well as, our Psychology research. The lamppost banners have been confirmed, artwork is delivered and they will go up for the UCMK campaign in central Milton Keynes within the next few days.

I completed the Aylesbury Campaign photo-shoots a couple of weeks back at our Buckinghamshire and Bedford campus.’ The artwork will complement the Winter suite but we have used bespoke imagery.  Graeme from our Digital Team has been hard at work finalising the designs and they should be ready by the end of the week. The two radio adverts went live on Monday so listen out for them on Vibe fm and Mix 96. I am also working on a couple of advertorials to promote the courses in the local press.

We have just updated the online Winter copy again. I was sad to change the festive copy as I’d grown rather attached to it but the open evening has been and gone so I must let go; anyway it’s time to let the world know that they should ‘apply now’ for September 2015 courses. We are utilising our market research agency Statistics into Decisions to delve into the response to our activity so that we can continually make adjustments to the plan to ensure that mediums work for us. I am also liaising with them on wider market Intel and benchmarking against our competitors.  

*cough* don’t leave Clare *cough, cough*

Our new design agency Fabrik has been honing the artwork designs for Pre-Clearing. We have a strong concept to run with, it’s just a case of tweaking and finalising now. I won’t tell you too much about that until the big reveal in the New Year. I have been organising the photo-shoot for that; graduates to take part, location, scheduling, shot list and art direction. It’s tomorrow so touch wood *knock, knock* all will go to plan and I will share the spoils with you in my next blog. I am nearly finished finalising the Pre-Clearing Campaign plan. Once that’s done I will sort the scheduling.

The results of the Radio LaB logo survey are in and the resounding winner is….

I will look to campaign planning to see how we can get the logo out there.

Clearing…. I’m not gonna lie guys I’ve been too busy to do any Clearing Campaign analysis  or gap analysis the past couple of weeks but lets face it the only one who's hurting is me there because I love a pie chart as much as I love pies. Well bring it on in the New year.

*Cough* Clare don’t go *sniff, cough*

So I intend to claw my way through these last couple of days before I set off up North to see my family and friends. I can then relax, overindulge and party hard returning refreshed and raring to go. I hope that you all have an outstanding time wherever you are.

OK ‘festive cheer’ and ‘the call of the beautiful North’ now it’s time…

Happy Christmas All,

Krystle