Laura Moon is at the core of the project.
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MA Student helps launch University branding Laura Moon is at the core of the project. |
Most students could only dream of landing professional marketing experience whilst still studying towards their MA in Marketing Communications, but as Bournemouth University launches its new branding campaign, that is just what 26-year-old Laura Moon has done.
Project Branding Assistant Laura so impressed the University's Head of PR and Communications during a course project that she was given the opportunity to work on the University re-branding.
She has been heavily involved in all stages of the re-branding project, liasing with in-house staff as well as account executives at the University's chosen branding consultancy firm, who came up with the branding ideas.
"I do anything and everything that they need to be done," says British-American Laura. "I was in charge of the (staff) branding… email address, I had to collate all that feedback. I have random jobs all the time! I've been organising photo shoots lately for all the new photos that are coming out."
Laura received her undergraduate degree in political science and psychology from Arizona State University, where she also held a full scholarship for gymnastics. She started working for the University in mid-April, and expects to continue until December. "It's a massive project," says Laura. "There's so much that's going to be changing over the next months so I'm going to continue on helping."
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"There's so much that's going to be changing over the next months so I'm going to continue on helping." |
Though the MA Marketing Communications course was largely theory-led, Laura found it gave her an insight into the practicalities of marketing. "We had two courses that I absolutely loved that were very very practical," she says. "We had to work on speeches, get in front of classes and we were put in groups as if you were in an advertising agency. That's how I got this job, we had to do a whole marketing campaign integrated for postgraduates for Bournemouth and at the end was a 4000-word written paper and a thirty-minute presentation in front of a panel, so very realistic, very lifelike and we had to dress up as if we were an advertising agency coming to pitch to a company. That was great, it was so practical. We all loved it. Such a great experience."
The presentation might not necessarily have been a real-life experience, but it did give her real life nerves. "I was pacing in the morning," says Laura. "I was Account Executive, so I had to start everything off! You couldn't have note cards – you had your set thing, but you had to remember it."
During the course project Laura got to know Emma Wray, former Head of PR and Communications. "She was our contact for any marketing information and I kept in touch with her the whole time constantly, always asking her stuff, and I said something that went right along with the branding project they were under. I graduated from Arizona State University, but it's called ASU; you've got UCLA and NYU. We call everything by acronyms and I said something to her and it went right along with the branding project in a meeting that I'd had with her and it just kind of clicked."
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We developed a visual identity that's professional, warm and vibrant, wiith a strong colour palette, use of natural/reportage style photography, and a distinctive logo. |
Laura adds that the university re-branding is "quite a specific project. On the course we didn't have a branding class, but from my undergraduate course I knew nothing about marketing so I went and took the course, I loved the course. It's definitely a good basis, you can think about why things need to be done in a certain way, and especially internal communications was something very important during this whole branding project."
So what brought her to Bournemouth? Laura says her mother, who lives in Southampton, told her Bournemouth ran "cool, funky degrees". Some things have taken getting used to, however. "I come from Arizona," says Laura. "It's the desert and it's sunny year-round, so I have to say I miss the weather!"
And as for her ambitions for the future, the work experience at Bournemouth University seems to have paid off. "I'd love to work in an advertising agency, I love the crazy, wacky atmosphere that it is."
"I feel lucky to have been so close with everything," she says. "To see how everything's been done step by step and from the top, with people like the university's Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Curran and Deputy-Vice Chancellor David Willey, I feel lucky to see that."
Story by Natalie Harrison
MA Multi-Media Journalism