The meeting are starting to get longer and the stress levels are peaking. It’s beginning to become a rough time during our meetings with final drafts for the book coming up on Sunday. We still have a lot to do until then.
The first announcement before the meeting began was tryouts for presentation team. Bichard requires students who are interested in trying out to read a poem in front of everyone to see how well they act presenting and how well they can articulate. Of course, she picks her favorite poem which can be considered difficult to read aloud.
Creative team was the first to present their updates. They said they worked closely with the research name to choose the final target segments names. One thing we can mark off our to-do list. Stephany also shared her positioning statement that she has quickly wrote a few hours before the meeting. She invited everyone to think hard before the final draft was due Sunday night to come up with different statements so her and Camille would be able to pick the best parts between all of them. Creative also shared several guerrilla tactics that they had come up with during the week.
Research was the second team to present. They discussed Mary Kay’s direct competitors and showed them in a new light, which most teams would not consider. At this point, we want to take some risks because that’s what wins. As long as we have a good reason and research to back up our claims. They also talked about possible info-graphics that would help the information and the layout of the book more interesting.
After the research team was finished, Bichard brought up a concern about our campaign. I think that many people misunderstood what she was trying to say because everyone got into a huge argument with each other trying to figure everything out and what we were actually fighting about. The tensions were rising and voices were getting louder. It took roughly thirty minutes to get everyone on the same page and find a solution that should have been easy to work through. I feel that the team was just getting restless and worried that we would have to change our campaign, but that was not the case.
The last team to present was Media and Promotions. I felt horrible because I was unable to submit any new ideas to the directors. It was not that I wasn’t thinking about Mary Kay, it was the trip to Dallas with TAF and trying to think of something that I had not seen previously was the issue. It seems that there are very few original ideas that do not piggy-back anyone else’s in any way. Maybe I have just come to a standstill and brain block at the moment.
My group went over new guerrilla tactics that would further enhance our campaign. At one point, they said that they threw out my idea that I had tried so hard to flush out and make almost perfect. I was a little upset that I was not told that they were going to completely throw out everything I had worked so hard on. At the same time, they could have been mad at me for going on the agency tours instead of attending the meeting. Luckily, there were several members of the team that really pushed to keep my idea, which made me feel really good. They brought up several valid points about how my idea best fit Mary Kay and our campaign. My idea is still in!
At the end of the meeting, it was easy to tell that everyone was exhausted and ready to head home. We still have several weeks until “spring break” surprises us with all-nighters.
About Olivia Utley
