The Manchester Masters Blog

As an international marketing agency, we employ graduates with languages – hence our recruitment process is rigorous and selective. The mix of marketing creativity with languages can be an elusive combination. While the scheme offered us the chance to work with one of the best and brightest, we wondered how our Manchester Master would fit into BDB.

Thanks to the thorough selection process, our Manchester Master ticked every box. Franziska Kohlisch slotted effortlessly into our team when we needed her most – in the run up to Europe’s biggest food ingredient trade show. Eleven of our international clients attended the event, which involved stand design and build and multi-lingual press support. Fran’s swift understanding and enthusiasm meant that we could give her real responsibilities, from taking client briefs and liaising with designers, stand contractors, exhibition organisers and trade media to managing direct mail and literature linked to the event.

Franziska at the Trade Show

For BDB, participating in the scheme was worthwhile. We gained a superb colleague for the length of the placement. And for those who don’t reach the final group of 10, we can offer a strong incentive to enter: we recruited one of the remaining 40 graduates for a permanent position.

~ Frances Ross

Last month marked the anniversary of my application to the Manchester Masters programme and I can still distinctly remember boot camp. Keeping extremely busy over the last three months has undoubtedly contributed to 2010 flying by, but I am feeling very pleased that there is already plenty to reflect upon.

My most recent placement has been a position as an Online Marketing Assistant at digital services agency, theEword. Despite being a small company, there was a lot of work for me to help out with and as a result, I have now acquired skills in Pay Per Click management, some basic link building and even a bit of content writing. Considering my previous lack of knowledge regarding Search markets, this placement has been an extremely insightful experience.

During this placement, I also joined Ric and Caz to form Team Thinkplant. As a team, we entered the annual CIM ‘The Pitch 2010’, a marketing competition hosted by McCann Manchester. A lot of our hours out-of-work were dedicated to developing our marketing campaign for Cross Country Trains and needless to say we each contributed 110%. Fortunately, our hard work, plus some help from our friend ‘Rik-with-a-K’ was worthwhile as we eventually won first place! You can read more about our experiences in ‘The Pitch’ blog entry.

Towards the end of my placement, Caroline and I were invited by Fran to attend a Women’s Lunch event at her placement company, Deloitte. Keen to meet some of the people Fran had been working with, Caz and I both accepted and spent an afternoon surrounded by driven and successful business women. The event was extremely inspirational and clearly demonstrated the support network offered to all female employees at Deloitte.

With Easter now fast approaching I am looking forward to my next and final placement at Dabs.com. As with all of my previous placements I am certain that it will be a completely unique but enjoyable experience.

Emily

One thing that struck me about working at a digital agency is the phenomenal amount of buzz words, acronyms and abbreviations that seem to be thrown around without any regard for the poor marketing interns sat in the corner.  Don’t think I’m bitter because I’m not. I actually enjoy learning new things. But with this in mind, I have decided to add my own selection of vocabulary to the digital caldron that reveals a bit about what I’ve learnt while at theEword…with accompanying descriptions. I wouldn’t want you to get confused now would I.

Systemativity – This is creativity within a piece of non-creative work. Digital marketing is praised for its measurability, bringing science and numbers back to what has slowly become art and pictures. Interestingly there is still a lot of scope for being creative in this science. Anyone that has run a PPC campaign will know what I’m talking about. (PPC stands for pay-per-click by the way)

iDoing – Generally marketing is concerned with “saying”. Digital marketing is more about “doing”. It does frontline work, actively directing customers to a point of purchase gaining revenue. Surely that’s what marketing is all about.

Flexeadership – This is what happens when a small number of people from different departments create a project team with an interchangeable leader. The leadership role is constantly changing depending on the task at hand. It’s a very organic process that helps teams understand each other and work better.

SBAC – This stands for “Small but Appreciative Client”.  Small clients are more appreciative. Fact.

Thankarama – An extremely appreciative offer of gratitude after letting a marketing intern consume large amounts of coffee, biscuits and fruit for free.

Thankarama.

iRic

After a very relaxing festive period it was back to work for the ten 2009 Manchester Masters on the 4^th of January. Our first week at our new placements saw the most horrendous amount of snow I have ever seen in my life. A word of advice, when the snow is knee deep and you have a 20 minute walk to work; don’t wear jeans, do wrap up warm, and definitely don’t wear new shoes that have zero grip on the bottom of them. You might end up, as I did, sliding backwards down a slight incline only to be met at the bottom by an attractive girl laughing at you as you fall on your backside – Not cool!

