Practice Makes Perfect Presentation

October 30, 2019 at 12:32 pm (communication, Marketing, Presentations)
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I am sure anyone reading this has had his or her fair share of PowerPoint presentations. After much feedback over the years, I thought that I was doing everything right, as you probably think too. I always figured you just need to add pictures, transitions, and make sure it looks well organized and not cluttered. However, after doing some research and watching this extremely helpful Ted Talk, I learned way more than I thought I would. Give it a watch:

To sum up the video, there are five key points David JP Phillips suggests we consider when making a PowerPoint.

First, make sure you only put one message per slide. This is because our brains are very limited on how much they can take in and concentrate on at a time.

Second, work the audience’s memory. To do this, only use short bits of text per slide and include images. If you find yourself using long sentences, then use that as the content you deliver verbally, but take away key words to put on your slide.

Third, watch your sizing. We often make the headline bigger than the content on the slide. However, the headline is rarely the most important part. The most important part of your PowerPoint should also be the biggest, because this is what your eyes will spend the most time on.

Fourth, use effective contrast. This will help show what needs to be focused on. A good tip would be not using white for your background. If you use black or a dark color, then the audience can relax its eyes and focus on the person delivering the presentation as well, and not only focus on the big white screen. YOU are the presentation. The PowerPoint is simply your visual aid.

Fifth and final, only put enough objects that can be seen. Do not put so many to where it takes the audience a while to count how many are on the slide. Personally, I think four or less objects per slide is acceptable. Otherwise, it causes the audience to use more energy, which also can exhaust interest in your content. Now, this may cause you to have more slides, but that is not an issue compared to having slides that are too content heavy.

Knowing how to present is very important in school and in many jobs. Practice using these five tips with every PowerPoint and I guarantee you will perfect each one. Hopefully you found this just as helpful as I did!

By Kamryn Cantu, Business Major-IUPUC

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HI, HOW ARE YA?

October 10, 2019 at 5:00 pm (Advertising, Big Moves, brand, career, communication, Cultures, Listening skills, Marketing, Motivation, Social Media in the workplace, Social Media/Technology)
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What really is a “brand” anyway? A brand, by definition, is a type of product manufactured by a particular company under a particular name.

If you really think about it, a lot of things/people have brands.

For example, Jeffree Star is well known in the makeup industry for the amazing makeup that he produces. 

Jeffree makes his money in multiple different ways,

  1. YouTube:  
    • Where most people are familiar with this big brand influencer
    • Not even where the bulk of his money comes from
    • 16.2 million subscribers on YouTube and growing
    • His views average from 4M-35M
    • His YouTube videos give him a 6 figure pay out each year, easily
    • He is the richest YouTuber
    • He is the 2nd highest subscribed person on YouTube in the beauty section
  2. Makeup:
    • His empire, also where most people know him
    • Makes $150 million a year, which 70 million of, he pockets
    • Profits 7.2 million for every product launch
    • Independent brand, not a large owned brand which means he profits more
This is Jeffree’s brand logo, if you notice his last name is Star, so for his logo it is a star.
  1. Real Estate/ Marijuana
    • These are side investments that Star has took interest in
    • These are basically backups if the makeup brand does not work out

Jeffree has a lot of things that come together to make his brand, and make it signature to him. His logo of a star, which is also his last name, and the intro to his YouTube video.

Star has three personal homes, and 10 businesses he is running besides his makeup brand.

How to Create a Brand

  1. Determine your brand’s audience.
    • Motivation
    • Pain points
    • Influencers
    • College students
    • Single moms
  2. Establish your brand mission statement.
    • “Just do it.” – Nike
  3. Research bands within your industry niche.
    • The goal is to differentiate from your competition
  4. Outline key qualities and benefits your brand offers.
    • A better way to support productivity
    • Reducing costs with more affordable options
  5. Create a brand logo and tagline.
    • Logo size and placement
    • Color pallet
    • Web elements
    • Photography/image style
  6. Form your brand voice.
    • Professional
    • Technical
    • Friendly
    • Self-oriented
    • Promotional
    • Authoritative
  7. Build a brand message and elevator pitch.
    • Who you are
    • What you offer
    • Why people should care
  8. Let your brand personality shine.
    • Telling stories about real experiences
  9. Intergrade your brand into every part of your business.
    • Visible and reflect in everything that you say/do
  10. Stay true to your brand building.
    • Consistency is key
  11. Be your brands biggest advocate.
    • No one knows your brand like you do, spread the word

Making a brand is not all that hard, once you think about it. Just follow these steps, stay true to you and your brand, and you’ll be on your way to having your own personal brand!

