FINAL MAJOR PROJECT

Here you will find the initial idea for this final major project and how/why it evolved to what it is todaY!

Initial idea for FMP

As I talked about in my research paper, my plan for my final year project was to create two hypothetical organisations for subject which were both of great importance to me. One about gender violence and the second one about environmental issues. For both, I was going to use advertising techniques and strategies to create awareness for each subject (All of which were analysed on the research paper). For each organisation, my plan was to produce: Branding Guidelines + Logos, a Social Media + Guerrilla Advertising Campaign and record the responses by asking a closed group of people through an online survey.

Reseach feedback

Kerry wrote my research paper feedback, in which she suggested that I had put myself too much to do over the summer, which was true. Maybe instead of creating two different organisations, I could rather focus on just one of them and make a really good project out of it. She also suggested I could maybe get involved with an existing organisation and collaborate with raising money and/or join their events. I could also obtain guidelines from them as how to proceed with this project. Also, the idea of creating a gender violence organisation could present some ethical considerations, which could potentially make it more difficult to create. You can read her feedback below.

«Please find attached your assessment and feedback sheet. These are subject to ratification at the June Exam Board

What you did well: Valeria, an excellent research proposal – you’ve considered a range of research methods & have discussed why they might be appropriate for your final major project.  Your analysis of the two marketing frameworks & how they apply to the present day was brilliant, thus combining the two to create your own framework of which to measure your own activities against (think of all the ‘creative’ ways you might test & visualise the data, I’m excited ).  

Aspects of this assignment that you can develop and improve: More planning & explanation in regard to each of the elements of your campaign(s), this might include research surrounding branding, chosen platforms & Guerrilla marketing (planning) methods – what exactly are you going to need to create (however there is some detail in your timeline).

Something to think about for your future learning: You have certainly given yourself lots do to over the summer.  Do you think it might be better to focus on the one campaign & ‘doing’ that really well (environmental)?  You’ve already set yourself an excellent framework of which to measure your results against.  Are you hoping to work with any ‘official’ organisations; if the campaigns are actually going to run live, we may need to think of the ethical considerations (more so surrounding abuse than environmental).  If you wanted to do both, then maybe we could look for volunteering opportunities or create something that will help to raise money as well as awareness (https://www.refuge.org.uk/get-involved/organise-your-own-fundraising/ – for example), you would then get to work with an official organisation of which should provide official guidelines to follow. Once you’ve read this pop me a message and we can have a chat about where to go next (which is very exciting!).»

Tutorial 1

After the feedback, I emailed Kerry and we arranged a tutorial for the 2nd of July.

During this tutorial we came to the conclusion that, indeed, I should really focus on just creating one of the organisations rather than both. This was not only due to the vast amount of work I had planned to do, but also due to the possible moral and ethical complications the gender violence campaigns could arise. We decided the best idea was to continue with the environmental subject. For the project I would create:

  • The branding
  • Social Media Campaign
  • Guerrilla Campaign
  • Maybe add a UX twist?

I should also compare, apply and work against Wieber’s 5 factors (Wiebe, G. 1951) as well as Jerome McCarthy 4 P’s (McCarthy, E. 1971), (as analysed on my Research Paper)

Since I was now just focusing on one issue, instead of just creating this project theoretically, I was going to move one step further and make it a reality, launching the Social Media Campaign life on different social platforms.

 

Click on the button below to see MyTreebute’s Project Sheet . (After tutorial 1) This sheet was provided to us during our Research Module in Semester two.

Click for Project Brief

Ideas & Research

Since the best idea was to carry on with an environmental organisation I started investigating a few issues which were interesting for me and could potentially be a good subject to raise awareness through the social-media and Guerrilla campaigns.

Idea 1: The first idea I had was to create an environmental association which helped planting trees. This idea came from an article I had recently read on how there is still land, the size of the US, which could be used for reforestation. (Good News Network, 2019)

On this article, I also found that a company called Crowther lab had created an interactive map in which you can find what native trees grown in your area or other parts of the world. This would actually be a very good tool if the plan was to get people planting trees!

For this first idea, the Social Media Campaign was based on creating a hashtag which everyone could use to upload a picture of them with their newly planted tree. They could also dedicate this tree in some way too – this could incite people to publish the picture even more.

Idea 2: My second idea was to create a social campaign to encourage people to pick litter while they walked or jogged. I thought it could be an easy idea to extend as many people does this almost as a daily basis. It could even be applied to people who walk their dogs, as they are also already carrying a disposal bag. This idea originally came to me when I started going for long walks at the beginning of summer. Every single day I would find litter everywhere, even right next to the bins!

This idea was also great to use on social media, as I could also had applied a hashtag and asked people to upload videos or post a picture of them picking the rubbish – much like the beach- clean-up challenge.

After doing some research, I later on found that this practice already exited and it’s called Plogging, it was created by Erik Ahlströn. Click here to see the Plogging website.

Idea 3: I also did some research on other environmental areas that needed more awareness, for example; many people are unaware of the pollution they are causing by pouring oil down their sinks. A single litre of oil can pollute a million litres of water! Although I didn’t feel so passionate about this subject I did find a necessity to create awareness about it.

