A little insight into my week

I can’t quite believe that it’s Friday already – this week has flown by, and what a week it’s been.

Earlier this week some of our media providers came in to present some of the new media platforms that are available. These are always really interesting and informative days as the media providers share some of their market insight with us, as well as their predictions of where the market may be heading. They then present to us some of the new ways available to connect with our audience, to help strengthen the University of Bedfordshire brand awareness and engagement.

The way in which consumers connect with brands continues to change dramatically, and consumers expect more from brands than they once did. Because of this we have been focusing on how we can make our messages more personalised, and some of the options that we were shown will allow us to do exactly that. I don’t think I can say too much more right now, but keep your eyes peeled over Clearing to see what we’ve been up to.

We also had a meeting with our media agency to discuss how our campaign has performed over the last year, and to see what’s in store over Clearing. These meetings provide a good opportunity for us to take the time to reflect on what’s worked, what hasn’t, and what we can do to improve our messaging in the future.

We have a really exciting Clearing campaign planned this year, and we’re excited for you all to see it. One aspect at the heart of all of our campaigns is that we use our own students, rather than models or actors. We believe that this presents a more accurate representation of Bedfordshire, and we try to capture video content as well so that prospective students can hear about our current students experiences. We’ve got our photo-shoots coming up over the next couple of weeks so I’ve been busy contacting our students this week to see if they would like to take part in our campaign, trying to ensure that all subject areas are represented. Although the next couple of weeks will be busy, I always enjoy meeting our students and learning about their Bedfordshire experiences.

I’m not sure I can finish without making a celebratory comment about the sun finally making an appearance this week can I? It’s been a little hot in the office the last few days, but we seem to have found the perfect solution*.

Sara

*Other ice lollies are available from retailers

An exciting delivery

This week we received our printed 2019 undergraduate prospectus. The team laugh at me for getting excited at this, but I love holding the prospectus in my hands, and seeing all the hard work from the previous months come together as a final product.

What people may not realise is that we start thinking about design concepts and layouts in the summer, start organising photo-shoots in September, and collating and writing copy in October, so when we receive the finished product, it’s a culmination of over six months of hard work.

This year we made the decision to move some of the content previously

located in the back section of the prospectus to the front, so prospective students have more information about things like the Students’ Union, student support, and accommodation initially. We also spent a lot of time changing the layout of our course openers. In previous years the openers had been quite busy, with multiple photos and blocks of text with coloured backgrounds. This year we’ve focused on one main image, and tried to incorporate some white space to make the pages more appealing, and easier to read.

The new simulation labs opened in Luton last year, and we were lucky enough to be able to sneak into a couple of sessions and take some photos of the fantastic, new nursing facilities. We were also able to update most of the profiles for this year’s prospectus. We often liaise with academics, asking them to recommend some students, and try to feature at least one student from each subject area, so prospective students can hear first-hand what it’s like to study at Bedfordshire. I’m in the process of contacting postgraduate students to feature in the 2019 PG prospectus at the moment, so if you’re a PG student that would like to feature in one of our prospectuses please get in touch!

My task for today is to send a couple of boxes of the new prospectus to all of our reception desks around campus. They should be available from next week, so if you see one please pick one up and let us know your thoughts!

Sara

Marketing Officer

An update from Bedfordshire’s press office

Being a communications officer with writer’s block can be an absolute nightmare. For my first blog of 2018, I was really struggling to think of something to blog about, which is annoying when you make your living from writing!

So I have decided to fill you in on what I have been doing in recent weeks and write about some of the stories I’ve been working on.

I had the pleasure of meeting a lovely Mental Health Nursing student called Fern, who has been shortlisted for not one, but two awards in this year’s Student Nursing Times Awards, which is a huge achievement.

Congratulations to @uniofbeds student @Fern45075972 who has been shortlisted for two Student Nursing Times Awards! #SNTA @NursingTimes pic.twitter.com/535yfVtf3M

— UoB Press Office (@uobnews) February 27, 2018

While on a placement, Fern did a great deal of work on helping young people in CAMHS services transition into adult services. I worked for a mental health trust in a previous life so I’m very aware of how difficult this transition period can be. It’s fantastic to see that Fern has been a driving force for making things better for her service users.

