Written by the team ADapt in the context of ADandPRLAB

This publication regards the portfolio of ADapt’s team projects in the context of ADandPRLAB of Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences. More precisely, through the two parallel labs ‘‘Advertising and Public Relations Workshop Ι: Applied Marketing — Digital / Mobile Marketing’’ and ‘‘Market Research, Digital Media and Apps — Web, UX, Apps, Mobile, Video, Podcasting’’, we have been inspired and trained in advertising, public relations, applied communication, marketing, digital media, and content creation.

We shall unfold the agency’s story from scratch. Our first challenge was to create a team as a student-led agency. Three members comprised our team: Anna Efthymaki, Foteini Legaki, and Marina Mouratiadi, students of Communication, Media, and Culture at Panteion University. In the process of team creation, first and foremost we had to think about the agency’s name. We ended up in the name ADapt. It is a play on words, as it combines the initial letters of the abbreviation for the word ‘‘advertising’’ and the verb adapt. The inspiration for the name came from the thinking that every aspect of life changes rapidly, and people should adapt to these changes — an essential skill. By the same token, the agencies and the brands should do the same thing: they should adapt. Where? To the constant market changes, to the necessities of the consumers, and mainly to the needs of society. Only in this way do brands survive. So, this is the motto of our advertising agency: ‘‘Adapt. Change. Survive’’.

After we have introduced our agency, we will present our projects in detail. What is remarkable is that we took different roles for the projects, such as the role of marketer, advertiser, mobile app creator, and UX heuristic reviewer.

As marketers, advertisers, and social media experts

As an advertising agency, we were asked within the framework of ADandPRLab to claim the brief of the client Costa Coffee. In order to work as correctly as possible, we adopted the role of the marketer, the advertiser, and the role of social media expert. Our task was to define the brand strategy and to make communications proposals.

With the brief given to us by Costa Coffee, we considered it necessary to increase its brand awareness in Greece and among Greek consumers. As marketers, we conducted a focus group of seven people (qualitative research) and a google form questionnaire (quantitative research) in order to understand the Greek consumers’ preferences for coffee and to see how many people know and prefer Costa Coffee as a coffee company. The step of consumer research is so significant for making decisions! In addition, we found the strengths and weaknesses of Costa Coffee compared to its main competitors. Through the competitor analysis, we wanted to shape a unique and distinct strategy for Costa Coffee. What is more, we found the 4Ps of the company, but we also suggested which of its strengths it can build on to become more known to Greek consumers.

As advertisers, after we determined that the campaign aimed to increase brand awareness and demand for Costa Coffee products, we decided to maintain the active optimism that this brand stands for. It was the differentiating positioning that we wanted to bring to life vs. the competition. That’s why our main idea for the TV spot was ‘‘The Optimism Center of Costa Coffee’’ with the slogan ‘‘It only takes a sip to bring optimism’’. We ended up choosing this idea after the creative process that allowed us to generate ideas and think of a campaign insightful, relevant to the strategy, and easy to understand. For our communication strategy, we took into consideration the tone of voice of our campaigns, the communication territories we wanted to build upon, the target group profile, and the touchpoints. Furthermore, we made proposals for ATL, BTL, and digital ads with the purpose of creating a 360⁰ campaign. So, for the above-the-line campaigns, apart from the TV spot, we proposed radio ads, print ads on coffee magazines, and signs at the bus stop with directions on how to get to the nearest ‘‘Center of Optimism’’. For the below-the-line campaigns, we mainly proposed a real center of optimism with all the coffee equipment and point-of-sale communication (e.g., promotion teams at supermarkets or live seminars @home like a pro). Last but not least, as regards digital ads, we leverage the power of social media.

As social media experts, we also made additional suggestions on how the company could become more active on social media by attracting more people with a more humorous and interactive character. In particular, we decided which social media platforms we consider the most suitable for our strategy (Instagram, Facebook, Youtube), and then we created visuals with a humorous tone of voice and a call to action.

Despite the difficulties we faced throughout the research process we conducted, we finally managed to fully assert our client’s brief in order to fully meet our client’s requirements.

As mobile app creators

As part of our coursework, we were tasked with creating a mobile app: a quiz consisting of at least three questions. More precisely, our task was to create an interactive prototype using the online tool proto.io. This project would be one of the many we would complete, even though the first to work as units. Moreover, this project served as the foundation for our future projects and allowed us to gain valuable experience in problem-solving and working as a team.