Zoe Chasse, Business Major IUPUC

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Brand YOU

October 9, 2019 at 6:45 pm (brand, Marketing)

Personal branding is the practice of marketing people and their careers as brands. It is an ongoing process of developing and maintaining a reputation and impression of yourself. Your personal brand is never “finished.” Your life will always change, and you continue to better yourself. A good way to discover your personal brand is to ask an honest friend to describe you using three words. Most people aim to have a positive personal brand, especially celebrities. Ellen DeGeneres is a celebrity that most people are familiar with. She is a comedian, television host, actress, writer, and producer. But these titles are not her personal brand. This is:

In this short clip, it is easy to identify Ellen’s personal brand. Three words we could use to identify her personal brand (even though, there are more) would be humorous, genuine, and kind. Ellen closes her show each day by reminding her viewers to be kind to each other and in the YouTube clip, she elaborates to say be kind no matter what. For Ellen’s birthday, she didn’t receive a the newest and most expensive car or elaborate vacation. Instead, she received the Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund which is also known as Ellen’s Wildlife Fund. This says a lot about who Ellen really is. Ellen often goes out of her way to display generosity to people who do good in the world. Most commonly, she has these people as guests on her show and surprises them with a large amount of money.

Personal branding is important for everyone, not just celebrities. There are so many possibilities you can reach (or fall short of) all depending on you carry yourself.

By Lauren Pauley, Business Major – IUPUC

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Serena Williams, Bumble, and Women’s Empowerment

October 2, 2019 at 10:46 pm (Advertising, Business Ethics, Marketing, Sports)
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Bumble 2019 Superbowl

Bumble is one of a seemingly endless list of online dating apps, but it has one primary unique quality, it requires that women be the one to initiate and lead the online communication. Dating apps have become more widely used and accepted as legitimate ways of forming a romantic relationship and with this broader acceptance we are beginning to see the advertising for these apps creep from seedier locations into more mainstream mediums.  The Bumble advertisement during the 2019 Superbowl is undoubtedly the most mainstream ad for a dating app thus far and presents an excellent example of some broader principles of advertising.

Creating an emotional trigger is one of the most effective tools in the toolbox of advertisers and this Bumble advertisement is flush with emotional triggers. The commercial begins with a clear shot of Serena Williams standing in a tennis court. In this shot Serena is immediately recognizable to even the most casual sports fan. Using such a recognizable figure is one of the ways that a commercial attempts to grab your attention. In the next few scenes you see a young and meek Serena contrasted against the mature and powerful superstar Serena. The voice-over is Serena herself as she describes what it took for her to stand out from others. This contrast is intended to make you think about the struggles that a young Serena must have gone through on her journey to super stardom. Thinking about the struggles of a child is a huge emotional trigger for many people and is another attempt at your attention. The commercial begins its close by showing a few shots of Serena, not as a tennis star, but as a successful (and married) businesswoman. Presumably, the idea behind this closing is to lend credence to online dating apps as a legitimate means of entry into romantic relationships. The commercial ends with a simple shot of the Bumble logo and where you would best find the app for download.

The individual scenes in the commercial hit on a few specific methods for hooking your attention, but the broader theme and tone of the commercial also are effective at grabbing your attention. Piggybacking on social movements is also an effective attention grabber, especially social movements that are in vogue. Women lead the conversation on the Bumble app and so the entire tone of the commercial is recalling the broader themes of Feminism. Framing the Bumble app in the wider context of women’s empowerment is intended to encourage use of the app by people who value this important social movement.

The commercial definitely grabs your attention and is wonderfully brief, but it suffers from the same problems many others commercials appear to suffer from. As you watch you find yourself wondering, “What the hell is this ad for?” While I find many of the themes found in the commercial important, I just cannot seem to reign in my skepticism. Can a Superbowl advertisement really be a part of a social movement? Maybe I am just being cynical but I am finding it hard to believe that the interests align.

By Carson Fleetwood, Business Major IUPUC

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Who Needs a Kickstart?

February 21, 2019 at 4:09 pm (Advertising, communication, Marketing)
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What do all good commercials have in common?

