Receiving The Official Brief

Below is the official brief I received as forwarded from the UCLan marketing department. This provided me with a great basis for reworking my report, including

Creative brief
Date: 15.02.2011
Job description: LSF design style
Issued by:

To sum up this brief:

To design a style and mascot for the Lancashire Science Festival.

Note – there should be no separate brand or logo.
The style should sit under / alongside the UCLan logo, reinforcing the UCLan brand.

See similar concept at Cambridge: http://comms.group.cam.ac.uk/sciencefestival/
as reflected in their programme http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/sciencefestival/csf_2011.pdf

Quick background

The Lancashire Science Festival will be a three-day event held at UCLan in June 2012, comprising lectures, demonstrations, shows and interactive exhibits.

The Festival aims to:
• Engage, enthuse, entertain and excite audiences for Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths (STEM) and Health
• Communicate complex research to a general audience in an accessible, user friendly way.
• Encourage educational progression in STEM and Health
• Indirectly raise the profile of UCLan as a leader in STEM and Health education and research
• Encourage businesses to engage with the University


What is the objective?
For the Science festival to be a success, the event needs to be promoted with a design style that has a consistent look and feel, to facilitate recognition and recall. We need a professional approach to ensure high attendance and create a buzz in the run-up to the event. Communications must convey the high-energy and excitement of the event and must be applicable to all key audiences.

Who are we talking to?

The Science Festival will attract five audiences:
• primary school children,
• secondary school and college age students,
• teachers
• businesses and organisations
• general public.

It will feature some ‘celebrity’ scientists and input from local employers and other regional Universities.


What is the single minded proposition?

The design of a creative platform that can be flexed to appeal to specific audience groups.
It should encapsulate the wider genre of science and not be restricted to one particular aspect.

Mandatories

The design must include a mascot; we would prefer that this is an avatar, such as a friendly robot, or similar, that can be used throughout the marketing campaign.

It has to work as an easily recognised integrated design style applicable to online, offline, point of sale, large scale and small scale media, in a range of sizes.


Key Supporting Messages

Tone: Fun, dynamic, inspiring, professional

Call to action. What do we want audiences to THINK, FEEL & DO?

THINK:
Younger children: Science is fun. UCLan isn’t a scary place.
(may currently think science is difficult and the University is big and forbidding)
Older children: I want to study and work in Science / Health. I like UCLan.
(may currently think science is only for geeks, may not have considered studying here)
Teachers: UCLan is a credible University with a lot to offer.
(may currently think of UCLan as a polytechnic or second class University)
Businesses: UCLan is professional and friendly, with cutting edge ideas
(currently may not know much about what we can offer)
Public: UCLan is forward thinking, dynamic, supportive
(may currently have misconceptions about UCLan)

FEEL: It is a hands-on science event, even better than the Big Bang.
We will enjoy this event, it will be worthwhile.

DO: Come to the event!


Timings
Core style/mascot - 11.03.11. At least three suggestions to be submitted.
Flexible platforms for webspace, to suit each audience- 01.04.11


Above there are clear deadlines set in place for what the marketing team required being achieved by a certain date. I will therefore work in accordance to these. The next blog post I write will dictate how much of the marketing report I have written -this is my main focus at present. Once I have written this I will go back to the research side of this an make sure that annotation is completely up to date before working on graphics and promotion.