Branding Analysis Exercise

McDonald's Logo Rebranding

 McDonald’s Logo Rebrand Exercise

For my redesign of the McDonald’s logo, I decided to keep it very simple and close to its original design due to just how big McDonald’s is as a company. Stretching too far away from their original image would be risking losing customers. According to their mission statement, McDonald’s aims “to provide a fun and safe environment where our customers can enjoy good food made with quality ingredients at affordable prices.” To keep with this mission statement more than the original logo, I decided to focus on less symmetry and more rounded edges in order to promote a more welcoming feel to the logo. This also applied to the font, which I changed to something much rounder and ‘fun’ in terms of appearance compared to the sharp simple font used in some of the official McDonald’s logos. I had to keep the golden arches, as they’re integral to the image of McDonalds as a brand – this also extends to the colour choices, which both scream McDonalds and have some meaning. The yellow has connotations of joy and happiness, which clearly links to the mission statement’s mention of providing a fun and safe environment.

Ghost Hunters Short Film

Lego Stop Motion Film Evaluation

Evaluating the film as a whole, I felt that it came along way better than I was expecting. I wasn't as involved in the actual filming (behind the camera/moving the legos) as I wanted to be, and therefore didn't get much of an idea of how the film was progressing, but it looks much better than I was expecting. Some of the movement is definitely jittery and stop-starty, but it reminds me of old stop motion lego videos from back in the early 2010s which I hold some nostalgia for. Additionally, all of the foley and voice acting is very clear and easy to hear, with little static or background noise interfering. The acting could be better, but that's a constant as none of us in the class are professional actors (and the majority of us aren't focusing on acting for our project/business idea). The narrative is very simple and could hold some more complexity, but I feel that a simpler more comedic plot fits the aesthetic from a Lego Stop Motion film better.

In terms of my own performance, I felt that the sound foley I picked out for the film worked very well and didn't seem majorly out of place (although I feel that some of it could be a little louder, and I wished that they used the lego breaking sound I found online). Additionally, the music I picked out fits the scene very well and even matches the ending 'Fin' due to the silent film feeling of the music. Alongside my work with the foley and sound design, I felt that my voice acting was surprisingly good and didn't seem too out of place for the character I was playing. I even feel that my scream was quite good (no matter how embarrassing it was to record).

To conclude, I feel that the film came out way better than I was expecting, although some of the movement was quite jittery and awkward along with slightly sub-par acting. Despite these issues, I felt the lighting of the scenes was great, the sound effects and voice acting were of a high quality mechanically and the film was able to portray the narrative we intended well.

Branding Analysis

 Initial Sketches

For the initial sketches of my logo for my branding, I knew that I wanted something to do with trees and jungles, due to the chosen name of my business 'Story Jungle'. With a name like this, it felt reasonable to try and link the 'Jungle' aspect of the name into the branding of the company. Additionally, by using natural imagery like leaves and palm trees, I could help to push the message that my business is additionally eco-friendly (which I can't see it not being, due to being just a writing company).

All of my sketches seen on the right involve leaves in one way or another, with the majority of the designs utilising a round border with leaf patterns orbiting it. The few sketches that don't use this leafy border include leaves in one way or another in the logo, such as the bottom left logo of the first image which shows trees (which will be seen as silhouettes) within the book. In addition to this, I've avoided using sans serif fonts too heavily for my branding, as I feel this would portray my business as too serious which is not the way I want to present my business. I wish to present my business as comfortable and welcoming, leading to a preference for serif fonts or generally more unique fonts that give off a more comfortable, fun vibe.

Another thing I wanted to consider for my branding is the use of the colour green. I believe the colour green has connotations of kindness and growth, due to the prevalence of the colour throughout nature. Therefore, I wanted to try and use green for a lot of my logo (although I was also considering a shade of yellow due to the massive links to happiness and positivity the colour has).

Moodboard

After producing the sketches for my ideas for a logo, I had to make a moodboard with further ideas and inspirations I had for what my logo could potentially look like. I took my previous sketches into consideration as I made this moodboard, hence the heavy usage of palm trees, books and leafy borders seen on the left side of the moodboard. I included a few shades of green that I thought would look nice for my logo. I chose these shades of green specifically primarily because I felt they weren't so bright that they hurt your eyes, but they weren't too dark, gloomy or unsaturated either. They hit a nice balance of comfortably bright and colourful but not as far as neon green. Similarly, I included some shades of yellow I was considering in the bottom right as well just incase I decided to go for a yellow logo. It's not guaranteed I'll produce any yellow logos due to the green having multiple links (peace, happiness, nature, jungles, etc.), but I wanted to make sure I had a few colours to take reference from when I begin making prototypes.

I also went through some font ideas that I liked the look of for my business. Two of the fonts are serif fonts, with the other two being sans serif. However, the sans serif fonts avoid looking too corporate or rigid by having a sort of hand-written appearance, giving them a more creative appearance compared to something like Arial. Similarly, one of the serif fonts has some massive swirls for the serifs of the letters, giving the font a whimsical look in general. While I liked the fun atmosphere this gave at first glance, I'm now beginning to think it might be a little too far and could make my business seem as if it's for children (which was not my intention). With this in mind, I'm unlikely to use the top right font choice, with my most preferred font being the bottom left one. The bottom left font has a nice hand-written style to it and doesn't appear too corporate or too childish, whilst being slightly more thin and calm than the top left font. This is entirely a matter of personal preference, although I will definitely try out the top left font in some of my prototype logos to see how it fits.

Logo Development

After having completed the moodboard above, I began the process of designing the logo for my business. It was quite difficult to decide on a final look for the business that gave off the sort of vibes I wanted, and I went through a number of different prototype logos seen below.