Image result for Kickstart

All good commercials have a Kickstart!

Well other than being in the Super Bowl, all good commercials grab the audience’s attention just long enough to get their ideas out. Finding common ground to reach everyone is hard so I will discuss briefly why humorous commercials don’t always work. Throughout this blog, I hope to give you an idea of what it takes to create a good commercial by using one commercial as a guide. Please take a few seconds to watch the following commercial. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n_K6wuC5cw

This may seem like another boring commercial at the start, but then it takes a weird twist to create an instant classic. By taking a simple idea and throwing in something such as a puppy monkey and baby all fused together, this commercial had everyone talking for months after Super Bowl 50. I still think about this commercial sometimes because it had a hold on me that stuck for the past couple of years. Speaking of the Super Bowl and all the commercials we have grown to love, why is this the one I picked from the long list.

This Puppy Monkey Baby Mountain Dew commercial showed up and took everyone by surprise literally. So what makes it so great? Well, that’s just it, this commercial was surprising to the whole audience. It didn’t wait for the audience to pay attention, it made us. I personally don’t like to watch long commercials about a drink or a car dealership, so a quick out of no-where commercial such as the one above is perfect.

A good commercial needs to be effective and informational. Some say it’s all about being humorous as well. This I disbelieve, as too many people have different opinions on what is funny and what is not. Making a humorous commercial might split your audience in half just by the way some people perceive a joke. Quickly grabbing someone’s attention with a loud noise like yelling “wow that’s a low price” or having a puppy/monkey/baby appear is what catches an audience. Some might think it’s funny to see such a weird creature and others might not, yet it still catches the attention of the audience and gets them to wonder “what in the..”.

Right after they hook the audience with the Narnia like creature, they begin showcasing their new product, even though it was just a small part of the commercial. The new Dew Kickstart wasn’t even the center of attention, but was involved in just enough close-ups so the audience gathered why this was a commercial.

To review what makes this commercial great, it captivates the audience. It gave us something new and out of the ordinary to grab our attention. It was quick to get the product out before a loss of interest and created a connection to the product from the weirdness the commercial created. Shortly after this commercial was released people were looking all over to get some of this new Kickstart because of a puppy, monkey, and baby. That is why this commercial is so great… Dilly Dilly!

By: Stuart Bryan, Business Major

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A Podcast to Reach Your Dreams

February 14, 2019 at 4:44 pm (career, communication, Dream Job, Marketing, podcast, Uncategorized)
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By: Ashleigh Meister

Do you have dreams? Do you dream about getting a degree and finally graduating? Do you dream of what it would feel like to pay off all of your debt and be able to spend your earned money how you want? Do you dream of buying your dream house? What about owning your own business? All of your dreams are possible if you do the work to make them happen.

Rachel Hollis is a mother, a wife, and a self-made business woman who has dreams just like you and she is working towards her goals every day. She has figured out how to reach many of her goals by researching and not taking no for an answer. She created this podcast to share the tools that she used for her own success. Her podcast is called “Rise Podcast”.

In this podcast series, she interviews several successful business people, narrates chapters from her own book, and easily motivates you to actually make steps towards your dreams and goals. Rachel’s audience is mostly made up of females in the “Rise Podcast”. She speaks primarily to women because she was in the same place as her audience at one point in time.

There is a lot of marketing in this podcast. Like mentioned before, Rachel narrates chapters from her book. This is a form of marketing for her book. She also asks you to screen shot the podcast episode you are listening to and post on social media by tagging her in your Instagram stories or post via @msrachelhollis. I think this is very smart and a great way to market herself without saying, “Hey, go follow me!”. She knows how to drive traffic to her other outlets.

Rachel’s podcast may be focused on women but that does not mean that men cannot take notes. She has several interviews with very successful men. While this podcast’s main focus is women; Rachel and her husband have an additional podcast for married couples. This is something that she also markets in her “Rise Podcast”.

“Nobody, not a voice of authority, not your Mama, not the foremost expert in your arena; gets to tell you how big your dreams can be. They can talk all they want, but you get to decide if you’re willing to listen.” -Rachel Hollis

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Marketing – Slogan message.