Idea 4:  This was just a vague idea; to exchange plastic bags for 1 Bag For Life project. This would imply having to hire people to go door to door picking the bags as well as the economic part of buying the Bags for Life, which meant I would have to put money into buying Bags for life too. This did not really get the people involved and was difficult to convert into a social media and a Guerrilla Campaign, therefore I dropped this idea, soon before making any further research.

Tutorial 2

I had my second tutorial with Kerry on the 9th of July. During this tutorial we talked about the possible organisations ideas I had had between the first tutorial and this one. (Shown above).

Between all the ideas we came to the conclusion that the tree planting was not only the best option but also one that motivated me the most. Maybe I could also include some «litter-picking» into my «environmental friendly journey».

For this idea I could perfectly apply the hashtag trend through facebook, twitter and specially instagram, as this last one is the most popular with viral picture-associated campaigns.

Since I am now, not only interested in starting a career in advertising but also in UX design, I was really keen in including something to do with area, and have that in my portfolio for future jobs. This is why we also decided that creating a website could be part of my ‘UX contribution’. Here I could add a donation option as well as share information and create events. Below are some notes I took from this tutorial.

The Beggining

Quick brainstorming session of things I have to prepare (some steps vary as project progresses):

To begin the research on how to create the organisation, I firstly checked that the name was not being used by any company or organisation. To do this I used the governments webpage, under the «companies house» section and the «charity commission».  I was happy to find, that no other companies or organisations were registered with this name in the UK. (The name decision process is shown on the branding blog)

Since the name was cleared, I got in touch with UK’s Environmental Agency, as I wanted to make sure, I had the necessary and right information to begin the project. I had to be careful, as this organisation would be seen and read by people, the facts and information had to be truthful and legit.

You can read the email I sent below:

Their reply was very helpful, as they gave me the email addresses of agencies which could help me further than they could. Below is their reply:

I then proceed to contact all of the three agencies they had suggested, with the same information as I had used on my first email addressed to the Environmental Agency. Some replies were more helpful than others, but overall I’m thankful for them even taking the time to reply. Below are the three different replies in the same order as listed below (with links to their webpages)

*I also used these emails as my source of reliable information on some publications for MyTreebute’s socia-media posts.*

While I was was waiting for the above agencies to reply, I started doing some research on what I had to do (legally), to create my own organisation. Here in the UK, an organisation has to be registered as a charity, unfortunately, this made it very difficult for me to actually register MyTreebute as an organisation, since the first requirement I had to achieve was to have three different trustees. By what I understand, the process of finding a trustee that «adjusts» to this charity is not that easy, plus my budget would make it almost impossible to find one. I’m also aware of the time we have to complete this project, so this is why, at this point, I decided that the best was to keep MyTreebute as a «community».

The solution

I actually feel much more exited and motivated to create a «community» rather than just one organisation. This way, I can make awareness of not just ONE organisation, but many! As well as sharing other content like; news, information, or other people’s stories. – For this reason; I would not include a donation section on the website.

MyTreebute

So, to summarise, MyTreebute‘s project is to build a little community of like-minded people through social media who are aware of the current environmental issues we all are facing today and who want to contribute in a creative and responsible way to earth’s reforestation. By sharing pictures, news and information with the hastag #MyTreebute, everyone and anyone can help raise awareness and bring this initiative to life.

The «selling point» (Seen from the perspective of Wiebe, G) of MyTreebute is to engage people and motivate them to plant their own tree and make TheirTreebute to someone they love by posting their loved ones name on the title of the post along with the #mytreebute hashtag. At the same time, they are also making a Treebute to the earth, by reforesting and helping with climate change.

 

Social Media

I had some issues with social media when trying to open an account in both, facebook and instagram platforms. For some reason MyTreebute’s name was not recognised as a real person/name, and decided to block any account under MyTreebute’s email address. (mytreebute@outlook.com) This set me back a few days, since I was already ready to start posting and having people tag their images with #MyTreebute.

I managed to solve this issue by opening the accounts through my existing personal one, this is not the best solution, but it would had been impossible for me to open them individually with MyTreebute as an account name.

With Twitter, since its owned by a different company other than Facebook, it was much easier to open the account, I had no trouble at all opening it with MyTreebute’s name and email.

I’m really happy, as I have already received encouriging messages from other organisations thanking MyTreebute’s collaboration 🙂

References

  • Wiebe, G. (1951). Merchandising Commodities and Citizenship on Television. Public Opinion Quarterly, 15(4), p.A range of pages.
  • McCarthy, E. (1971). Workbook for use with basic marketing. Homewood, Ill.: Irwin.
  • Good News Network. (2019). For First Time Ever, Scientists Identify How Many Trees to Plant and Where to Plant Them to Stop Climate Crisis. [online] Available at: https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/how-many-trees-to-plant-to-stop-climate-crisis/?fbclid=IwAR337EFA8VgP-W2KnIsLKKyxc8ALRY7MDQavjSjBboTQ1TWFcxFtt4xnzws [Accessed 2 Jul. 2019].

 

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