The first two logos were what created the basis for my final logo, although I thought that the colour didn't quite work for what I was trying to portray with my business and clashed with the imagery of a jungle. Additionally, while my peers disagreed with this, I felt that the font I used for the first logo was a little too corporate and modern, going against my intentions for how I wanted to present my business. I also felt that having the name of the business next to the logo looked a little clunkier than having the name beneath the logo as in the second and fourth concepts. The second concept is closer to what I wanted, but I feel that the font I chose was far too thin and corporate, again not giving off the brand image that I want. The third logo looked nice, in my opinion, although it didn't give off the feeling of a business that focused on writing and story commissions, and rather seemed like the sort of logo you'd see on a bottle of body wash or for some kind of spa company (in my opinion). Finally, while I quite liked the last logo's colour and natural imagery, it has almost nothing to do with writing and short stories and instead looks like the logo for a nature charity. None of these logos satisfied me with the personality they gave off, although I felt that I could combine aspects from each of them to create a logo I was happier with.

I eventually decided on combining the structure and iconography from the second logo (albeit with an oval rather than a circle as I felt the shape fit the book inside better) with the colour and font of the final logo to create this logo seen on the right. The colour fits well with the jungle theming that I've given the business, and the usage of the book in the logo clearly informs the viewer that the company is related to stories and writing. In addition, the font that I had chosen to use is quite 'fun' and hand-written in appearance, further lending to the friendly vibe I wanted to give off.

I eventually felt that this logo was a little too simple and bland, so I altered the colouring of the logo to be more of a gradient, added some beveling to give more depth to the logo and curved the text around the oval to compact the logo closer together. While I felt that this did improve the logo somewhat, I was beginning to worry that I was doing too much and overcomplicating the design. Part of the reason I chose the original logo design was due to its simplicity and how easily digestible it was for anybody's eyes.

The final changes that I made to the logo were an attempt to simplify the design of the logo a little more. In order to do this, I removed the beveling from both the text and the logo itself. I felt that this gave the logo a good balance between a more interesting appearance with the gradient colouring whilst not becoming over-saturated with unnecessary details. In addition, my teacher suggested that my previous font appeared too much like a microsoft font and seemed generic, which was something I agreed with. With this feedback, I altered the font to DK Yellow Lemon Sun, found on Dafont. I felt that this font maintained the rounded, friendly appearance that I was intending for the business whilst additionally appearing far more professional rather than like a font I pulled straight from Photoshop.

Customer Profiles *

Analysis

• Age Range
• The majority of my customers are all either young adults or teenagers, with the only exception being the Karen customer who isn't even interested in my business for a          story for her, but instead a story for her child.
• Geographical Location
• There isn't much similarity between the geographical locations of my customers, although quite a few live in more suburban areas with only two living in 'big' cities.
• Occupations
• Due to the majority of my customer base being young adults fresh out of uni or teenagers, the majority of the occupations for my customers are minimum wage jobs in             restaurants and grocery stores such as McDonalds and Morrisons. The exceptions to this are Jim who has an office job and Karen who could have any kind of job as long as it works from home.
• Income Brackets
• Since most of my customer base works minimum wage jobs, the majority of the customers fall into a lower income bracket, earning around or just slightly above minimum           wage generally. Yet again, the exceptions are the two customers who have more established jobs who earn quite a bit more than minimum wage.
• Common Leisure Interest
• Most of my customer base enjoys reading at some point in their life, with the specific choice of week-night or week-end varying depending on the person and how much time       they have available to spend reading. The only exception, yet again, is Karen who focuses more on taking care of her kids and taking them out on week-ends (but yet again, she isn't wanting my services for her sake).
• Media Channels
• The vast majority of the customer-base I've established engage heavily with books and literature, whether this be through analogue methods like books and libraries or online routes such as E-Books or reading online fiction written by others. In addition to this, quite a few of my customer profiles engage online frequently and will therefore be commonly browsing social media.
• Shops
• For the most part, there weren't any massive similarities between the different shops that my customer profiles went to. Quite a few of them went to shops that may sell books such as dedicated bookshops and WH Smiths due to their interest in literature. Apart from this, however, there weren't too many more similarities.
• Attitudes
• The main common thread between the attitudes of all of my customer profiles is the fact that all of them have one reason or another why they are unable to put their imagination to the page themselves. The specific reasons why vary from person to person, such as some being too lazy and others not having the time/resources. No matter what the issue is specifically, however, all of my customers have a desire to get their imagination written down.
• Reasons for Coming to me
• Similarly to the common attitudes of all my customers, all of these customer profiles have similar reasons for coming to me in order to get their story ideas written. They all have the imagination and desire to get something creative put out there, but just don't have the time, resources, energy or motivation to do it themselves. Due to this, they come to me, as I am able to use my own time, resources and motivation to make their ideas come to life for them.

In conclusion, all but one of my customer profiles generally fall into the younger age brackets with interests in literature and books, also falling into lower income brackets. These customers all have the desire and imagination to get their creative ideas put to paper, but aren't able to do it for one reason or another. Having no other routes, they come to me as a person that can get their specific creative visions written exactly as they want it.

Competition Research *

 Story Machine

Story Machine is a company based in Norwich that specialises in producing and publishing books alongside aiding writers and artists with their creative visions. According to their website, they "[bring] books and artistic ambitions to life [by creating] immersive live experiences that grow from between the lines of books [and publishing] new fiction, poetry and non-fiction." I believe this quotes gives us the mission statement for the company, with that being "[to bring] books and artistic ambitions to life." I couldn't find anything on their website that looks like a vision statement, and I was generally unlucky when it comes to values as well. Despite this, a section of their website is dedicated to their "planet positive promise", indicating care for the environment as one of their values.