You can read more about Fern here.

Bedfordshire students seem to be on a roll at the moment when it comes to awards. Students from the TV Production and Media Production courses have been shortlisted for accolades in this year’s Royal Television Society’s (RTS) East Student Awards.

We have had students shortlisted in five categories which is absolutely amazing, and testament to all their hard work, and to the dedication of their tutors. I’ll have everything crossed for 15 March when the students will find out if they have won anything.

If you get a chance, check out the students' work here.

I also got the chance to do something a bit different and go along to watch a live interview with Hollyoaks actor Duayne Boachie. Duayne was studying at the University when he got his big break into acting a few years ago and it was great to see him return and share insight into his career and offer tips and guidance to current students.

I have also been preparing for our graduation ceremonies taking place in March. I always enjoy covering these and this year I’m really keen to find some fantastic student success stories to share with the wider world – watch this space!

At our Luton campus today @Hollyoaks actor and former Beds student @DuayneBoa gave a masterclass to Media Performance students, here's a snippet of his Q&A pic.twitter.com/tKuaqckyW4

— uniofbeds (@uniofbeds) February 14, 2018

Reflecting on the past and looking to the future

Next month I will be celebrating my third anniversary of working within the Marketing department at the University of Bedfordshire. Although at times it doesn’t feel like I’ve been here that long, upon reflection it’s been a busy three years! In that time there’s been a desk move, a few changes to the team, and a change in my job title, and that’s just me getting started! I’ve also worked on five prospectuses, written countless e-zines, and interviewed several of our students and staff for video content and case studies. The team have also won various awards from Heist and CIPR (shameless plug - sorry!).

Whenever people ask me what I love about my job I always answer with the diversity of the role. The great thing about working in a Marketing role is that no two days are ever the same – some days I’m writing copy for our marketing materials, other days I’m briefing our designers on our artwork. You may also find me roaming around campus taking photos and video footage, or even helping the Recruitment team at our Open Days and other recruitment events. There are of course tasks that are more regular, such as promoting our Open Days, or writing content for our monthly e-zines, but other tasks, such as organising photo-shoots, or having the opportunity to sit on tender briefings may only take place once a year. 

The other great thing about my role is that, due to the nature of the marketing industry and the higher education sector, my role is ever changing. Because of this I’m always learning , whether this be through

attending higher education forums, or through in-house training. When I started this role I had limited experience with Photoshop, and though I’m far from an expert, I’ve developed my knowledge throughout my time here. Over the next few months I will be furthering my knowledge of the Adobe package by learning how to properly use InDesign, which will help me when I’m creating various promotional materials within my role. I’m excited to develop my skills in this area and will hopefully be able to share some of my work with you soon!

Sara

Clearing and the countdown to Canada

It feels like the Communications Team at Bedfordshire hasn’t stopped for the past couple of weeks. We had preparation for Clearing, then we had Clearing itself, and now we have a moment to take stock and catch our breath (famous last words!)

The majority of my prep for Clearing was around case studies. I’ve spent a lot of time digging around looking for former students who went through Clearing and went on to have successful careers. We have graduates all over the place, working as BBC journalists, actors, nurses and many other professionals, but we also have those who have gone on to start their own businesses, including Ann Akin, who set up her own theatre company.

.@Harts_Theatre AD & @uniofbeds alumna @Ann_Akin reveals what it's like to work in the #theatre https://t.co/Uz8EXA8Bcn #MakeitBeds pic.twitter.com/GeZXuUNm5P

— UoB Press Office (@uobnews) August 30, 2017

I’m always really grateful to all the students and graduates who agree to be case studies. We can be incredibly busy during the working day, and the fact that these guys take time out to talk about their experiences and read through the content of their case study is amazing.