Furthermore, apart from our task individually, we decided to proceed as a team too! As we continued simultaneously working on the brief of our customer –Costa Coffee– for the ADandPRLAB, our student-led agency took on the exciting challenge of creating a mobile app for them. The target was simple: create a quiz that would engage users and increase interaction on our agency’s social media pages. Our journey began with research and brainstorming sessions, which allowed us to detect interesting information about our client and come up with creative solutions. However, as we delved deeper into the project, we discovered several challenges we would need to overcome.

The first challenge was to come up with intriguing and engaging questions that would capture the users’ attention. We decided to focus our questions on the history and offerings of Costa Coffee, as we believed that this would be an interesting topic for coffee lovers and consumers. We spent several hours researching the company and brainstorming potential questions, carefully considering the difficulty level and ensuring the questions were accurate and up to date.

Once we had our questions finalized, we faced the challenge of creating a quiz format that would be user-friendly and intuitive. We opted for a multiple-choice format, which we believed would be easy for users to navigate and would allow us to provide immediate feedback on their responses. We also spent time designing an eye-catching interface for the quiz, incorporating the colors and branding of Costa Coffee.

With our quiz designed and ready to go, we faced the challenge of using a special feature: exponents! We used Google to reach an answer, but the solutions found were not able to implement via using Proto.io. We then reached the instructor of the session, who validated our findings and proposed to use another question to avoid using exponents. Next, last weekend before the deadline, we contacted the Proto.io team. At first, they had no idea, but we managed to convince them how to implement the task, so they finally found out that our proposal was valid and applicable to their tool.

We knew that simply posting the quiz on our agency’s social media pages would not be enough to generate engagement, so we developed a marketing strategy to increase its visibility. As we launched the quiz and watched the engagement numbers rise, we were thrilled that our hard work had paid off. We successfully created an engaging and user-friendly quiz that resonated with users and generated interest in our agency’s social media pages. We also learned valuable lessons about the importance of research, collaboration, and creativity in marketing projects.

At the end of our project, we were proud to have created a mobile app while reflecting on our key insights and learning outcomes. We realized content creation and engagement require a deep understanding of the target audience and a willingness to think creatively and outside the box. We also learned the importance of collaboration and teamwork, as every member of our agency played a critical role in the success of our project. In addition, we developed a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities in app creation and gained valuable experience working as a team to solve complex problems.

As UX heuristics reviewers

In the framework of the second workshop, we were invited to take the role of UX heuristics reviewers. This micro-module consisting of two lab sessions introduced us to the term ‘‘Usability’’. More concretely, our given brief was to examine a website or an app of our choice, conduct a heuristic evaluation, report the findings, and perform them. During the session, we learned how essential the design is to correspond to the needs of the people. What is remarkable is that the heuristic evaluation is expert-based as distinct from the usability testing.

Our task began by choosing the website of Aegean Airlines, the largest Greek airline company. Our choice is explained by the fact that we wanted to realize if and how many usability problems a website of a large company has. But first, we created the proto persona, that is to say, a persona based on assumptions, the modelling of a target group.

We defined three tasks on the website, and then we evaluated them as regards the ten heuristics (as proposed by Nielsen). We worked individually and then as a team. The tasks of our proto persona were relevant to her needs. Indicatively, Nicole –our proto persona– dealt with renting a car via the website, booking a flight ticket, and finding the answer to a question. Undoubtedly, it was a great challenge to recognize usability issues. But the key findings were significant. We identified problems regarding the failure to comply with some heuristics, such as the following heuristics violated:

• Consistency and Standards
• Error prevention
• Help users recognize, diagnose and recover from errors
• User control and freedom

Our learning outcomes for this session were invaluable. It allowed us to acquire the fundamental knowledge for the usability needed to apply a heuristic evaluation. We learned the basic usability principles, we learned how to identify usability issues, and we developed our presentation skills.

Overall, our experience as an advertising student-led agency was a challenging and rewarding journey that allowed us to grow both personally and professionally. We gained valuable experience working with real clients and solving real-world problems. Also, we developed a deep appreciation for the power of marketing to create meaningful connections between businesses and consumers. What is more, at the end of this journey we developed essential skills for career success, like teamwork, conflict management, creativity, the ability to meet deadlines, and presentation skills. We hope our experience and insights will inspire others to pursue careers in marketing and make a positive impact on the world of business.

The team: Anna K. Efthymaki, Foteini Legaki, Marinamouratiadi

Special thanks to our Professors Betty Tsakarestou and Dr. Stavros Kaperonis and to our mentors Diana Birba, Lina Bakalexi, Mark Aris, Antonis Birmpas, Dr. Panagiotis Zaharias, Magy Kontou

Website: http://adapt.advertisingagency.tilda.ws/

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