Their website offers three different primary services: books, productions and artist support. The books section of their website obviously goes into detail about the different kinds of books that they have published themselves alongside an online shop that allows customers to purchase the books to be delivered to their homes. Additionally, they work with authors to publish their books in this section of the website, offering submission guidelines for those interested in getting their books professionally published.

The productions portion of their website gives lots of information about the many different productions that Story Machine has produced in the past, giving info such as the people involved in creating the production, the general reception and reviews from audiences and critics, trailers and a small plot synopsis of each production. There's also a small about page giving details about the productions as a whole.

Finally, the artist support section of the website offers different kinds of support for upcoming writers, ranging from fundraising support, arts coaching or just general tips and tricks including the ability to ask authors for guidance.

In general, Story Machine is able to quite easily reach their customers due to their in-person productions that they put on. According to the website, Story Machine "shows tour widely online and in person". They add that they're currently only doing online shows due to the pandemic, but they "hope to get back to face-to-face touring again soon." This in-person touring obviously generates quite a bit of publicity for the company and can attract a great number of customers.

It's somewhat difficult to get a good comparison of Story Machine's pricing to my business, as I'm planning to run my business as a commission based business whereas Story Machine operates through book sales primarily. With this in mind, their pricing varies depending on the products. The short story "Deception Island" is priced at £10 whereas a single issue of their poetry journal 'Lighthouse' goes for £2.50 (compared to the price of a subscription to receive all the poetry which is £20.00). In general, however, most of their short stories (which is what I'm aiming to produce) go for anything from £5.00 to £12.00.

In terms of advantages for the company's structure, they offer a wide variety of different services that can attract a great number of different customers who may be interested in purchasing from them due to different needs. For example, Story Machine could attract people who simply want to read something new thanks to the books they publish whilst also being able to attract people who enjoy theatre and plays thanks to the productions they publicise. Another advantage for the company is that they offer guidance and tips for writers whilst also allowing writers to come to them with stories to be published under their name. This allows for them to create more business for themselves, as they can give writers the skills and confidence needed to write what they want to create. This circles back to the company with the writer potentially coming to them in order to get their finished story published.

A disadvantage of the company, on the other hand, is that the books that they offer are not personalised in any way shape or form, unlike the services I plan to offer. Interested customers will just have to browse the books available on their store and see if any of them catch their interest, rather than being able to have a story tailored to their desires and narrative ideas. This could alienate a large audience who isn't interested in the stories they offer, as I noticed a much higher amount of poetry compared to the amount of stories on offer on their online store. Another disadvantage would be their reliance on face-to-face events to get customers interested in their business. I wasn't able to find any social media links on their website, and therefore believe the majority of their marketing comes from interesting people with their shows and performances. By relying so heavily on these performances, they end up severely disadvantaged when put in a position where they can't put on these events, such as currently in the pandemic.

National Centre for Writing

The National Centre for Writing, as I've gone over multiple times already on the blog due to it being one of my case studies, is a non-profit organisation based in Norwich that focuses on providing writers with assistance and guidance through workshops, festivals and online courses. According to their website, their mission statement is "to support writers at all stages of their careers." Unlike Story Machine, I was able to find their vision statement, which I believe to be "to create a centre of national and international literary exchange in [Norwich]." While values aren't directly listed anywhere on their website, I can assume that monetary gain isn't a primary value or goal for the organisation due to their status as a registered charity. Additionally, a whole section of their website is dedicated to what they offer to young people specifically, leading me to believe they value aiding in the creativity and nurturing a love for writing in the younger generations.

When it comes to reaching customers, they hold a lot of in-person events at their base of operations, Dragon Hall in Norwich. These events could be anything from  meet and greets with knowledgeable people to workshops aiding guests in their knowledge of writing. These workshops can draw in a lot of people in the local area, as they advertise the events through their social media platforms (primarily Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube). Additionally, they have an online store where they sell resources, access to courses and more in order to aid writers as best as they can.

In terms of pricing, the National Centre for Writing doesn't have any kind of pricing for stories that I can compare to my own business, as their business doesn't operate around creating stories for people. I only consider them a competitor as people may use their courses and services to learn how to write themselves rather than using my services to get the story written for them (albeit my demographic is aimed at people without the time or patience to do this). The only things on their website that are priced is access to their online courses and tickets for their in-person events. The prices for the courses vary heavily depending on the course. For instance, a science fiction writing course costs £125 for three parts where as an overall fiction course supported by the UEA costs £475. The in-person events, on the other hand, are usually free for the smaller events with prices of around £35 for the live workshops (the outlier being a ten-week course that costs £225).

An advantage of the organisation would be the company's location in Norwich, which is listed as a UNESCO City of Literature. Due to this, quite a lot of the people living in Norwich are likely to have an interest in writing and literature as a whole, leading to lots of potential customers who may be interested in writing living in the local area. For another advantage, the National Centre for Writing has ongoing partnerships with a number of different influential organisations/government bodies that can aid them in numerous ways: the Arts Council of England, the Norwich City Council, the Norfolk County Council and even the UEA. These organisations and government bodies are able to provide the NCFW with resources that they may have difficulty obtaining on their own as a non-profit organisation, such as funding from the councils and superior teaching resources for their online courses thanks to the UEA. According to the Courses section of their website, their creative writing courses are "co-designed with the creative writing school at the University of East Anglia", meaning that they're able to have the expertise and knowledge of the intelligent writers of UEA to supplement the course, providing interested writers with even better learning material. This, therefore, would attract more interested customers after hearing of how successful the course is.