.@uniofbeds student @OneWalshMeister shares his experience of going through #Clearing #MakeItBeds #BedsNews https://t.co/A0xSsEHEyF

— UoB Press Office (@uobnews) August 17, 2017

I was also saddened to hear about the imminent closure of one of our local newspapers, the Bedfordshire on Sunday. This will be a huge blow to the local community and also local journalism in general. I completed many a work experience placement on local papers, and although I never had what it takes to be a 'real' journalist, I loved every minute of my time working as one and the experience ultimately helped me get into the ‘dark side’ of public relations, which I love! Best of luck to the Beds on Sunday team and their future adventures!

I’d also like to mention that I’m on Canada countdown – next week I’ll be jetting off to Toronto for some much-needed downtime with my parents. It is a country I have always wanted to visit and though I’m only there for a week, I fully intend to take it all in and enjoy every moment, and hopefully see a moose!

I wonder if I could bring one home as an office mascot...

It’s the red carpet lifestyle for the press team

Glamorous lifestyles aren’t usually words you’d associate with the University of Bedfordshire press team but following a couple of months of hard slog we were allowed out of the office to do a bit of socialising.

Caroline our Communications Officer and I went along to the cast and crew screening of Winterlong in London at the beautiful Regent Street Cinema. We’ve been talking about it for so long it was amazing to finally get a chance to see the film in its entirety.

Winterlong was written and directed by Senior Lecturer in Media Production David Jackson. It gave the opportunity for students and staff from the School of Media and Performance to get first-hand experience of what it is really like to make a feature film.

We all loved it; it was hard to believe this full length feature film starring Game of Thrones actor Francis Magee, Smack the Pony actress Doon Mackichan and Coronation Street actor Ian Puleston-Davies had started life as a Student Experience Project.

‘Steps’ projects were a way for students make changes to and enhance their experience at Bedfordshire. Students provided the ideas, knowledge and leadership while the University provided the financial backing and guidance to turn ideas into reality.

It was great to see the film all badged up as a University of Bedfordshire production with a long list of thanks to all the staff who had helped it get this far. There were more than a few tears shed when credits rolled and the auditorium erupted with a standing ovation.

We wish all the cast and crew of Winterlong the best of luck in getting into a major international film festival and look forward to seeing it in a cinema very soon.

Week One Whirlwind!

Hello there. I am Clare, Marketing Assistant and newest member of the University of Bedfordshire MARC department.

I’m Lutonian through and through and have lived in the town all my life (excluding a three year adventure courtesy of the University of Warwick). I have previously worked in arts marketing for Luton Culture, the charity that runs the town's libraries, museums and theatres.

This blog post marks the middle of my second week at the University of Bedfordshire and I can’t quite believe how quickly the days have gone by! Among introductory meetings, cups of hot chocolate and even a pizza lunch thrown in for good measure, I’ve found a bit of time to settle in to my new surroundings and got to know campus a little better.

Highly recommended: every new starter
should have a Sarah Hampton induction
schedule.

I arrived to a lovely warm welcome and a meticulously planned – and really appreciated! – induction schedule which has allowed me to get to know teams and their roles via a series of mini meetings. Meeting people one-to-one has been absolutely priceless for somebody who is, admittedly, pretty useless at matching faces to names and names to job titles! A week and a half later and I finally feel like I’ve got a grasp of who’s who and what’s what, although I’m sure there'll be tons of questions to ask now I’ve started to do some real work!

It seems like I've joined the team at a really interesting time; last week I sat in on the meeting with Z3, the people who will be putting together the 2015 prospectus, heard about various campaign plans, and had some training for the new CRM system and Matrix – plenty of excitement for a first week and a half!

I'll be at the Luton Campus open day this weekend and I'm really looking forward to experiencing the university with all the buzz and excitement of an open day. Being as new as I am, I reckon it'll be a massive help for me as well as all the prospective students hoping to get an idea of what the University of Bedfordshire is all about.

Time has really flown by and I've had a great time so far. It'll be Christmas before we know it!