When I finally made it to work that day, every one of my colleagues had also made it in, I can’t say the same for anybody I had to contact to do any work however! (Creative Spark must be the most dedicated creative team in Manchester!). Creative Spark as you may have guessed is the company that I have spent the last three months working for. They are:

“a leading branding and web design agency based in Manchester.”

Straight from the website… alright I’m lazy! (Should I have referenced that quote? – Maybe I won’t get my masters after all!). This was my first experience working agency side and on the whole it’s been really fun. I loved working in a small office with a small team*. I had three projects over my three months, all involving interaction with clients, competitors and staff, and all were projects which had potential to really add value for the agency. The first was a competitor analysis, the second a brand audit and last but by no means least a process analysis (which went towards my academic work).

The great thing about working for a creative agency is that everyday you get to work for a new and exciting brand. At Creative Spark, one day the office will be busy preparing a pitch for a cosmetic surgery company, the next they’ll be going through website amends for Manchester United. It was a great environment to work in and the people in the office were great to work with, it was…great.

In other news, I see our successors have been chosen and soon we will be forgotten about, chucked to the kerb to be replaced by younger, fresher faces (much younger and fresher in Ric’s case!). All I can say is congratulations and good luck to the next ten who are embarking on a unique journey. I hope they’re looking forward to it!

And so it’s on to my final placement, Brilliant Media! I’ve been really looking forward to this placement all along (not that I wasn’t looking forward to the others), so hopefully it will be as name suggests….Brilliant!

Tom

*The office and team are only small in comparison to Expotel and especially Pets at Home, where I think the dogs in the office would outnumber that amount of staff here.

Caroline, Emily and Ric – of the 2009 Manchester Masters – are proud to announce that they emerged victorious at the prestigious Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) North ‘The Pitch 2010’ Competition hosted at McCann Manchester on 24^th February 2010.

‘The Pitch’ is a gruelling competition designed to test university students by issuing them a brief based around a real-life scenario; exactly the same as one that would be normally issued to a marketing consultancy or agency. Teams are given two weeks to read the brief, interpret it and produce a solution – culminating in a high-pressure 3 minute pitch to a panel of distinguished judges.

This year’s client was CrossCountry Trains – a marked contrast from the previous competitions where clients included Jaguar, Aldi and Durex. CrossCountry Trains spans more of the country than any other British Train Operating Company, covering around 1,500 miles and servicing over 100 stations. Needless to say, the client was big. However, the task was even bigger!

The objective of the brief was threefold:

• Segment the UK rail travelling public based on their behaviour and attitudes
• Create a core communications idea to inspire additional journeys amongst these segments
• Use different channels, promotional tools and tactics, and media integration to present the key message to the segment showing the greatest opportunity for additional rail journeys

After many long evening meetings fuelled by M&Ms (and Battenberg in Ric’s case), we went back and forth on ideas, but finally settled on our core communications concept: “Discover a great deal…more”. We felt this fit the brief perfectly, as it highlighted two of CrossCountry Trains’ main USPs – low cost tickets, and the UK’s largest rail network. We thought this concept would particularly inspire travellers in the ‘short leisure’ segment – showing them just how far they can go on a great deal. After endless brainstorming, researching and finalising, our idea was really coming together. However it was when we sat down with our friend, all-round good guy, and ridiculously talented graphic designer, Rik  Holden that we could see our idea form into a fully branded and integrated communications strategy.

Ric at one of our late night brainstorming meetings

Also known as ‘Team ThinkPlant’, Caroline, Emily and Ric arrived at the stunning McCann Manchester offices ready to pitch. After a long day, the evening session began, and it was announced we had made the top three and would be presenting again in the final – in front of all the teams and guests. We delivered a confident pitch, up against competitors from UCLAN and Manchester Business School. After a tense period of judges deliberation, the winner was announced – TEAM THINKPLANT! Champagne and confetti flowed as we mingled with the judges and were awarded our shield. Most rewarding of all, we were praised for our ‘excellent teamwork’, and praised by the client – who said our ideas would be ready to take to market immediately. High praise indeed!