A big disadvantage for the organisation, if we're talking purely in terms of business profits, is that they are a registered charity and operate primarily as a non-profit. By not focusing on how they can make profits from writers, they are reducing the total amount of money they're able to earn. Of course, this isn't entirely a bad thing - operating as a charity is an incredibly good thing to do and can very easily boost an organisation's reputation. However, if we're talking purely in terms of how well a business can run, not focusing on where potential profits could be made (without the cost of morals/values) could hinder them. Another disadvantage for the National Centre for Writing is, in my opinion, the prices of their courses. Whilst the prices of their events and workshops are far more fair (at prices around £35 mentioned earlier), the prices of their tutored courses go far above this. According to the courses section of the website, a 12 week creative non-fiction course goes for around £475.  Even more expensive is the 24 week poetry course, which costs £945. While I believe the prices do make sense due to the length of the courses, I feel that they are still very high costs to pay for someone interested in learning to write - this could potentially push away a large number of customers who don't feel that they have the disposable income to spend on a hobby such as writing compared to more important things like bills and food.

Louise Harnby - Fiction Editor & Proofreader

Louise Harnby, according to her website, is "a fiction editor who'll help you prepare your book for market." Her website offers a number of different services, specialised in aiding both writers and editors with their work in order to get their writing and/or editing to the best quality it can be. Her website offers various free resources for both writers and editors that can help them in specific areas that they're lacking in, paid courses for more in-depth lessons in the skills that a writer or editor may need and, as the name of her business suggests, commissioned editing and proof-reading services for writers who need a second opinion on their stories. While there's nowhere on her website that specifically lists a mission statement, I believe the closest thing would be a quote that appears on the home page of her website, stating that her business aims "[to provide] fiction editing and proofreading for crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers", clearly showing that she aims to specifically provide her services for those interested in the darker areas of fiction such as crime novels or horror stories. There's nothing on her website that links to any kind of vision statement, and I had similar trouble locating values as well. There was a section of her website dedicated to her 'Code of Practice', with mentions of "good communication between client/employer [being] essential" as well as "ensuring editorial excellence". These two quotes lead me to believe that Harnby aims to communicate well with her clients whilst also providing the most excellent editing services that she can.

In terms of getting her business under the noses of her customers, Harnby operates with several different methods of spreading her business out. First of all, she obviously utilises an online store to manage the sale of her bespoke services - her proofreading and her editing services specifically. In addition to these services is the ability to purchase PDF forms of several different books she has written straight from her website. In addition to the various methods of E-Commerce used by Harnby to interest customers, she also sells her books on Amazon, therefore providing herself with a route to market via a retailer (albeit an online retailer). Notably, Harnby seems to have little presence that isn't online - she has various social media accounts that she can utilise to promote herself, but nothing on her website indicates that she aims to provide in-person events like the previous two businesses (most likely due to the freelance nature of this business compared to the larger scale of the others).

The pricing of Harnby's services on her website is effectively impossible to tell, as I believe she operates via a case-by-case system. When looking at the editing services available on her website, she makes no mention of a price and simply includes a button to allow customers to "discuss a project" after giving them all of the different details about her service. Apart from her specifically commissioned services, however, we are able to find prices for the various books she sells on her online store. The vast majority of the books she sells go for £8.99 with the only exception being a book titled "Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business" which she is pricing at £17.99 (I can only assume this is due to the book being longer in length, although I haven't seen anything to confirm this). None of these prices really translate well to my own business in terms of comparison, although I will obviously be considering the fact that Harnby varies her prices for her editing/proof-reading services on a case-by-case basis - something that I was aiming to replicate myself.

An advantage of Harnby's business would be how laser-focused the business is in what it aims to do - by focusing specifically on crime, thriller and suspense literature, Harnby is able to better focus her efforts where she know she is skilled. This therefore would result in a higher quality product as she's already got a lot of confidence in the area of these genres. This is in direct comparison to a business like mine where I would be writing in a variety of different genres depending on the wishes of my clients - I might have to dip into subject areas I'm not as familiar with, resulting in potentially lower quality work. This, however, is also a disadvantage. By limiting herself only to crime, thriller and suspense novels, she is pushing away a huge number of potential customers who may need editing/proof-reading help with their own novels that don't fall into these genres. By ignoring these potential customers, Harnby is missing out on potential profit with the upside of having a more focused and therefore more skilled business.

Another advantage for Harnby's business is the fact that she is an offical Amazon partner, and therefore is able to sell a lot of her books on Amazon. This is an advantage for her as this circumvents one of the biggest issues with running an online store - gaining the trust of customers. A lot of customers won't feel safe purchasing things from most online stores as they'll be afraid of fraud or scams. However, purchasing from a much larger company like Amazon will give them more confidence in what they're purchasing, leading to more potential customers buying her books on Amazon compared to her own website. On the other hand, another disadvantage for the business is the amount of free content and guidance that she is offering on the same website as her bespoke editing/proofreading services and book sales. As mentioned earlier, her website gives visitors access to a bunch of free learning resources, with a variety geared to both writers and editors. By offering all of these free resources alongside her paid services, she is potentially reducing the amount of profits she could receive from the business, as some potential customers will be able to get enough guidance and help from the free resources alone, resulting in no need for them to purchase her services. Additionally, she promotes checking out the free resources first herself on the 'By Appointment' page of her website, where she says "most editors use my freebies or buy my books and courses. That's the most affordable way of accessing my advice". By promoting the free resources so heavily, she is losing potential sales from people who required her services initially but were able to learn themselves due to the resources promoted on her website.

