Week 5

I was really excited when Dan announced that our final project for the UT had been changed to involve the Little Italy Art Walk. The Art Walk is an event that I personally would love to attend, and I thought that the idea of having each group come up with their own idea would be much more efficient than having twenty people try to come up with one cohesive plan. My group decided that we wanted our booth to have the theme "Express Yourself". We thought that attendees of the Art Walk would be inspired by the art around them and we wanted to give them an outlet to express themselves. Having the walls covered in white butcher paper would be the perfect place for both children and adults to doodle. We also thought they could get their picture taken in front of their artwork, with the UT logo in the picture. Along with the picture, which would be printed instantly as well as uploaded to the internet, we would have white magnetic frames that could be decorated. We thought this would be a wonderful way for them to remember the UT and think of us every time they looked at the fridge and saw the frame and photo. Another way to attract people to our booth would be giving away free shaved ice. We were thinking that in order to receive the shaved ice, the person would need to give their email address using an ipad to ensure legibility. We also came up with a puzzle contest to include a more interactive aspect and ending in the raffle of a Bamboo Create, a tool we believe patrons of the Art Walk would be interested in.

It was great to hear all of the other groups ideas and so exciting that we all came up with such unique ways to promote UT SD. I can't wait to get started working on the booth!

Presentation Week

We definitely had a fun time coming up with a comprehensive idea for the UT San Diego Booth! Our group's focus was to maintain two separate booths in case they were separated, and also to reflect the different demographics and ideas that UT San Diego could portray and mean to different people. This is why we chose to come up with our two different booths, Art Off the Press and Live. Love. SD. For me, I learned a lot just having to practically applying the objectives of the Art Walk booth to a creative idea. It was a very hands-on experience in what it truly means to design a promotional event that is not only fun and engaging, but markets the brand that is sponsoring it. I was so impressed by all the presentations today. It was reaffirming in a way to see some different ideas overlap between groups, and also fun to see what original ideas each group came up with. Congratulations to Group 4 for having such a great theme!

Since I forgot to post on the blog prior to spring break, I also wanted to briefly mention how my experience in the Content department was. It was really interesting to be able to try and cover a story, complete with photos and the incorporation of social media. It was something that as a business major I had never had exposure to. I chose to cover Grandparent's Weekend at USD. As I began my project, you could very quickly see the concepts that the UT had taught us about at work. I had to worry about things such as the comprehensiveness of my story, thorough coverage on a Twitter account, and saw the challenges of carrying out ethical and accurate reporting. The staff at UT USD was very supportive of the results we came in with, and were very sympathetic to a lot of our challenges. It was a great and hands-on way to learn something new.

Class

I hope everyone enjoyed our classroom meeting.

Sales Week 1, Spring Break

Hello Everyone!

I hope all of you are enjoying your spring break! I have started thinking of a concept/theme for the booth, but I will only disclose those ideas to my group. I am really excited that we are doing this project instead of designing our own event. The hardest part about organizing our own event would have been making sure the logistics were sound. Now that we get to run a booth, it allows us to be more creative.

Spring break has already gone by fast, and in one short week all of us will be presenting our themes. I am really excited to see what all of the groups come up with. Once we get back from break, my group will be moving to sales. Based on the blog posts discussing the sales portion, I think it will be a great time. Enjoy the rest of your break, and I will see you all soon!

Week 4

First off, a big thank you to the men of the content department; they were wonderful teachers and mentors for the last few weeks. As I said before the content department had us covering an event, posting on twitter, writing an article, and taking 3 pictures at the event.

I covered An American Night: Ballad of Juan Jose, a play at the La Jolla Playhouse. The play was great but covering the event was harder then I expected. It was intimidating to take pictures of people at the play that I did not know as well as ask them questions about what they thought. However, I got through it and actually had some fun. The article was more difficult to write then what I was expecting because in college we are so used to analyzing everything and this was an assignment that required us to write strictly the facts. It was challenging and I am not sure that I succeed at the assignment. I guess it just takes practice.

I really love that we are designing the UT booth at the art walk instead of putting on our own event. I think that this is a great opportunity to real show off our creative skills. I am so excited!

Em

Week 4 Sean Sales

Last Friday I was introduced to Linda who I shadowed as a Sales Rep. This was a great way to see how the sales of Ads were done. Linda explained a lot to me of things I had no idea about. At first she showed my there new Cherry Picking concept. This concept I believe is going to be real successful in getting clients. Cherry Picking is the idea of using other medians of online media that people in San Diego use to advertise. How this works for example is that if some person reads The LA Times everyday online, UT would be able to sale online Ad space to local San Diego businesses to be shown on LA Times web page. I thought this was a great concept. Though the day Linda was showing me how she works with her clients, and I was surprised to see the great relationship she has with all clients. I was lucky enough that she received a call for a new client and I got to observe her process of working with them. Other then that it was a great way to see sales for the Union Tribute. Next round we will be switching to content. 

Prep for Event

This week I was able to go with the Sales team to go behind the scenes and see all that they do. I was suprised at the relaxed atmosphere and the friendliness of the staff. They also had a great relationship with their clients. On Wednesday we discussed the event. I think its a much more practical idea to have booths at an already existing event than try to create one. Im excited to bring marketing ideas for the UT SD booth at the Little Italy Art Walk in late April and hear everyone's sales pitch! It should be exciting incorporating ways to bring the USD community out to participate.