Topic
Must use the followingtopic for the whole assignment:
For this project, I have decided to work on a sensibilization campaign aiming to help stray animals like cats and dogs only. The main goal of this sensibilization campaign will be to educate specifically dog and cat owners about the alternatives they have when confronted with having to deal with many kittens or puppies. Cats and dogs usually give birth to many offspring and this is a problem for many owners who don’t know how to deal with this situation. My campaign will be using social media platforms to spread awareness about what can be done to tackle down this issue. Examples of ways to solve this issue include: neutering animals or finding them a shelter.
Paper format
The final paper should take the following format:
● APA in-text and reference citations
● Sections: so far, you’ve been assigned work that comprises about 15-20 pages of written material, as follows:
● Introduction – 1 page
● Competitive analysis – 3-5 pages
● Market research – 3-5 pages
● Data analysis – 3-5 pages
● Strategy – 5 pages
As such, my expectation is that the final paper will remain somewhere around 15-20 pages in length. (Some of you will exceed this, but try not to drastically exceed the page count, as it will be more difficult for me to give you meaningful feedback.)
● The final paper should read as a complete, original document rather than a number of individual assignments stapled together. Carefully edit the document so that it feels coherent.
● By coherent, you should have a clear, organized set of ideas, and each decision that you present should build upon the data you’ve presented previously. In this way, the document should build upon itself as the reasoning and rationale is presented, so that a clear set of reasoning can be traced from the practical, tactical visual development you’ve done all the way back to the original competitive analysis and market research.
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Topic Introduction Assignment
Your assignment is to prepare a two-to-three paragraph description of your topic and of your goals for the project. Please consider upcoming assignments, and give yourself the best chance to succeed. You might discuss some of the following:
● Describe your effort in general. Who are you, and what are you doing?
● What are some interesting details about your plan?
● Why is your particular message/approach/product compelling?
● What is the problem you are looking to solve?
● What research have you relied upon? [hint: look at last week’s assignment!]
● How does the [limited] research you’ve done support your approach?
● What value does your approach bring?
● What can be learned by trying out your strategy?
● What is your overall goal? What would a “win” look like for your campaign?
● What kind of metrics can you use to gauge your outcomes?
● How can you ensure Return on Investment (ROI) for your investors/donators/government sponsors?
Competitive Analysis
The first step is the preparation of some form of competitive/landscape analysis. This will vary for each of you based on the nature of your topic, but you should consider including:
● An Overview of your core idea/concept for a new piece of content, marketing campaign, promotional effort, journalistic enterprise, etc.
● An Industry Analysis based on research you’ve done, including (but not stopping at) the four sources you identified earlier in the semester
● Who are the other major players? Who is your competition? What are they doing? What are they planning to do?
● What are the major legal/regulatory/political/oversight/etc. structures in your field? How do they control what happens?
● What are the major economic forces at play in your field? Who are the big investors? (Economic factors)
● What are the public in your area? Are there major fan communities to account for? Who is the audience? (Cultural factors)
● What are some recent or upcoming technological changes that could impact your industry (technological factors)
● A SWOT Analysis
● Strengths – what are the advantages that your client/product/content already possesses? What is unique about it that others in their space would find difficult to replicate? How do you plan to leverage those strengths?
● Weaknesses – what are the areas in which your client falls short? What are gaps in capability that need to be accounted for when preparing your idea? Which areas can and should be improved upon, and which are fine to leave be?
● Opportunities – What are some gaps in the marketplace that your client can take advantage of? Where are there some customers/viewers/readers who are being under-served? What recent or on-the-horizon trends do you see coming that your client can take advantage of?
● Weaknesses – Who are your largest current and potential competitors, and what are they doing – or what will they do – to thwart your efforts? What legal, economic, political, or other threats might emerge that could stymie your efforts? How could things go wrong, and how do you intend to prevent that from happening?
Market Research
● The market landscape
○ Who are the major players, and how much of the industry does each control?
○ How is the landscape divided among your competition? Are certain areas dominated by certain producers?
○ What are the relevant distribution channels for media in your industry, and how popular is each one?
○ How is money spent by other businesses in your industry? What is the mix between production, promotion, distribution, acquisition (talent, other businesses, etc.), development (of new talent, content, etc.), and whatever other costs are relevant?
○ What are the most profitable sectors in your industry? Which are the least? Where is the best place to generate value?
● Your customer/audience
○ Who are they in terms of demographics?
○ Who are they in terms of psychographics?
○ What are their spending habits?
○ What type of content/media/products do they consume (other than yours, of course J)
○ How can you segment your customer base?
■ Think about value extraction: is there a way to determine their price discrimination? Are they high-value, low-value, or a mix?
■ Think about their media product choices: do they prefer the head or the tail or a mix? Do they prefer niche products or broad ones? What’s the data on this?
■ Think about platform choices, demo/psychographics, media choice, etc. etc.
● Market trends
○ How does data indicate your industry has changed in recent years?
○ Does data provide some hints about trends that may be going in the near future?
○ Which parts of your industry are growing, and which are shrinking?
○ What is driving that growth? What is driving that contraction?
■ Technological changes, market changes, audience changes, investment, cultural shifts, etc.?
○ What outside factors (geography, government policy, diseases, etc.) are influencing the trends in your market, and how is this demonstrated in the data?
○ What is the underlying rationale for doing what it is you propose? Why is this something the client needs to pursue?
● Rationale
○ Based upon those goals and requirements, how does your project aim to fulfill them?
● The idea
○ While there may be many different aspects of your project, it may be helpful to clarify your thoughts into a single “big idea.” What is the core insight/breakthrough/inspiration that you came up with based upon your consideration of the audience, the industry, the business goals, etc.?
● Tactics
○ What specifically are you going to make/do/present/show/etc.? Describe these in detail, and outline how each piece ties back to your core rationale and insights
● Implementation
○ How, specifically, will you create the media/content/whatever described in your tactics?
○ Discuss aspects of design, copy writing, slogans, logos, etc. You might include any number of topics here, including those we’ve discussed like Information Architecture, wireframes, etc.
■ Note that next week’s assignment is to actually create some prototypes of these designs, so now is the time to devote thought and care towards how they should look and feel.
○ Overall, and as always, be sure that these choices of color, font, wording, etc. etc. tie back to your tactics which ties back to the rationale which ties back to research. These decisions should make sense in terms of all the other work you’ve done.
● Evaluation
○ What does a “win” for your project look like? How will you measure that? Why is it important?
● Wrap-up
