PART 2
Week seven felt like a pivotal week...
Alongside the DM7900 model I have been going to the workshops on Adobe products. The programs are so vast that it was really good to see how Ian taught the skills required in this part of the semester Ian has been teaching Illustrator. I learnt some new tricks and was able to ask questions too.
I spoke to Ian about the Adobe exams that can be taken for accreditation, thinking of my future teaching ideas this might be a valuable exam to take whilst studying my MA and show my engagement with the industry software.
I also signed up to the BIMA webinar on ...
D2C eCommerce: the direct route to your customers
Speakers were:
Jasper Bell, Experience Strategy Director, VCCP
Ollie Marshall, Managing Director of Maplin Electronics
Heike Zellerhoff, Manager Sales & Relations UK at shopware AG
Ian Cassidy, Director of Commerce, CTI Digital
Filipa Neto, Senior Innovation Principal at Farfetch (Premium brands like Harrods and Gucci)
The discussion was guided by recent events that have resulted in plenty of evidence about why brands and agencies need to embrace direct to consumer (D2C) eCommerce. Yet very few have addressed the how. COVID-19 has accelerated the already rapid growth seen in eCommerce, it is encouraging new consumer behaviours, challenging existing brand loyalties and driving rapid change in the eCommerce landscape. The webinar spoke of the biggest shift of all has been the rise of D2C eCommerce.
Questions are...So how should brands looking to reach new audiences or capitalise on new behaviour use new D2C eCommerce channels? How do in-house marketing departments or external agencies move at pace to design, test and launch new pilots?
The panel discussed the fact that large well known brands don't own anything... they sell the promise of an experience, they include, Airbnb, Uber, and Instagram.
"The jump of the first 90 days of covid was equivilent to online businesses of 10yrs of uptake"
COVID changed the behaviour of the consumer overnight, everyone went online, they had to. Food online is doing really well, supermarkets obviously but also take away businesses who have made there menus seen and easy to order from.
One panel member said that no one needs to pay for adverts, tap into the consumer trends of looking for : brand value, availability, and quality of products.
I asked the panel a question about the developments in VR/AR in selling to D2C:
Good to know! This leads beautifully into the Week 8 work on digital trends - Lucky me :)