Category: MSc Strategic Marketing

Consultancy, Baby!

So now we’re on to the most exciting part of the programme – Consulting! Real companies, suits and boots and a whole lot of competitive bidding action. This year, we have been provided with briefs from a range of different companies varying in size, geographical location and industry. The big trade-off our group meetings were centred around is whether to go for the prestigious brands or the smaller start-ups, given that the former could provide a great CV boost, whereas the latter could involve campaigns that have a much bigger impact on the chosen business’s performance. But the key is to really understand which skills of the team as a whole are best suited to the projects on offer.

May the force be with you (c)

Hi guys,

Sorry for being away for a long time. Preparation for exams of the second term took several weeks, and it was really challenging task. My own strategy was the next one:

  • 1 Revision: Watching lecture captures, reading all articles, cases etc. and making short sum ups – 3-4 days for each subject;
  • 2 Revision (A week before exams): Going through lectures slides and sumps ups – 1 day for each subject;
  • 3 Revision (During examination week): The same one – 1 day for each subject.

I hope it will be useful for you. For any other information about exams please feel free to contact me.

# Harlem Shake meme

Harlem Shake has become meme #1 just in a few days, and I really think that this meme is one of the best ever. It’s not only about fun, but smartness and creativity. I suggest memes in the future will has a huge impact on different social processes, and it’s a great topic for a digital marketing research.

Meanwhile, some great videos from Imperial students:

Hardwork Dedication

Hi guys,

Sorry for being out for a long time. Winter semester is really tough. It begun from two subjects: Digital Marketing and Pricing, and three more is to come from Monday, the 18th of February.

Digital Marketing was quite clear, maybe because I spent last two years doing marketing activities in Internet for different companies; maybe because we are all digital natives and all these are stuff inside our blood. Pricing might be difficult for guys without financial background; be ready to spend several hours in order to understand all materials, furthermore, some lectures are only available for self-studying. For one part of our syndicate group it became like a ‘good’ tradition to leave the library at midnight.

End of Exams = End of Prohibition

Apologies for my lack of posts these last few weeks. For most of the Christmas period, I was far too busy with endless hours of tearful revision, pulling my own hair out and generally losing the will to live. Not painting the prettiest picture of MSc life here, but the picture shows nothing but the truth. Some of it can be attributed to the fact that I am the perfect face of lastminute.com, but really, the reading list is EXTENSIVE, at best. Admittedly, I expected nothing less, for it is a one-year degree programme at one of the top ten universities in the world, and it is student nature to moan.

The experiment revisited…

I am deeply sorry for the delay but, as you know, we are always busy at Imperial College 😉 Yet, I’d still like to share my experiences on my previously announced “experiment”, which took place during the Christmas holidays.

As you know, we had only three weeks to study for our exams, which is nothing regarding the amount of readings and lecture slides we were supposed to absorb. So, the main task when you start your revision is to come up with a good plan how to proceed! Since you are short of time, you’ll need to structure your study materials and differentiate between “very important”, “important” and “less important” parts.

The experiment has begun …

I can hardly believe it but the 10 incredibly busy weeks which constituted our first term at Imperial are actually over! Yet, that doesn’t imply that the busy weeks are over, too! On the contrary – I am not yet sure which part will prove to be busier: the 10 weeks during term ot the 3 weeks after –  until our exams at the beginning of January! Which just leaves me with one question: how much can one possibly read (and memorise) in three weeks time? Our core readings (not to mention the additional readings) in conjunction with the extensive lecture slides exceed everything I’ve experienced before – at least within such a narrow timeframe.

The Ten Commandments of Group Work

(Scroll half-way down the page if you’re here for the serious stuff)

1. Thou shall upload numerous photos of your group ‘working hard’ into the early hours to Facebook, evidently the most productive use of thy time.

2. Thou shall draw obscene images of male genitalia on your group member’s iPad during particularly fruitless brainstorming sessions. Thou shall do this often and it shall never cease to amuse thou.

3. Thou shall post infinitely affectionate and enthusiastic comments on assessed discussion forums, with generous use of emoticons that reflect the exact opposite of what thou are in fact feeling.

4.

Have a say in the SSC

I think it’s time for another quick update on what is currently going on in the Business School! At the moment, everbody is busy finalising the last two group assignments for this term which are due next week. I will give you an update on the tasks and results by next week, as I’d like to address another interesting topic today: the SSC.

Mobile trends from Microsoft

I promised in my previous post to write a short summary about mobile trends from our guest speaker lecture and here it is! Just to remind, the speaker was Dr. Alexandros Papaspyridis, Windows Phone Partner Lead, Microsoft Central & Eastern Europe.

So, in 2011 smartphones outsold PCs for the first time (700M smartphones in 2012). Smartphone became leading consumer device. The main reason is way of using electronic gadgets. Laptop we usually use at work or at our desks; tablet is couch companion for content consumption, mainly entertainment. Meanwhile smartphone is always with you and it’s so-called on-the-go consumption (waiting in line/bus, eating, shopping, travelling, socializing).