Conclusion

To conclude, there are a lot of ways that I can exploit the different gaps that have been left in the market by the disadvantages explained within this essay. Due to the lack of personalisation and social media marketing from Story Machine, I can take the customers that are interested in a story that's more personalised to their exact desires whilst simultaneously attracting a wider audience through social media whether or not a pandemic forces face-to-face business to close. Additionally, the high prices for workshops from the National Centre for Writing allows me to price my services at a far more reasonable price, attracting the people who don't have the money to spend on extremely expensive writing workshops compared to the lower prices I intend to market my services at. Finally, I can steal customers from Louise Harnby's business due to her laser focus on thriller, crime and mystery genres. By widening my range of genres that I will write in, I can attract customers that would be turned away by Harnby's business due to the few genres she does. With this in mind, however, the customer overlap between my business and Harnby's business is far less than the other two competitors listed in this essay due to her business focusing on proof-reading whereas my business focuses on commissioned writing.

Route to Market Strategy

 Route to Market Strategy

Due to the nature of my business as a commission-based writing service, I feel that I can rather quickly eliminate a number of different route to market strategies. It'll be pretty much impossible for me to set up my business in any kind of physical shop, as it could take me a lot of time to actually complete a product for a customer (as I have to spend time planning, communicating with the customer and actually creating the story). Additionally, the final product isn't physical in any way, leading to there being no real point in having my business operate via a physical shop. With this in mind, I won't be considering any kind of market strategy that involves a physical shop-front, whether pop-up or permanent.

Additionally, according to the Entrepeneur's Handbook website (which lists a number of different suggested route to market strategies), it'll be quite unlikely that I can get my business under the noses of my customers through a trade show, as the article states "it's also fantastic for selling services which require a face-to-face sale." Not only does my business model not require face-to-face sales at all, but it also cannot operate with them due to the problems mentioned earlier (wait times, no physical product to give, etc.) This inability to operate through face-to-face means eliminates almost all of the route to market strategies listed by this website: selling via mail catalogues, selling to wholesalers/retailers (as they can't realistically stock a commission service) and sales agents (as it'll just end up being a man in the middle, wasting time when the customer could just come directly to me).

With all this in mind, I feel that the best route to market strategy for my enterprise would be operating through an online store/website. Due to the digital nature of my product and the wait times needed for me to actually make the final story, I believe it only makes sense to have an online system. Therefore, customers would be able to contact me with their briefs via email or call (most likely email, seeing as I'm not overly comfortable with phone calls). We can then discuss the details of the commission such as the length of the story, the characters, genres, settings, etc. Once this is all discussed, I can give a price and ask for a deposit of the price up-front so that I don't get scammed out of any money. Once this is done, I'll begin writing the story, with regular updates to my customer about the progress of the story (maybe with watermarked snippets). Eventually, I'll finish the story and ask for the rest of the payment before sending them the story.

This RTM strategy works best for me due to the fact that it doesn't require any kind of face-to-face meeting and it allows for easy communication and transferral of the digital product - the finished story. Additionally, it'll be quite simple for customers to simply go through my website, find my contact details and then ask me for a commission. Another bonus of operating through a website is that I can promote the website on various different platforms, such as my business social media and on websites such as Etsy. Unlike promoting a physical store's location, customers will be able to see the website link that I've promoted and instantly access it, giving me an edge over those having to promote their own physical stores.

There are some downsides, however. Due to the nature of operating online like this, all of the responsibility is immediately on me: marketing, managing the sale, communicating with the customer, managing potential refunds and so on. Depending on the amount of customers I have, this could leave me ending up unbelievably overwhelmed and stressed. Additionally, quite a few customers (myself included, a lot of the time) are anxious about buying products online from websites that aren't super well known such as Amazon, due to the potential risk of scams or fraud. This is especially a problem for my business, as I ask for a deposit up-front which could seem shady to some people. The only real way to get around this issue is to simply make my customers feel comfortable and trust me, as well as relying on the customers who don't get quite so nervous purchasing online.

In conclusion, I feel that the best method for my RTM strategy would be selling my products online as I can easily communicate and get my product to the customer and have many different routes of marketing my website instantly to my target demographic.

Market Research Strategies

 Primary Research

When it comes to the primary research for my business, I'm partially limited by my intended target demographics. As seen in my customer profiles, the vast majority of the 'characters' I drew up were more introverted, as this is what I primarily expect of people who are more interested in writing and reading. While I know that there will be exceptions, I believe that most of my target demographic would not be the sort of people I can easily catch outside on the street for an interview. Therefore, I find it unlikely that I'll be able to question people on the streets.

With this in mind, I feel that a similar method that could be far more feasible is creating a questionnaire via Google Forms and sending it out to my class-mates along with other people that I know throughout the college. I feel that this would work quite well as all the students in the college fall into my targeted age range of 16-27 year olds. Additionally, I feel that a good number of people in the college would hold some interest in writing/reading (I know for a fact that a good friend of mine has an interest in writing, and therefore could be a good possibility for answering a questionnaire). Therefore, the main method I'll be utilising for primary research will be questionnaires sent out via email. As a final note, I believe the majority of the data received via this questionnaire would be qualitative, leading to a lot of bar graphs for how I'll present the final data received.

Alongside this questionnaire, I could also potentially try a focus group with my family. I've never done a focus group before, but I know that they would be receptive to my ideas and would be able to give me good feedback and let me know if there's anything that needs to be tinkered with regarding my marketing techniques/business ideas as a whole.

Secondary Research

For the secondary research for my business, I'm slightly limited by the nature of my business. Due to the fact that my business is focused around writing commissions and short stories straight from the imagination of different people, it's somewhat hard to find figures and records for sales from any competitors. Most of the businesses that could be considered competitive to my idea are businesses on Etsy which also do writing commissions (and Etsy doesn't show any sales figures apart from the simple number of how many sales the shop has made).

