ACHIEVING MY KPI'S...

Esearch And Development

Personally, research allows me to embrace my problem-solving skills and approach my objectives in a strategic form. Interviews are nothing new on the scene, so it was important that our production of these is excelled in a contemporary lens and are unique from what else is out there! By conducting a competitor analysis of reputable universities and their approaches to storytelling through interviews and film, I aimed to retrieve the strengths and weaknesses of their processes, so I could delineate a USP or ‘gap in the market’ for my team to draw in on. I studied the likes of Central Saint Martins, Ravensbourne, Parsons and Antwerp’s Instagram feeds and websites, paying close attention to their audience engagement and how often they posted. Interview-wise, I analysed their question types, audio tracks and where these were situated (for example in university, in corridors etc).

To the left is one of the Central Saint Martin’s videos I reviewed. This was an interview with members of the Fashion Promotion course, relaying their experience and why it has been beneficial to them. I was surprised by the strategy of this video as it was very basic, with little to no interactive motion, and very unlike the creative reputability they are recognised for.

I was pleasantly surprised by my findings in that many of the university’s films were very generic, incorporating a typical business soundtrack and repetitive questions. Thus, they didn’t receive credible engagement and lacked innovatively. Some of the CSM videos captured my attention for their immersive structures and unique imagery, which I noted within my critiques. Nonetheless, I felt we could drive a personal and far more playful response for our outcomes. I presented all my findings within presentations as shown below and to the left, containing an extensive analysis to project to my team and CEO.

I continued my competitor analysis into TikTok to observe if universities utilised this more efficiently for marketing their course and providing interviews. Here, I found that many competitors including Central Saint Martins received high followings and engagement in their content. I discerned that many universities didn’t have singular accounts for each of their subjects which is an area that we do, so I suggested that we home in on this and propel it further. Many of the videos were produced by students and involved trending audios and filters. Interviews were very informal, and often incorporated a student-with-student mini questionnaire of personalised questions. As a collective, we negotiated that a series of interviews on this platform would cater to our target market whilst showing a fun and personal side to FCM.

My KPI expnaded in these stages to industry and alumni, as well as the sharing of first years. We designated TikTok for the first-year content as I felt the alumni and industry interviews should maintain professionalism and be situated within Instagram and YouTube where they can be future proofed further and show a transition from one year to the next of our expanding community.

Above I have evidenced some of the fashion films I looked into as well! As a fond storyteller, these are my go-to for inspiration when I produce my own videography and I felt sharing them with the team and CEO would boost ideas for what we could inhabit in our own. Charles Jeffrey has brilliant storytelling and marketing techniques which involve cutting edge thinking and a humorous flair. I appreciate the balance in this because it shows light-hearted personality, whilst demonstrating strong creativity- I feel this is most suitable for our strategies of storytelling. Again, I produced these in a presentation to share with my colleagues, where we all agreed that the typewriting and screen within screen transitions looked highly effectual and will be areas taken forward for our productions

SHOWstudio is a platform I follow within my personal feeds as I admire their innovative strategies. I discovered this video on their YouTube account and instantly felt it was something we could reciprocate within our layouts. The soundtrack was a mix of traffic noise, ringtones and soundtrack but was effortlessly merged to create an immersive clip which incorporated zoom in and torn effects to create an abstract and appealing viewing at a suitable duration.