OUGD502: PPP2 - Module Evaluation

OUGD502: PPP - Life's a Pitch Presentation

OUGD502: PPP - Life's a Pitch Evaluation

_____

The Life's a Pitch brief was very enjoyable and eye-opening. I worked in a team of 5 people (Laura, Issy, Sam and Harrison) we called ourselves two plus three. I was very happy with the name choice and felt confident with the group choice. Our time management was quite poor as we put together the presentation the day before the deadline due to other modules being due at the same time. In this case I feel that had the presentations been pushed back another week I would have felt more prepared and our group would have a more informed set of research. Though this was an issue I do think that I personally have a lot of research and understanding into my aspect of the project and I would be confident to use my research in the future. Communications within my group was okay but could have been improved, a lot of our chats were done over facebook and between certain members of the group, I think that we should have had more meetings and this would have allowed us to be more prepared and work better as a group. Overall, I think our presentation went really well and I am very happy with the outcome, even though it was last minute. I would be happy to work with these people again though I think that if I were to do this brief again I would have chosen to work with people who share a common interest with me, Web Design. My group was formed because we all knew that we would work hard and well together though I think we should have taken more time talking over what kind of work we produced whether it be web based on print based. 

OUGD502: PPP2 - Life's a Pitch Script

OUGD502: PPP - Life's a Pitch Research

After choosing our group we got together to come up with a list of jobs and research topics that we each needed to complete. Though it would be beneficial for us to research into each aspect of business we simply do not have the time as we have other modules and hand-ins at the same time.

I was given Target Audience to look into. I have completed an A-Level and GSCE in Media Studies where I was required to look into Target Audience quite extensively so I was very happy to look into this. There are a few main areas of the target audience that I need to look into in a lot of detail, these are:

• Demographic
• Income
• Gender
• Age
• Why they would want to work with us?
• Ethics of the company
• Where the company will be based - travel expenses and phone bill etc.

__

Demographic:

- NRS social grades

The NRS social grades are a system of demographic classification used in the United Kingdom. They were originally developed by the National Readership Survey to classify readers, but are now used by many other organisations for wider applications and have become a standard for market research.^[1] They were developed over 50 years ago and achieved widespread usage in 20th Century Britain. Their definition is now maintained by the Market Research Society.^[2]

__

After looking at these social grades I have come to the decision that, if we had to market to a specific demographic we would market for ABC1 social grade. This decision is based on the prices we have come up with to charge our clients. We are charging over £50 an hour per project which I personally think requires a larger disposable income as branding and graphic design is not considered to be a vital aspect of some peoples business plan.

I am prepared for the question of prejudice to be raised at the end of the presentation. I think that I should justify my choices and prove that we are not simply ruling out the working classes. 

I would consider myself and my family to be on the cusp of working class and middle class. Harrison and Sam would also consider their familes to be working class. Laura and Issy would be more likely to be within the demographic of our target audience which is incredibly beneficial for our group. They have a contextual knowledge of some companies and businesses that myself, Harrison and Sam do not have, and vise versa. 

I stand by my choice to define our target audience and have full support from my group to do so. 

Research on target audience:

I looked on the internet at effective ways to define a target audience, my findings brought me to a few documents with small tasks to complete in order to properly define a target audience. 

I printed this document purely for the line Targeting a specific market does not mean that you to exclude people that do not fit your criteria. 

I think that though it is important to have a defined target audience we cannot afford to be picky. Some members of the group disagree with me but I think that by being open to global clients specifically we are opening many more doors for our company.

Highlighting our skill set:

One of the tasks said that by drawing out a list of of our skills and pros of our company would help to set a target market as we would know what kind of person would be attracted to our company. 

Who are our target audience? 

Another task said to answer a series of questions that would help us to define a target audience. 

The second set of questions were much harder to fill in but I gave it my best shot.