October 11, 2018 at 4:48 pm (Advertising, communication, Marketing, Uncategorized)
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How does businesses communicate to the customer their product? Most would say through the various channels such as T.V., radio, newspaper, social media, etc. and all are correct. But what is the message that they want to convey for their benefit and how is it developed? This is where Marketing comes into play. Many businesses spend millions of dollars in research and development to create brand equity. The task is not easy, businesses must develop a marketing plan for their product and eventually create their logo, slogan, and promotions to attract customers.

I want to give more emphasis on business slogans as is what most customers remember when a company is mention. The slogan does not only represent the company but is also the message that businesses want the customer to remember. Such as Home Depot, “More saving. More doing.”, choosing effective slogans that relate directly to customer satisfaction is key. Ultimately, no one buys something if it does not satisfy a need or want. Effective slogans draw attention to the business and their products.

This marketing technique is very important and seen with most major corporations in the world. Slogans are so important that they are utilized in the business’s commercial, apparel, billboards, videos, business cards, and anything else that they may use for advertisement. Now, can you think of different companies and see if you remember their slogan? Wal-Mart, Nike, Red Bull, McDonalds, Skittles, MasterCard, etc.  If you could recall the company’s slogan can you think of why it became important to you as a customer?

If you were to start your own business think of how important it is to develop an effective slogan. Remember that your slogan should be memorable by customers, it should define a benefit, and differentiate you from competitors. While there are many more key factors in a business always remember that your slogan will be something that your customers will remember, and it will carry on for years.

By: Emir Gonzalez, Business Major – IUPUC.

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SOCIAL MEDIA HELPING BUSINESSES

September 26, 2018 at 11:17 pm (Advertising, communication, Marketing, Social Media/Technology, Uncategorized)

Social media has a huge platform for our generation and it’s no surprise that businesses are getting its benefits from using social media as well.  By using social media, a business can promote the products that it provides or sells without having much work at all. The business whether it be big or small can have the opportunity to communicate better with its customers. Customers can give reviews and feedback on the business, allowing the business to know what to improve or sustain.

There are tons of social media tools and they can all have their advantages or disadvantages for businesses. Facebook is one of the most popular can help promote all services provided and get the news out to the people that are currently following you. The same can be said about Instagram and Twitter, those tools create a fast and easy way of showing what the company does. One tool that has become more popular recently is Yelp, especially for searching restaurants.

Yelp is a social media tool that is designed around review forums. It is generated for every type of business, anything from a doctor office to gyms. Yelp doesn’t require an account for the public to see the reviews or comments that others have left, but a commenter would need an account. Yelp gives the business a page to claim and allows a section for the description of what the business does and promotes services. This tool allows the businesses to upload the contact information, addresses, upload pictures, menus, hours of operation, and any crucial information that is needed for customers to notice the businesses.

A business can promote what services are on the page that it has claimed. by adding specific wording. If as a restaurant special is “dinner served all day”, Yelp and Google search are connected, and it opens the page for the searcher, giving more exposure. Reviews can be seen by the public and this can be an advantage or disadvantage to the business. The business can reply to the review by either thanking for the business or by telling the reviewer that you will take the comment into consideration. This will help the public to see what is good or bad about the business. Reading the comments This is important because it shows a potential customer of what other have liked or disliked, what needs improvement and what should be sustained. Yelp is a great social media tool for business any business.

By Tania Zamora, Business Major – IUPUC

 

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The Life of Generation Z

September 20, 2018 at 5:22 pm (Education, Marketing, Uncategorized)
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When you first think of Generation Z what comes to mind? Lazy, distracted, uncaring individuals that will never own a home and rent their whole lives? Teenagers so absorbed in their phones they forget to look up? A generation that couldn’t care less about their future?  These are all common answers when asking people what they think of when talking about Generation Z. However, these are misconceptions about the generation.

photo for bp               Generation Z is most commonly categorized as people born after the year 1995. They grew up seeing their parents struggle from the job market crumbling and the world of technology has shaped the way they think, comprehend, react, and respond to everyday interactions. They are the most recent generation and coming with that is the unknown about them. People not understanding the generation leads them to fall back on these misconceptions so that they have a sense of knowledge about the generation.

look_a_distraction_design_by_eecomics1               People in Generation Z are not lazy, distracted, or uncaring. If something is not interesting to them they will look somewhere else. On the surface this comes off as having a short attention span and being lazy, but this is just because Generation Z has become extremely efficient in the way they use their time with the advances in technology. If they aren’t going to benefit from something they are looking at then why waste their time? Therefore, social media, blog posts, YouTube, and other internet resources have grown in the market. Also, people in Generation Z care more about their future than most other generations. After watching their parents struggle they put a large priority on paying off student debts, putting their degrees to work, and saving for the future. They also have a high participation in volunteer opportunities and organizations that will better the future. This YouTube Video express the way that Generation Z thinks and acts today.