A good source of secondary research that I've found are past questionnaires that can give me some insight in what kind of things my target audience are interested in, therefore giving me a greater idea of how to tailor my marketing strategy in order to attract more of my intended demographic. As an example, I've found the results of a survey asking people about their reading habits, primarily whether what they were reading is fiction/non-fiction, where they found the book and the way that they read the book (physical books, e-books, magazines, etc.) This survey could give me a lot of good information about what kind of literature my target demographic enjoys primarily, helping me tailor my marketing specifically to their interests. (https://medium.com/@lilastories/what-are-you-reading-results-of-a-reading-survey-783feaa6995d)

Another strategy for secondary research, albeit a slightly more unorthodox one, could be taking a look at the social media accounts for other brands (ideally something focused in writing, although I don't have to go that specific if I can't find anything). Due to the online nature of my business, I feel that a good way to market my business will be via social media. Therefore, taking a look at the social media platforms for other more successful brands will allow me to see how they present themselves publicly, giving me ideas for what kind of things I have to promote/talk about on my business' social media accounts.

Mission Statement, Vision Statement and Values

 Mission Statement

For my business, I've had to go through a few different renditions of my original mission statement as I altered and improved the core concept of my enterprise. After reaching the final rendition of my business concept, I came up with the following mission statement: "To bring the ideas of my clients from their imagination to the page". I decided on this mission statement as it's quite short, easy to understand and clearly informs the reader of what the purpose of my business is. My clients give me ideas that they want to write but can't, and I bring their ideas straight from their imagination to life. In addition, there's a hint of emotion within my mission statement as well with the use of imagination, which has connotations of something the client desperately wants to be real.

Vision Statement

Unlike my mission statement, my vision statement hasn't changed that much since the initial idea of my business was constructed. This is because all of my previous enterprise ideas that failed still revolved around writing stories, with the only difference being what kind of stories I wrote and why (i.e. stories for people to read when they were bored, stories for people who were running out of books to read, etc.) Due to this, my initial vision statement has stood strong: "To produce high-quality short stories that can engage readers across the country and bring them into a new comforting world." I decided on this vision statement due to the aspirations clear within it - I want this business to evolve from a small business writing people's stories straight from their imaginations to becoming a proper author that can write books and get them available in libraries and bookshops. Additionally, this vision statement is clear and quickly shows the reader my vision for the future of my business - writing stories that a wider audience can read, rather than stories solely for individual people. With this in mind, however, it's obvious that my vision statement isn't as aspirational as other businesses. This is because I never wanted my business to become some huge thing across the world - I simply want to write stories that people would enjoy to a slightly wider audience around the country.

Values

As I wanted my enterprise to have a welcoming, comfortable atmosphere for my customers, I knew that the primary goal of my business would be to make the people coming to get their story ideas written feel comfortable sharing their ideas - comfortable knowing that they won't be bullied or laughed at for their ideas, and instead given a chance to see them come to life. With this primary goal in mind for how I wanted to portray my business, I came up with the following values.

• Approachability
• Meaning that I operate my business with an approachable nature that will make people wanting to work with my business feel comfortable talking and working with me.
• Inclusivity
• Meaning that I'll accept any kind of clients, no matter their race, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, etc.
• Equality
• Meaning that I'll treat every client and every client's idea with the same respect, not acting as if any are better than the others for unfair reasons.
• Creativity
• Meaning that I'll attempt to ensure my writing is creative and fresh, taking the visions of my clients and bringing them to life with my own minor creative twists.
• Trust
• Meaning that my client can trust me to get their writing done in the time-frame I set out, while I can trust my client to pay me the appropriate amount and not take advantage of me.
• Personality
• Meaning that I won't be extremely corporate and boring in the operation of my business, and will attempt to make working with me an enjoyable experience.

Presenting Skills Presentation

Logo Designs

Unit 1 Task 5

 Legislation and the Creative Industries

No matter how well your business is marketed and no well how well-planned your company is, it doesn't matter if your company doesn't follow the law. There are a number of different laws that your company has to follow in order to ensure that it doesn't break any form of legislation or become unethical. For creative companies in particular, there're quite a few rules regarding the creative products that you put out, whether they be pieces of art, photographs or models.

Intellectual Property

To begin with, we have to go over the definition of Intellectual Property. Put simply, intellectual property is something that was created by the mind. This includes a wide array of creative products such as pieces of written literature, art, designs, unique inventions and so on. If your creation is something that you personally came up with in your own mind creatively, then it more than likely falls under the umbrella of Intellectual Property. With your work being branded as intellectual property, or IP, there's a number of legislations in place that can both protect your work and produce guidelines that you must follow when selling the work.

Copyright

In order to protect your intellectual property from being stolen by others wishing to make a quick buck, any original IPs are protected by copyright laws. The specifics vary from country to country, but generally the law gives the owner of the IP the exclusive rights to distribute, make copies or generally make a profit from the IP. This means that someone can't claim your hard work as their own and sell it to the public, stealing all of your effort for their own personal gain. Of course, this works both ways; the copyright law also prevents you from stealing the intellectual property of others for your own business, meaning it's important to ensure all of your products don't infringe on the copyright of any potentially similar products in the market. 

For the UK specifically, the amount of time that your work is protected before falling into the public domain depends on the type of creative work being produced. For written, artistic or musical works, your products will be protected by copyright for the entirety of your lifespan as well as for 70 years after you die. For films, they are protected under copyright for 70 years after the combined deaths of the director, screenwriter and composer.

Trademarks

A Trademark is a variation of the Intellectual Property I mentioned earlier, focusing more specifically on "a recognizable sign, design or expression". In other words, a Trademark is something that is easily recognisable and unique to a specific business/individual that seperates their brand from their competitors. Trademarks are usually indicated by a small symbol next to the trademarked symbol/phrase, using either ™ or ®. 

