Four Horizons’ Journey: Level 7–10
And so, the projects continue…
Reputation
Having obtained the chest 🏴☠️ of trust and achieving its true power, Four Horizons shall move on to their next adventure 🧭, finding the truth of reputation. We found out how a company’s background consists of the perception clients have based on its previous behaviors, by comprehending their activity, the promotion they can provide (such as word to mouth strategy) and their feedback. But then we wondered, how can we control reputation?
After exploring the big blue ocean 🌊 of internet blogs that were recommended during the course, we discovered the seven stones 💰(or seven drivers) of reputation, the quality of service, innovation, workplace, governance, citizenship, leadership and performance.
By putting all of them together, Four Horizons conceived the truth of reputation and realized the importance of being updated, having a friendly and stable environment and sustainable positions with organized strategy, and respecting generally accepted values in order to avoid any kind of controversy.
-By Horizon C
Rachel Botsman Presentation
Relating to the whole trust and reputation subject area, Horizons’ squad had the opportunity to get to know one of the most influential and inspiring trust experts and speakers, Rachel Botsman 👩🏻💼. Botsman is a well-known author and professor at Oxford University. Watching her speeches and reading all about her via her personal website, we got familiarised with various theories and terminologies, which mainly prove the significant role trust and reputation portrays in the work field. We analyzed her views, which at first revolved around certain values, concerning of course the work environment: competency, reliability, consistency and integrity. These assist us to lay focus on how to build the most honest, transparent, punctual and diligent work profile ever to be.
During our research, we came across the vital bridge between the known and the unknown, which is basically trust itself. Including trust within our state of mind, equals feeling confident and having an audacious relationship with the unknown, allowing us to navigate uncertainty, which can lead us not only to a bright breakthrough, but also to self improvement. Well, if we could conclude everything we derived from Mrs. Botsman in one sentence, the bottom line would be definitely: ‘’The key to success and upgrowth is taking risks, never staying idle’’.
-By Horizon D
Trust and Engagement with Customers
Going along with the topic of trust and reputation, level 7⚔️, Four Horizons picked Nintendo as their client, one of Gen Z’s most trusted brands, to analyse and do their own case study about them and the elements that enable a trusting relationship and engagement with customers. We tried to combine it with R. Bostman’s trust theories. So, we created a PowerPoint presentation talking about Nintendo’s history briefly, how they make remakes of old games that were hits and a lot of other ways they tried to engage with their consumers. The presentation mentioned the elements of Nintendo multiplayers gameplay, the accessibility of their products, the uniqueness of their design, etc. We, also, included a few ways that Nintendo could/does use to create trust between themselves and their audience (such as being truthful, apologizing for any mistakes that had been made, being transparent, not asking for unnecessary personal info). Apart from those, we concluded ways, steps to acquire trust, to create engagement with the said customers 🧩:
- Accepting feedback
- Having a loved-by-all celebrity promote new product
- Utilizing employees’ full potential, providing proper training
- Demonstrating shared values & empowerment to take risks
We cited some reviews we found from the internet that had to do with the Nintendo Switch along with showcasing Nintendo’s theme park in Japan, Super Nintendo World, which we thought was an excellent way to get people excited about the company’s products.
-By Horizon K
Beyond Broadcasting- Storytelling on Social Media
Getting one step closer to the end of our adventurous journey, we took a break from our usual path 🛣️, in association with Mrs. Karamalengou, we examined two different channels’ tv shows’ promotion strategies. More specifically, we took over Netflix’s ‘’ The Queen’s Gambit (2020)’’ and CBS’ ‘’Big Bang Theory (2007–2019)’’. The aim was to compare and find differences and similarities regarding the management of social media of these series. Through this process, we got ideas for our own campaign (see article 3). Overall, during our research, it was noticed that each show had a different social media strategy. Big Bang Theory( being one of the most successful sitcoms worldwide) has a full-blown promotion through media, having all kinds of social media accounts and posting frequently, so as to keep fans uptated. On the other hand, The Queen’s Gambit, a newer show, does not adopt this pattern and neither did Netflix on behalf of the show, possibly because of the fact that it is formed as miniseries. Therefore, viewers did the promotion procedure themselves in a way. Through the examination and the comparison between these shows we conducted, we realized that, although the shows and their channels followed exact different types of promotion, they both managed to earn great success. Therefore, there’s not only one lucrative way of promoting a show.
-By Horizon D
About “Miro”
The next step in our journey concerns the part about brand positioning of Nintendo. We did the analysis — in a style of a board 📋 on the app, Miro — based on the article, A Complete Guide to Successful Brand Positioning, applying it to our client. We stated that Nintendo caters to all age groups and all types of people (casual and non casual gamers) and it’s two main competitors are Sony and Microsoft, later we mention their strengths and weaknesses. Nintendo is known for its uniqueness, power of play and the fact that they address to people who get excluded from the traditional gamer community, etc. Also, their positioning statement includes easy gameplay, unique design, that they are portable and have variety in games. Moving on to the next task to complete this level, to evaluation, we found reviews on the internet, engaging with customers. Nintendo uses nostalgia strategy by creating remakes of old classics games, opinion polls with friendly looking characters. Also, Nintendo employees are required to embody the friendly, playful character that their brand represents and to have the team’s spirit!
Going along with the brand positioning, we made a creative brief on Miro board about Nintendo in the form of a map 🗺️ with Nintendo Super Mario levels and worlds. It was a quick text, with bullet points. We included Nintendo’s background information, unique selling proposition, their goals/objectives, their target audience. Also, we mention their market position (quick SWOT analysis), deliverables, their tone of voice, likes and disklikes. A creative brief should also include the budget of the client (in our case, it’s Nintendo), their timeline and milestones.
With the help of the creative brief, we were able to conduct our final project, the Nintendo Campaign, Nintendo: Live Through Your Alter Ego.
In the task 🎯 of gathering information about these two topics, we were given extra material, such as videos, Ted talks and articles that we put in our inventory 🎒 for later use. These items were really helpful in the construction of our projects. We learned that brand positioning helps differentiate our brand from others in the minds of our clients and how to achieve a satisfactory end result through the ten-step process. And, of course, there are a lot of strategies.
As for the creative brief, while making it, we understood the importance of a basic plan for our end project, an estimated deadline, what direction we want to go in. It provides us a pragmatic and concrete idea and helps us understand our client better and what message they want to portray.
-By Horizon K
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The Team:
Chrissoula Tsouchlaraki Πρία Κουμάρ EleniChaldeaki Ειρήνη Δερμιτζάκη
Professor:
Betty Tsakarestou