With the new, unexplored way that Generation Z thinks and behaves, the world will be a very different place as they reach adulthood. Things will start to be expressed in shorter periods of time and most things will be internet based. People will also most likely be in a better financial situation because of their hope and work for a better future. Hopefully this has changed your view or at least cleared up some of the unknown and warped the misconceptions that torment Generation Zed.

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Adidas vs. Nike

March 1, 2018 at 5:00 pm (Advertising, Comparison and contrast, Marketing)
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There has always been a constant competition between Nike and Adidas, but what about their online websites? Which business has the better website? While shopping online the other day I found myself going back and forth between the Nike and Adidas websites. One website was catching my attention more than the other one was but why was that?

After doing some research on what makes a business website successful I found that some of the most successful business websites are easy to navigate, informs their visitors, keeps the visitors on their page, and eventually converts them into customers. Also it is important to make sure that the website is responsive and can adjust to the screen of any mobile device. Turning a visitor into a customer by the time they leave the website is one of the main reasons for having a website for a business.

When comparing Nike’s website to Adidas’ website, here is what worked, what didn’t work and which one was more successful:

When I pull up Nike’s website I notice how there is a lot of use of the colors white and black. The only major use of color on the home page is when looking at the different boxes that were promoting certain products like running materials for men, women and young athletes. At the very top of the home page there is an ad promoting a new shoe, but there again was a lot of the color white. This didn’t make me very interested in the product and resulted in me just scrolling on past the ad. The home page also appeared to have only the main purpose of advertising running products. This in my opinion didn’t work for their website because not everyone is buying only running products from this brand. What really was successful for this website was that on the home page the links to men, women, and children products are right at your eye level in the center of the page. This made it easy to navigate. Also, when I first pulled up the website a box popped up for me to enter my information to sign up for a newsletter with coupons and information about new products. I felt that this was a good way to give customers information and to draw them back in to buy products later on.

When I clicked on the “women” link for Nike I am taken to a page that has advertisement boxes that say “bring on spring”, “lighten up for warmer weather” and “run your city”.  These categories seemed very vague to me and were in very tiny font. Even though there were tiny links at the tops of the page that said shoes, clothing and new releases, I have to scroll down even further to find the links to buy items such as shorts, sports bras, and hoodies. This page made it difficult to find what I was looking for right away. I would have to click on several links just to find the exact product I was looking for.

The home page of the Adidas website looks very similar to the Nike home page, but there were some major differences. On the home page for Adidas there is a large and colorful advertisement promoting a new shoe that they are selling. Already they have caught my attention through the use of color and have made me interested in looking into the new shoe. Unlike the Nike home page, Adidas’ home page featured a wide variety of products under the title “What’s Trending”. To sign up for the newsletter and receive coupons I had to scroll to the bottom of the home page. This was a downfall compared to the box that popped up on the Nike home page. What also didn’t work for the home page was that the links to the men, women, and children items were on the top left side of the page. The links weren’t the center of attention of the page and instead the large advertisement was. In my opinion those links are the most important links on the page and they should be placed in a way that shows that.

When I clicked on the “women” tab I was taken to a page that has around 7 pictures with the straight forward categorizes of Prophere, Ultraboost X, Bras, Tops, Tights, Shoes, and Adidas by Stella McCartney. Adidas had the tiny links for shoes, tops, new arrivals and other products as well, but I liked how the pictures were there as links too. That is so because these tiny links that both websites use are easy to miss.  This website made it easier to find certain faster by having them already categorized on the page.  I found that this made it easier for me to find my products compared to the Nike website. The large bold font that was used on the Adidas website made it easier as well.

Overall I found that the Adidas website was more successful than Nike’s business website. Adidas had better use of space, color, and text. I found that Adidas held my attention longer and had me looking into different products that I wasn’t even shopping for to begin with. Also, they were more successful with promoting a large variety of products whereas Nike seemed to focus in on only running materials. Adidas would result in me becoming a customer by the time I leave their website.

By Kaitlyn Richards, Business Major – IUPUC

 

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