Ideas from our winning pitch for CrossCountry Trains

Ric, Caroline and Emily celebrating their win

All in all, a great experience, a great day, and an extremely satisfying result! We hope the 2010 Manchester Masters will be inspired to enter next year’s competition and keep the winning streak going!

We would all like to thank the CIM North for organising such a great event, McCann Manchester for their hospitality, the event sponsors, and Gillian Cosser for her support on the day. Our warm congratulations also go out to all the teams who travelled from all over the north to compete.

CIM ‘The Pitch’ Website – http://www.cimnorth.co.uk/thepitch/

Young marketers prove they’ve got what it takes at CIM’s The Pitch 2010 – http://www.orchard.co.uk/Blog/Young-marketers-prove-theyve-got-what-it-takes-at-CIMs-The-Pitch-2010-178.aspx

Working above a soap powder factory your nose will get so accustomed to the fresh aroma that everywhere else seems to smell unclean (not ideal when your flat mates’ idea of “clean” is piling the empty take away boxes in a corner). I know this because for the last eleven weeks I’ve been working for ACDOPRO, a FMCG company specialising in laundry-aids products.

Let me tell you something about laundry-aids. It is the most boring FMCG category. Fact. I didn’t get to hang with glamorous celebrities. I wasn’t rolling around in famous name brands. I wasn’t even working in an office full of “cool, young professionals”. I was working in a soap factory. But let’s not judge a factory by its output because that factory hides the wisest, most knowledgeable marketing guru of all. It’s not a person but one of the oldest washing powder brands around – ACDO – est 1919.

You probably haven’t heard of ACDO but if you want to see something weird ask your Nan about it and watch her reaction. It’s the unknown soldier of the marketing world, the one that was down on the front line engaging consumers whilst academics were pondering the definition of the term “marketing”. If the four P’s is marketing gospel then ACDO is the 13 apostle. I learnt more about marketing just by studying this brands history than I ever did sitting in a lecture theatre. Sure there are plenty of old brands to learn from but this is one of the few that didn’t get sucked up by the corporate vacuum. This one has been owned by the same family for over 90 years…and they trusted her with me.

That’s right, they made me brand manager of their founding brand (their other big brand is Dr. Beckmann if you’re interested). So I gave the ole gal a bit of face lift; re-positioned, re-packaged and re-branded. I know what you’re thinking and you’re right, you can’t just slip into a slinky new box stamped with a new logo and expect the world to bow at your feet. You have to use what value the brand already has and embrace it. Not fill it with marketing Botox. That just won’t wash (pun intended).

Those 90 years of heritage are a great asset to the brand and even though there is nothing cool about laundry there is something incredibly remarkable about a brand of that age remaining under the control of the original family. You’ve got to respect that. Holding on to the roots of a brand is an important lesson I learnt from this placement. Not because you should never forget where you’re coming from but because with great powder comes great responsibility.

It’s quite strange actually.  The 10 ‘Masters’ who were our first intake in 2009 are synonymous with the title so it’s quite bizarre that – after two long, gruelling but very rewarding Assessment days – we now have our 2010 x 10!

At the end of January, we closed the application – graduates had to upload a 30 second film (Google some on YouTube – they’re amazing) and answer five tough questions.

Six judges then spent a very long day judging these applications in order to achieve a top notch shortlist of between 40 and 50 candidates to take forward to the shortlist for 2010.

Tuesday and Wednesday of this week saw us squirreled away in Manchester Metropolitan University with the 44 shortlisted – terrified but highly excited – finalists and 14 – equally terrified and excited – judges!

Judges including leading Manchester agency reps (from True North, the eWord, MIDAS Tangerine PR), senior marketing gurus from top Manchester organisations (Cash Generator, Marketing Manchester, Manchester City Council, Chartered Institute of Marketing) a journalist from The Drum (top marketing journal), and marketing programme leaders from both MMU and the University of Manchester (Salford Uni was invited but could not spare anyone.)

This was serious stuff.  Through a series of individual and group tasks, designed by top HR specialists to give the candidates chance to shine and the judges the chance to spot potential stars, we observed and scored all day.  At the end of the first day, armed with our scores and observations, as well psychometric tests from Psycuity – leading business psychology company – we set about the task of whittling our 44 down to the final 20 to be invited back for the second day.

The second day was more (and less) of the same (more intense but less people) with individual interviews added in to give us greater knowledge of the candidates.

