So I was assigned a team for Enterprise & Entrepreneurship. Only one of them turned up for the first lesson, but that's fine. I'll be fine. We had a talk from Emi about Brainient, and it seemed like a fairly useful piece of software. There was a bit of confusion concerning what the actual aim of the unit was, whether we were creating a film with Brainient, examining what Braininet does or what. Turns out we were going to present a marketing pitch for the software. On my way home on this day I ran into Emi on the tube and I asked him a few questions about how the pricing systems work which helped form my aims for my pitch.
Over the next few weeks I thought a little about the applications of Brainient for things like showreels. I had a look at the various applications shown on the demo reels on the website and was actually a little shocked at the limited applications of the systems. It was all about direct advertising, which seemed a little closed minded to me. I booted up the software to see if it was due to limitations with the programme only to find that it was really quite easy to add simple layers of interactivity very quickly. Which surely would be the main strength of the software?
I tried to get in contact with my group when starting to write the presentation. I will transcribe how the conversation went in the days leading up to the day after the formative presentation was due to be uploaded.
"Matthew Alford 25 May at 08:50
Oh yeah, if we want to use pictures in our presentation, the formative one is like a week away, we need to submit them tomorrow. Gotta think of the kinds of things we're going to want.
I figure the points we're going to make in our pitch are
1. useful promotional tool for your company
> can be used for innovative marketing campaigns
> can be used for unobtrusive marketing
> can be used to involve users more in your product (so like on a developer diary for a game/film a little box would come up which, when clicked, will bring up concept art etc)
2. useful tool for the self promotion of staff
> quick and easy way to update showreels and make them more interactive
And that's all I got
I'm literally just typing this out over breakfast so any input would be lovely. Any suggestions for improvements? Anything I've missed? Any ideas for images that would convey these points? "
"Matthew Alford 27 May at 16:49
Thanks for the input guys"
"Matthew Alford 27 May at 16:53
Don't worry though, I got it sorted. We've got the best presentation ever."
So the first presentation submission had no input whatsoever from the group. They made no effort to contact me and ignored my efforts to contact them. I was determined not to let this bring my grade down so I constructed the presentation entirely by myself.
My pitch was based around my experience of the way video games companies work and present themselves, coupled with my observations about the limited use of Brainient so far. Video game marketing is as much about connecting with fans as it is about promoting features and brand awareness. Most, if not all, developers will release periodic studio updates and developer diaries. My main idea was to use Brainient to enhance these with levels of interactivity and connectivity, so they can easily find out more about what they are interested in without having to go anywhere. So with that as the focus I backed this up with more traditional advertising methods, talking about how these methods could be enhanced with Brainient to make them less obtrusive. Less obtrusive is good because a lot of people don't like being advertised to, so having something that makes ordering your product easier if you want to without interrupting your viewing is good. The other possibility is the ability to be more creative with ads, as I discussed with Emi on the day I met him. Interactive advertising is a great way to advertise a product in a way that feels positive to the viewer, which enhances the positive image of the product. I also wanted to talk about the first idea I had for brainient, to use it for showreels. I would briefly mention that it could be used quickly and easily for creating depth to a showreel without making it too long, so it would almost be like having a long version and a short version of your reel at once, with the longer parts only there for those who want to take the extra interest.
So with these uses I had to think about the financial incentives. One of the key advantages for Brainient, I think, is that while you pay a monthly fee, it gives you access to the tools to create content through all stages of development, so from teaser content to periodical updates to direct advertising, and much of this is possible to create without the use of a marketing expert when you use the tool. So money would be saved by cutting out the middle man, using creatives who are already in employment to quickly improve content.
The day of the presentation and unfortunately due to having to do it all myself I hadn't managed to get the powerpoint file submitted on time. I'd sent it in an email the day after submission, instead of uploading to Moodle, so when the time came Linnéa didn't have our file. Luckily I had it on memory stick and she let us present anyway. It was me, Richard and Ric. The others didn't make it. I went for a pretty informal writing style on the slides, but my actual presentation was pretty straight faced. I figure that approach means I can get the information across in as dynamic a way as possible, with all the important content coming from me, and the slides reinforcing the information in a way that holds the audiences attention and hopefully ingratiates them to me.
It went pretty well, the main feedback was that it was a little text heavy. I only had one picture for the whole presentation. Linnéa cautioned me to be careful with my informal style, but I think she liked it overall. Richard and Ric were a bit shocked, I'm not going to lie. They were not expecting that presentation. Someone asked what they'd done to contribute. They didn't have an answer. I hoped, at this point, that this would be enough to stun them into doing some work.
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