The Marketing Flare Of Day 3.

22 05. 13
C H A N N E L 4/ Marketing Marcoms.

I have officially matured, appreciating the morning and my lengthily travel routine into Oxford Circus. By 11.00am, I was awake, dressed, furnished with ‘Pret a Manger’, been crushed on the tube, read and replied to 8 emails, tested 1 new feature for the ‘listen live’ online digital 4Music channel, as well as addressing a communication problem with the facility AND made tea for 5 people, all within the timescale before I was due an introduction to marketing with ‘Victoria Grosvenor’.

    Within the marketing sector there is no such arrangement of a ‘typical day’, the role examines press release, promo briefings, campaigns, brainstorming of ideas for social networking concepts, arranging trade events or booking presenters for shows at Channel 4. The marketing department is predominantly made up of research & online, managing communication awareness internally and externally, reinforcing the public exactly what Channel 4 is and giving the brand that ‘Something to shout about’ factor. The marketing team are given a lot of valuable advocacy, airtime and inventory into commercial platforms, which is a central part to coordinating the promotional mix. They create impactful on-air and off-air campaigns to promote key programmes or otherwise partnership collaborations, to leverage support for their priorities, working closely with the sales team to ensure advertisers are getting the added value they need. Last of all using fully integrated PR into strategy’s to raise awareness and drive the profile of channel4 forward.
    Having discussed what Channel 4 do in terms of their current projects and youth client base, Victoria really challenged me more to think big without neglecting the smaller details which are paramount to content production, and having started out her career as a freelancer for 7 months before being made permanent, she embedded into me that perseverance really pays off. Victoria highlighted the current creative process and communications, and proceeded to define market research trends into consumer behaviour using ‘Bite’ consumer trade press. She touched very briefly upon changing the identity of the music station ‘The Box’ within the foreseeable future, whilst this might have seemed irrelevant, I was able to express with a level of theory and knowledge how altering brand identity rapidly can prove dangerous to the brand persona, acknowledgements from my university brand preacher that is 'Lee Barron'.

I was set an assignment by Victoria to oversee the launch stages of some minor marketing materials, sticking to budget I was to devote the day sourcing suitable and adequate manufacturers (Inside a city that I was completely alien to) and solve any contingencies using virtual proofs. The cross-media merchandise she requested were: Split branded memory sticks, Hoodies, Tote Bags, Lanyards, Pens and T-shirts for a new station launching ‘Box Africa’.  Once satisfied with the result, I had to utilise my findings into a spread sheet of expenditures before confirming orders.

 

 

 

I expected to leave Victoria’s office quivering in the corner of my desk due to the workload and deadline; however, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Handling and managing the tenders became easy, ensuring the firms I contacted strived to meet the demands of Channel 4’s marketing team became a doddle, and all it required was an attentive and friendly attitude, abundant phone calls and emails and with great power, comes great responsibility, consequently I stayed late for the first time, sitting at my desk at 6:30pm was an odd feeling, but it made me feel important! I wanted to succeed and this task was the most responsibility, I’d been given. Bound by the privacy agreement, some information is a little sensitive for the public eye and World Wide Web but voilà, by the evening I had cracked it and felt somewhat satisfied with my outcomes. Today’s tasking had definitely given me more direction to pursue a career within the marketing department.