My IMC Project Journey
Phase 1:Discovery and Direction
May 8th, 2019 – June 14th, 2019
As soon as I saw the list of the SDG’s I knew which target I wanted to further investigate. I had always been interested in the movement towards clean energy and this was the perfect opportunity to learn more about it. My process largely consisted of secondary research, learning about why the SDG is important, who it affects and who is currently involved in it. My mind often wondered away from the information I was learning about to day dream about what sort of campaign could be created to initiate change. The ideas were there however, more often than not the execution of the plan would have been unrealistic.
The first in class presentation from RCRG on May 29th, 2019 helped me understand how to focus my attention to the right areas. The first thing was to narrow down my stakeholders, the presentation helped me understand why it’s important to focus on local audiences. This phase was not about creating a campaign but identifying a local market and stakeholders that could initiate change. The presentation from RCRG helped me guide my thinking process by reminding me to keep any ideas for a campaign simple and balanced. The last take away I had from the RCRG in class presentation that helped fuel the rest of the project was that the campaign shouldn’t just be about awareness, there should be a conversion that can be measured.
The second in class presentation from Jessica Macdonald on June 5th, 2019 brought to my attention a very interesting thought process. Up until this point I had been thinking that any campaign I was to suggest must solve the issue at hand immediately. However, that is not realistic, shifting behavior and improving progress towards a world of sustainable and clean energy would be more achievable. This is where Jessica’s mention of cathedral thinking really stood out to me. Just because you may never see the end product does not mean you failed. You can lay the building blocks, the foundation of something great that can be carried on by other people. An important piece that ties into the final presentation that influenced not only the first phase, but the entire IMC project.
The third in class presentation on June 12th, 2019 was by Rajiv Jhangiani on the importance of open licensing your work. This presentation explained how there are many different licenses that let others either use or adapt your work while even giving attribution to the original author. This was something that I directly linked to Jessica’s presentation about the importance of cathedral thinking. It made me realize that with this project we can lay the ground work, the building blocks for something great that can be picked up by another organization and continued on. That realization of seeing this work continued on by other people was one of the defining moments of this project.
Phase 2:Design and Delivery
June 14th, 2019 – August 2nd, 2019
I decided to carry on phase two of the project with two of my class mates. Brandon Harvie and Dustin Annett both of which I had been in previous classes with before. We decided to continue on with my SDG of affordable and clean energy. From the numerous meetings I had with our instructor Andrea, she helped me consolidate my thoughts and help me narrow down my target market and what I was trying to achieve.
I brought this information to my new colleagues on the project and we landed on the idea of targeting business school students. This was the beginning of our campaign we had figured out our local specific market, and why we wanted to target them. The plan was to market to business school students because eventually they are the ones most likely to end up managing or evening owning businesses. Our plan developed from there, our campaign went through numerous revisions. We landed on the idea of a pledge, having students pledge to our cause that they would advocate for change in energy consumption to clean energy in their future work places. In return they would be rewarded with a badge, a symbol of pride to be displayed on social media, resumes and university student profiles, that this student was in support of a change to clean energy. Originally the visual feel and look of our campaign’s branding was based off of the yellow colour scheme for the SDG. This resulted in a very friendly, colourful almost childish visual feel to the brand. Our original logo consisted of a lightbulb with the name “Inspire Energy”. After showing our work to Andrea, she suggested that this might not be the look and feel of a campaign that would effectively attract our target market.
Enter, the final in class presentation from Peter and Leanne on July 18th, 2019. This presentation came at the perfect time. The speakers were discussing their creative process in establishing a new name and logo for their client. The guest speakers spoke about simplicity with meaning, the importance of a logo being able to stand on its own. While, having a name that summarizes what the brand is about. The other main points that resonated with me were the need for the colour scheme to match appropriately and having it directly related to what you are trying to accomplish.
After taking into consideration Andreas advice and the new information provided by the guest speakers, our team went back to the drawing board. It was not an easy process by any means, but with trial and error comes success and with that Shift Energy was born. The new name was more directly related to what we were trying to do while the new colour scheme was more professional and appealing to our target market. The root of the SDG was not lost though keeping the some of the colours in our name and logo. The new logo was designed with the intention to match our name, the gear symbolizing movement, change and working together while the lightning bolt represented energy.
Phase 3 and 4:Details/Content Calendar and Final Presentation
June 14th, 2019 – August 2nd, 2019
Finally, we had our campaign identity, we knew who we wanted to target what our conversion was going to be and how it all work look and feel. The next step was planning how we would generate awareness and create the engagement to drive conversions. As a team we created a content calendar and an IMC plan of what our objectives were, the tactics of how we would achieve them and a timeline to implement. Our thought process was to create content that would not only drive engagement but also be informative. We used our own personal social media experiences to help pick what style of content we would want to use some of it being blog posts, videos or just quick posts that use humor. It was all designed in an effort that would appeal to our target market and drive conversions. We designed our phase two and three in PowerPoint format so that it was all ready to present. After doing some research of local stakeholders invested in this cause, we found the Renewable Cities organization based out of SFU. We presented our work in the hopes that they would either continue it on or know someone that might want to.
Overall this project was very rewarding and tied together lots of skills that I had learned over my time at KPU. As I am writing this, closing the chapter on this project, I remember one of the first assignments of the semester. The task of researching the native land around KPU as well as our home to learn about the first nation’s history of it. It created a realization that this land has been here long before us and it will be here long after us. It is important the we do adopt the cathedral way of thinking to shift our energy consumption so that future generations don’t have to suffer from our mistakes. This project has taught me a lot about thinking about the big picture and I hope reading this has encouraged you do to the same.
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