Again, the end of the day saw the judges using a whole host of scores, tests, observations and – to be honest, gut feelings – to select our final, very impressive 10.  And here they are!  And an impressive bunch they are too:

And so another year begins.

This year’s intake has impressed beyond all expectation (and the expectation was quite high!) and I have a feeling our 10 shiny new Manchester Masters will be just as good.

(Oh – by the way – in case you’re worried about the 34 who didn’t make it through, we ran a ‘matchmaking’ session yesterday which was attended by 20 leading Manchester businesses, all in the market for graduates and nearly every one said they’d like to interview between 4 – 5 grads for potential positions, so hopefully everyone else will be well on their way to a career in marketing.)

You can view or download the full size image here: http://bit.ly/mmmatchmaking

Be sure to follow us on twitter for more news! http://twitter.com/mcrmasters

With the application deadline looming by the end of this week, there might still be a few of you out there that are thinking about whether to apply or not. After all it is a bit of effort and creativity required to make a video. Let me help you with that decision – go for it.

Last year the deadline was coming up quickly, I did not have a decent camera and no clue how I could make my video stand out. On top of all that there were essays to write and lectures to attend. My attitude then was – I can at least give it my best shot and see what happens.

And what happened was probably the best thing that happened in my career so far. I made it! And looking back, I probably did not even now how lucky I was when I got through. Don’t get me wrong I was thrilled to be one of the 10 Manchester Masters and also just glad to have a job. Nevertheless, having completed about half of the programme, I know that it has truly changed my career outlook.

In the last year I have learned how mobile applications are developed and produced a strategic marketing plan for a real company, which is now being implemented and successfully so. I have then worked in B2B communications and learned all about Pantone references and how exhibition stands, magazine adverts and other campaigns are developed. I have provided press support at an exhibition in Germany, taking my first official business trip abroad.

I am now working at Deloitte, which in itself still amazes me every day I’m going in the office. Don’t get me wrong – the past 6 months have been very challenging, and hard work. You are studying full-time and working full-time in quite challenging roles, but what you get out it is more than worth it.

I have learned a lot about myself – about the strength I have, how business savvy I am, that the stuff they teach you at University actually does make sense in a real life context (at least some of it). I have also got a better idea what I like about a job, what I am good at and what I don’t like. I know where my priorities are now and some of it has really surprised me.

Having this opportunity to ‘try – out’ four different jobs in 12-months is a great opportunity. So give it your best shot and good luck to all of you!

Fran

So here it is my second blog… we’re now 6 months in and half way through our Manchester Masters journey (How time flies…did I use that cliché in may last blog?… never mind!).

My second placement was with Expotel Hotel Reservations Ltd, a corporate HBA (Hotel Booking Agent…. get with it!). When I first arrived I was surprised to learn, (and they weren’t shy about telling me), that they are the largest HBA in the UK, booking over 2 million room nights a year and managing big name clients such as Virgin Media. I worked as part of “The Commercial Team” which comprised of the Commercial Director, rates negotiation team and two commercial executives (one for Hotels and one for Travel). I entered the company at roughly the same time as a new marketing manager was hired. This all turned out to contribute toward a very unique and rewarding experience as the new marketing manager was keen for me to become involved in as much as possible.

My main role at Expotel was to keep on top of their newly developed website which went live two days after my arrival. The aim of the site was to increase functionality in terms of the amount of users the site was capable of handling at any one time, but also to give Expotel a platform on which to launch into the highly competitive and extremely value led world of consumer leisure travel. – One of the best experiences I gained from working for Expotel was my visit to World Travel Market 2009. All in all it was a fascinating week in which I learnt the ‘Hard Sell’ of business, met numerous new contacts and had a lot of laughs (especially with our biggest rival Expedia on the stand across from us – see picture of Dave our commercial exec below). Overall my time at the company encapsulated the work hard, play hard philosophy. Everyone within the company had an excellent work ethic and were equally willing to let their hair down and socialize when appropriate… (Anyone who goes on to work for a HBA as part of the scheme or otherwise will realize that a huge perk of the HBA industry is the free hotels).

So bring on 2010! – it’s saddening to think two placements have gone, but exciting to think i’ve got two still to go! – Next up, Creative Spark a Branding and Web Design agency in the city centre… who knows what the next 3 months will bring…

Cheers,

Tom