Integrated Marketing Communications with Dan Purdy was the first Marketing elective I have taken at Western Washington University where I felt as though I was able to apply the knowledge I obtained from the fundamental Marketing courses offered through Western to real-world application. The entire course is split into what feels like two separate classes, one part focusing on your personal brand and the other focused on creating a product for Western’s marketing department. Throughout this blog, I will be highlighting my experience
I was part of the “podcast” team, where the product would continue to expand the past iterations of the Marketing by the Minute podcast channel while also effectively differentiating the new installment from past Marketing by the Minute seasons. I’m going to be completely honest, I was really scared going into this project. I was placed in a group with people with whom I had never even had a class, and I was about to be alongside them creating this product for the next ten weeks. Each team is led by a “Product Manager,” who is someone that has taken IMC in the past and is now enrolled in “Applied Integrated Marketing Communications.” The Product Managers utilize Agile methodology to lead the teams, which promotes flexibility and adjustment throughout the creation process.
After meeting my team we were all presented with a Creative Brief that provided us with the outline of the creative approach and deliverables of the product we were expected to create throughout the quarter. The various target markets defined within the creative brief included potential students, early-career alumni, mid-career alumni, and executive alumni. Once my group and I analyzed the creative brief we determined that we wanted to form a connection between all alumni segments and current marketing students, but how were we going to successfully reach each target market?
Along with providing alumni with an outlet to connect with students an extremely important element that my group and I wanted to achieve with this project was to make it INTERESTING. This is where creative brainstorming really came to be, so I am going to walk you through each idea that my group and I considered when creating the podcast.
The first idea was to make the podcast closely follow the same format as Sean Evan’s “Hot Ones” interview show. The premise of our show would be to have three separate interviews, each featuring a different alumnus (early/mid/executive). Throughout the interview, both the guest and host would be eating hot wings, with each wing increasing in spice/heat. This concept accomplished most of what we wanted:
- It was interesting. Sean Evan’s Hot Ones is one of the most popular celebrity interview shows, and this concept was extremely different from all other Marketing by the Minute seasons. We also thought that the discomfort of the hot wings would provide comedic relief to the interview and increase overall engagement.
But what we also had to consider was how this would translate to a podcast format. Although there is usually a video option when watching a podcast, we had to assume that a majority of the audience would be audio-only listeners utilizing streaming platforms like Spotify or Apple to access the content. It was safe to say that most people would prefer to not listen to people eating wings- but I’m not going to judge you if you do. Another obstacle we had to face with this concept was the logistics of finding early, mid, and late-career alumni willing to commute to Bellingham, WA to endure a rather painful meal. So, after much consideration, it was decided that “Marketing by the Minute: Hot Ones” was not a realistic option.
The next idea we had was to reimagine the WIRED “Web’s Most Search Questions” series. We wanted to have the questions be “A Marketer’s Most Searched Questions” in which current marketing students could submit their questions to be answered by the alum featured on the episode. We really liked the visual board included in the WIRED interviews and thought the interactive nature of the board would result in more engaging content. But, similar issues to our first idea prevailed, like how are we going to get alumni to commute to Bellingham, WA? Also what role is the host going to take in this situation?
We were stuck, and time wasn’t stopping.
We needed to figure out what we were doing, and the hardest part was that we had so many ideas. The podcast needed to be engaging and needed to incorporate current marketing students in some way, and it needed to function remotely. This is when we came up with the “Juicy Questions” segment that pulled ideas from both original concepts. We sent out a survey to current Marketing students and asked them to submit any questions they had for early/mid/executive alumni. We then separated the questions into three separate buckets, so that the questions got “juicier” throughout the segment, similar to how in the “Hot Ones” interview the wings got hotter throughout the interview. By combining elements from both concepts we were able to find a way in which current marketing students can directly interact with the alum by having their personal questions answered, while also creating an interactive and engaging activity for both the host and guest to take part in.
Our Product Manager led the team with Agile Principles allowing my team and I to accurately assess each stage of the brainstorming process to ensure that our final concept will be one that effectively meets the expectations set out in the Creative Brief.