Niche audiences:

I think that the best way to market ourselves would be to identify a niche audience and a gap in the market for our services. I found this article online:

Looking at this document I think that our niche is quite hard to define, I think that in the first year of business it is so competitve and hard to set a specific type of person that we would work for. My personal opinion would be to work for local independent business owners in Leeds as a start and then branch out to larger companies internationally. 

__

To conclude I would say that our target audience would be independent business owners on a national scale, without the exclusion of global companies and people with quite a high disposable income to justify our costings. 

OUGD502: PPP2 - Life's a Pitch (emails)

Today we decided on e-mail addresses of each of the members of the team. I thought that it would be best that we had 6 e-mail addresses - one for each of and one for general enquiries. I think it is important to have this so that clients have an idea of who to contact first. Though we might have a managing director it would be beneficial for us all to be able to pick up on general e-mails from perspective clients. The team agreed with me on this and we created info@twoplusthree.com

OUGD502: PPP2 - Life's a Pitch (Defining roles)

____

In our business I want to make sure that we all have our clear roles, just in case we are asked in the presentation. I devised a list of each of our responsibilities based on each persons strengths.

Harrison: Creative Director, Type and Layout Specialist, Editorial designer, Concept developer, Visual engineer. 

Samuel: Proof reader, Type and Layout specialist, Editorial designer, Client communicator, Print based imagery consultant

Laura: Proof reader, Packaging designer, Client communicator, Researcher, Copywriter

Issy: Packaging designer, Typographer, Concept developer, Visual engineer

Ellen: Digital designer, Concept developer, Client communicator, Web developer, Screen based imagery consultant.

OUGD502: PPP - Life's a Pitch Choosing a Group

Today we were briefed for Life's a Pitch. This is a presentation based on research for our own business. We had to choose groups of 4/5 people to be in our groups and come up with a business from scratch. Choosing a group is, as always, very difficult as there is such a varied group of people in the class.

I chose to work with Laura and Issy who are my friends and housemates on the course. I chose to do this, against John's advice because I think that we will work well together. If this were to be a real business I do not think that I would make the same choice as I am more interested in Web design and they are both packaging designers. In our group of three we chose to work with Harrison and Sam, another friendship group. We did this because their work is similar to our own.

We wanted our business to be based on the two friendship groups coming together to work as a team. We are all very good friends with one another which I believe will help us massively in this brief. Coming up with a name was something that was done without my presence as I was busy on a Responsive brief and we had little time to come up with a name. The name that the group came up with was two plus three. I was very happy with the name because it is succinct and to the point which I think represents our group.

We have decided to market ourselves as a Branding and Identity company, this is purely down to the design disciplines that each of us possess. I am a web designer, Laura and Issy are packaging designers, Harrison and Sam are editorial designers, putting these together we think that Branding offers us the most options collectively.

OUGD502: PPP2 - Life's a Pitch (Looking into trains)

____

We have chosen to be based in Leeds due to good train connections to the rest of the UK. I decided to look into some train times and availability from Leeds. This was not my responsibility and Issy did take charge of the role in the end.



Leeds - London Kings Cross:  2 hours 13 mins DIRECT
Leeds - Edinburgh: 3 hours 5 mins DIRECT
Leeds - Glasgow: 4 hours 50 mins 1 CHANGE
Leeds - Newcastle: 1 hour 31 mins DIRECT
Leeds - Manchester: 56 mins DIRECT
Leeds - Birmingham: 1 hour 58 mins DIRECT
Leeds - Blackpool: 2 hours 10 mins DIRECT
Leeds - Huddersfield: 20 mins DIRECT
Leeds - Cardiff: 4 hours 19 mins 1 CHANGE
Leeds - Plymouth: 5 hours 37 mins DIRECT
Leeds - York: 24 mins DIRECT

__

Looking at ticket prices:

Leeds - London Kings Cross:

Next Day: client emergencies:

1 week in advance:

Client meeting:

2 weeks in advance:

Pitch

3 weeks in advance:

The cost difference does not alter much after 2 weeks in advance but it alters massively from the next day to one week in advance.