Some examples of recognizable Trademarks include company logos such as the McDonalds golden arches and the Apple's signature Apple silhouette, company slogans such as McDonalds' "i'm lovin' it" and even brand names themselves such as McDonalds, IKEA and more.

Talent Releases

Moving away from universal laws that affect all aspects of the creative industries, we now get to legislation that affects specific aspects of the creative industries. More specifically, the film industry. When filming anything that you intend to promote and produce starring actors, you have to ensure that you have their documented permission and information in paperwork to provide proof of their legal involvement. This is done through a document called a Talent Release.

A Talent Release is a page-long document featuring a headshot of the talent in question along with information such as their name, address, phone number and potentially email address as well. Alongside this information, the talent release will include a signed statement from the talent indicating their involvement in the production and that the cinematographer has their permission to film them. Without a talent release, a filmmaker will be unable to release their film as they will either not have proof of their talent's willing permission to be in the film or, in a worst case scenario, will not actually have their permission to use their likeness in the film.

A sub-type of a Talent Release is a Minor Talent Release, used when a minor has to star in a film/TV production. This version of the Talent Release is almost identical to the previous one, except it features a signature and statement from the talent's legal guardian rather than themselves.

Location Releases

Not only do you need the documented permission of the talent starring within a TV production, but you also need the documented permission of whoever owns where you plan to film. Unless you're filming somewhere that you own, you'll have to ensure that you have permission from the landowner to film on their private premises. This is done through a similar form to the Talent Release called a Location Release.

Like the Talent Release, the Location Release is a page-long document including a statement from the owner of the property detailing their given permission for the filmmaker to use their property to film. This also usually includes a list of what this permission includes, ranging from prop usage to bringing talent on-property. After this statement is a signature from both the filmmaker and the property-owner, along with phone numbers and the date of the signature. Without a Location Release, you have no proof that you were given permission to film on the location you desired, therefore not following legislation.

Filming/Performing in Public

While a Location Release may be necessary when filming on an owned private property, rules differ when it comes to filming on any kind of public property. In general, the law in the UK states that "members of the public and the media do not need a permit to film or photograph in public places." The law additionally states that the police "have no power to stop them filming or photographing incidents or police personnel". Therefore, this law clearly states that there's nothing to stop a filmmaker from filming a public area without obtaining any kind of permit or documented permission. However, the IAC suggests that filmmakers should follow instructions given by police if they are told to stop filming, as it's possible there's a reason to prevent filming. While one does not need a permit to film public places, this doesn't mean a filmmaker can film specific individuals in a public location willy-nilly. Action can be taken if someone is filmed in public without their consent following privacy laws within the UK. Therefore, a filmmaker will need to take care when filming in public to either only film a location at large or to obtain the permission of individuals who may stand out as lone people within a public place.

Things differ for performing music in public, depending on the actual music being played. If the music you're playing in public is your own original piece, I haven't found any legislation stating you need express permissions or permits to perform it. If you've written the music entirely yourself, you can perform in a public space without permits or permissions. However, things change if you're attempting to perform something in public that you haven't written. If you want to perform a trademarked/copyrighted piece of music in public, you need to obtain a public performance license. This license gives you permission from the copyright holder of the original music to perform the song in public. Without this license, you cannot perform a copyrighted piece in public as that would be infringing on Copyright law mentioned above.

Child Labour Laws

When doing things for the creative industries, it's entirely possible that you'll have to involve a child in the proceedings. Whether this is to get younger vocals in a song where a child's voice would be essential or to involve a child in a film or TV production, it's inevitable that some creative productions will require the use of children. However, a filmmaker can't just take a kid and film them at their own discretion. This would go against Child Labour Laws enacted in the UK in 1933. This legislation prevents anyone under the age of 14 from being employed in any sector of work, including the creative industries. So how does a filmmaker involve a child in their productions without breaking Child Labour laws?

Luckily, there's a special exception for this issue when involving film. A child will be able to take part in a film or TV production providing they have a Performance license. According to the Government's official website, a child will need a license if they're under 14 and taking part in "films, plays, concerts or other public performances" or "any sporting events or modelling assignments where the child is paid". For these instances, a child can be provided with a license to allow them to take part in the production without breaking child labour laws. Additionally, the involved child must have some kind of supervision at all times when not actively filming. If this supervision isn't provided from their legal guardian or school teacher, then it must be from a "chaperone approved by the council".

Public Liability Insurance

When filming or doing any kind of creative performance in public, there's always the risk of potentially injuring or damaging the property of a member of the public. You can obtain consent of the public and licenses to perform all you want, but if you accidentally harm someone in the process of your production, they won't save you from being sued. This is why Public Liability Insurance exists.

Public Liability Insurance is a specific type of insurance meant for businesses of any size. It's meant for a variety of industries, but has a lot of overlap and involvement with the creative industries due to their need to involve the public. Public Liability Insurance protects you "if a client or member of the public claims they have been injured, or their property damaged, because of your business activities." For the creative industries, this would mean protecting you if the process of your production/play/performance injures someone such as having someone trip over a cable or being injured by lighting equipment. This insurance protects businesses from claims involving these kind of issues, and additionally can cover the costs of expenses involved in any legal proceedings.

GDPR

When it comes to following legislation within the creative industries, laws that affect in-person productions aren't the only thing to worry about. There are also laws that affect sectors of the creative industry focused more on the digital world. More specifically, there's the GDPR - the General Data Protection Regulation.

The GDPR is a piece of legislation put into place recently in 2018, aiming to help ensure data privacy is secured throughout the entirety of the EU, even including businesses outside the EU aiming to involve the data of customers within the EU. In other words, the GDPR is "the world's strongest set of data protection rules". The GDPR has seven key principles: lawfulness, fairness and transparency, purpose limitation, data minimisation, accuracy, storage limitation, integrity and confidentiality, and accountability. According to my sources, the majority of these regulations were already enforced under the previous data protection rules, with the only new addition being Accountability.

