The Brand Surgery – Chartered Institute of Marketing

We have just been told the great news that the boss, Vicky Vaughan, has passed her NVQ Level 3 in Management. And if that’s not enough…

In January this year, The Brand Surgery decided to formalise its marketing experience and embark on the CIM Professional Diploma in Marketing. This Diploma is an ‘Honours Degree’ course and we have 20 hours of reading and studying a week to swot up on, as well as intensive weekends once a month. So far we have been to Reading University and Gatwick Hilton for Managing Marketing and The Marketing Planning Process.

We have been busy benchmarking businesses against leaders in their field, calculating the funnel of activity (for example analysing website conversions), measuring marketing and e-marketing trends, calculating return on marketing investment, measuring innovation, and of course measuring the success of corporate identity.

As you are probably aware, The Brand Surgery, your No. 1 branding agency in Sussex, has always considered competitor research an essential part of the branding process, and it is pretty pointless starting a company re-brand without having a marketing plan to refer to.

So how do you know what perception your customers have of your business? Do you deliver value to your customers? Why should your customers buy from you? What makes your business stand out from the rest? Is your website working hard enough for you?

We can help you to promote your USP (unique selling point) using our combination of innovative ideas and formal marketing training.

Call Vicky on 01903 824229 for an informal chat.

The Brand Surgery are now members of The Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Lisa Cooper, our work experience extravaganza, showing off her research for her pop-up book, Indiana Penguin!

This week, we pass the hot spot over to Lisa Cooper, our work experience pop-up book legend!

Hello …

My name is Lisa Cooper, I am 15 years old and I go to Davison CE High School for girls, in Worthing. Every year, amongst other schools, Davison give the opportunity for every girl in year 10 to have a go at work experience so like most others, I used this opportunity to do exactly that. I got myself a placement at The Brand Surgery – a graphic design based company. Impressed by my graphics portfolio, The Brand Surgery have asked me to write a blog about the graphics course at Davison, so here goes nothing!

At Davison, I take graphics as an option and what a brilliant option it is. Most people think that when it comes to graphics it’s all design work, but I assure you it’s far more involved than that! When I first began the course my teacher got us to practice designing, researching and manufacturing. Now, usually I would enjoy doing design work but it is slightly less enjoyable when your teacher is timing you, and every once in a while going ‘Tick … Tock’. However, what I did learn from him doing that is the time constraints sometimes issued on you when you have work to complete. This was a good method to use to prepare us for what was coming up!

The project began …

When I began the actual project, my teacher briefed us on what we needed to do and what the structure of the lessons was going to be like. He explained that we would need to do a lot of research before starting the design work. Doing this helped me gain an understanding of the requirements of the target audience I would need to aim my product at and what sort of things would appeal to them. We had a choice of either designing and creating a perfume box or a pop-up book. Now, I don’t know about you, but when given the choice between a perfume box or a pop-up book, one kinda stands out more than the other? So I chose the pop-up book. From this I started the research.

To meet the criteria of the brief the exam board gave to my teacher, I would need to do a lot of research, in a lot of detail. The three main pieces of research we had to complete were: product comparison, product disassembly and a survey. The product comparison helped me see what competition there was on the market and where gaps were – Gaps for me to fill with my product. Now, what is an interesting, unique, original and child friendly theme for a pop-up book? Indiana penguin of course! This idea ensured that it would be suitable for both males and females as it is adventurous and also. Who doesn’t love penguins?

The survey

However, a lot more research and development was needed for this idea to work. This is where the survey came in. For my survey I came up with several questions, all relevant to my theme, to be asked to three different age groups, for a range of feedback on what I could do to improve and develop my idea. From the data I received back I then converted it into pie charts and analysed it. I then wrote a detailed description of what the data suggested to me and how I was going to use it in my later designs. Seems like a lot of work for just one popup book right? Wrong! This helped me develop my work a lot as I got user group feedback and my idea was becoming more developed and evermore like a realistic goal to achieve!

After doing all the research I started on initial designs, where again I got user group feedback on all designs by doing a review, and I also reviewed my work myself to see if my designs met specification points I had written which stated what requirements my designs had to meet. From this I labeled my designs: Red, Amber and Green – A common way of self reviewing your work at Davison. Red, meaning that the design needs a lot of work, amber, meaning the design would need some work done on it, and green, meaning it meets all specification points and would need very little work done on it. After taking into account of the feedback I had got, I developed all designs that were red and amber and started to work out how my designs would work when put into a popup book, so I designed some nets and made a prototype!

Once I had made my prototype I got feedback for each product and developed them, if indeed they needed development. This helped me produce my final design accompanied by a series of nets all drawn to scale. By completing this, I had completed two ‘bits’ to the project – the research and the designing. In year 11 I will start the manufacturing part of my pop-up book and that is when I will see if all that research and development has paid off!

So to sum up… Davison offers a brilliant graphics course that will inform you and help you gain experience in, not only the basics of graphic design, but also the stages needed to accomplish researching, designing and manufacturing a product. Not bad eh?

Thank you Davisons!

Thank you to Davisons for sending us Sarah! We are well impressed with your graphic design course, and think that some university students could learn a thing or two here!

Call The Brand Surgery on 01903 824229 if you would like to find out more about our graphic design and branding services.

Indiana Penguin by Lisa Cooper

ILM NVQ Level 3 for The Brand Surgery

The Brand Surgery, branding agency in West Sussex, have been swotting up on a Train to Gain course, supplied by Northbrook College, to bring our customers an even smoother and seamless service. Brand promise and customer care are our priority, and in future, our improved back-end office system for producing logo design, web design and development, brochure design, exhibition design and so on, will be even slicker, as we have put improved systems in place as part of our training. At The Brand Surgery, we invest in our staff, so that they are continually learning, which is stimulating them, and maintaining interest. Everyone is happy!

What courses are we on?

The boss, Vicky Vaughan, is working towards The Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM), NVQ level 3  Management qualification which is broadly equivalent to a GCE A Level. This will be her second NVQ Level 3 course, after she passed the Business Setup course in 2005 with a distinction.

The NVQ in Management (NQF Level 3) has been specially designed for first line managers with responsibility for: managing budgets, allocating work to team members/colleagues/contractors, achieving specific results and for some decision making. The qualification aims to give participants an opportunity to develop their management performance, become more effective and to progress their career. Vicky is taking four mandatory units (which look at managing resources, heath and safety, leadership, and allocating/monitoring work) plus three optional units.

Jody, our creative goddess, is on the OCR Business Administration course, level 2. This qualification provides evidence of competence of being in a supporting role in an office environment. Optional units provide opportunity to show understanding and skills in a variety of areas, including basic finance, IT and contributing to events.

We would like to thank Northbrook College for working with us, in between us rebranding businesses to make them beautiful and increase their sales!

Call us on 01903 824229 if you think we can help your business grow.

The Brand Surgery training with OCR