The Accountability section of the GDPR ensures that companies are able to prove they're aiming to comply with the rest of the regulations stated by the GDPR. This can take multiple different forms, ranging from documenting how your business handles data and what steps are taken to protect private information to training staff in data handling processes and generally understanding data protection. This aspect of the GDPR aims to ensure that businesses hold accountability for their actions and how they handle the private data of their customers/clients.

The GDPR can have an impact on the creative industries due to the many businesses within the industry that focus on digital interaction between business owner and clients. When running an online store or anything digital, it's inevitable that the business owner will have to process the data of the people coming through the website for any kind of purposes, such as analytical purposes. Therefore, someone operating a creative business digitally will need to ensure they follow the GDPR.

The Competition Act 1998

Another piece of important legislation that could impact the creative industries is the Competition Act of 1998, aiming to "identify and [deal] with restrictive business practices and abuse of a dominant market position". More specifically, the Competition Act 1998 prohibits any kind of deals between businesses in the UK that could "distort, restrict or prevent competition". Any deals that occur between different businesses that could potentially limit output or fix prices in the market would go against this piece of legislation. Additionally, the Act prohibits a business with an advantageous position in the market from abusing this position by doing things such as excessively pricing their services, refusing to increase supply or discriminating how they price things in order to restrict competition.

This act obviously impacts the creative industries as creative businesses are just as liable as any other business to engage in shady deals if they feel that it may benefit them and restrict the ways that their competition can grow. This legislation aims to prevent these businesses from abusing their position and further restricting any competition they have, giving all businesses a fair chance to grow.

The Enterprise Act 2002

The final piece of legislation to consider is a slightly more recent one compared to the Competition Act 1998. This would be the Enterprise Act of 2002. Similarly to the previous act, the Enterprise Act aimed to make changes to competition law within the UK regarding mergers.

The Enterprise Act had five main objectives regarding competition policy. These objectives were:

• Make all Competition Decisions through independent bodies
• Root out forms of anti-competitive behav
  iour
• Create a deterrent effect (regarding cartels)
• Redress injured parties in distortions of competition
• Raise the profile of competition policy in the UK.

More specifically, the Act gave the Office of Fair Trading independence from the rest of the government and gave to it new powers, including the ability to search businesses that may be involved in a 'prohibited merger'. According to Wikipedia, a prohibited merger is any merger that "will affect the media to the detriment of the public, national security or if one of the firms is a government contractor". Additionally, the Act aimed to deter business directors from forming any kind of cartels by threatening them with jail terms of up to 5 years for creating said Cartels.

The Enterprise Act 2002 affects businesses within the creative industry due to their statuses as businesses and for similar reasons to the previous legislation. Any business in the creative industry, no matter their type, may feel the need to form an illegitimate merger with another company or potentially form a cartel if they feel like they're not in an advantageous position (or if they are and want to snuff their competition further).

Unit 1 Task 5 Bibliography

• Wipo.int. n.d. What is Intellectual Property (IP)?. [online] Available at: <https://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/#:~:text=Intellectual%20property%20(IP)%20refers%20to,and%20images%20used%20in%20commerce.> [Accessed 14 March 2022].
• En.wikipedia.org. n.d. Copyright - Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright> [Accessed 14 March 2022].
• En.wikipedia.org. n.d. Trademark - Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark> [Accessed 14 March 2022].
• Prsformusic.com. 2022. Do I need a licence?. [online] Available at: <https://www.prsformusic.com/what-we-do/licensing-music/do-i-need-a-licence> [Accessed 14 March 2022].
• En.wikipedia.org. n.d. Child labour - Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour#Britain> [Accessed 14 March 2022].
• GOV.UK. n.d. Child employment. [online] Available at: <https://www.gov.uk/child-employment/performance-licences-for-children> [Accessed 14 March 2022].
• Hiscox.co.uk. n.d. What is public liability insurance? | Hiscox UK. [online] Available at: <https://www.hiscox.co.uk/business-insurance/public-liability-insurance/faq/what-is-public-liability-insurance#:~:text=Public%20liability%20is%20a%20type,because%20of%20your%20business%20activities.> [Accessed 14 March 2022].
• Burgess, M., 2020. What is GDPR? The summary guide to GDPR compliance in the UK. [online] WIRED UK. Available at: <https://www.wired.co.uk/article/what-is-gdpr-uk-eu-legislation-compliance-summary-fines-2018> [Accessed 14 March 2022].
• En.wikipedia.org. n.d. Competition Act 1998 - Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_Act_1998> [Accessed 14 March 2022].
• En.wikipedia.org. n.d. Enterprise Act 2002 - Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Act_2002> [Accessed 14 March 2022].

Images

• n.d. Copyright Symbol. [image] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright> [Accessed 14 March 2022].
• McDonalds, n.d. McDonalds Logo. [image] Available at: <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:McDonald%27s_Golden_Arches.svg> [Accessed 14 March 2022].
• n.d. [image] Available at: <https://bookcreator.com/privacy-policy/gdpr/> [Accessed 14 March 2022].
• Coleman, M. and Grenfell, M., 1998. [image] Available at: <https://www.bookdepository.com/Competition-Act-1998-Second-Supplement-Martin-Coleman/9780198299561> [Accessed 14 March 2022].
• The Law Library, 2002. [image] Available at: <https://www.amazon.co.uk/Enterprise-Act-2002-Law-Library/dp/1987627296> [Accessed 14 March 2022].
• All other images obtained from Pexels. No credit needed.