6 posts tagged “communications”
Architecture | Interior design | Luxury | Clothing | Publishing | Media | Advertising | Public Relations | Marketing Service
A talented creative and brand strategist with 12 years of experience covering advertising, communications, projects management, Motion Graphics and graphic design.
Created his own advertising agency in France in 2000 with a very quick recognition, earned excellent critiques. Interviewed by the French press and television as the CEO of own advertising agency, and projects featured at a number of occasions.
Value offered
• Global communication and management of teams and projects
• Leading consultancy assignments
• Strength in making proposals and giving advice
• Strategic recommendations, definition of budgets, planning
• Contribution to business development
• Securing commercial relationships and clientele satisfaction
• Analysis and management of institutional budget and deployment of projects
• Good working knowledge of French markets/French Design touch
Branding Creative Director | Strategic Thinker | Architecture | Interior design | Luxury | Clothing | Publishing | Media | Advertising | Public Relations | Marketing Service...
A talented creative and brand strategist with 12 years of experience covering advertising, communications projects management, and graphic design.
Created his own advertising agency in France in 2000 with a very successful word of mouth critiques. Interviewed by the French press and television as the CEO of own advertising agency, and projects featured at a number of occasions.
Value offered
• Global communication and management of teams and projects
• Leading consultancy assignments
• Strength in making proposals and giving advice
• Strategic recommendations, definition of budgets, planning
• Contribution to business development
• Securing commercial relationships and clientele satisfaction
• Analysis and management of institutional budget and deployment of projects
• Good working knowledge of French markets/French Design Touch
| EXPERIENCE |
09/2007
BIRTH (freelancing)
Branding
Communications
Graphics
Motion
Business dev.
Arts
—
09/2006-06/2007
AEDAS - Hong Kong SAR (www.aedas.com)
Artistic Director
4th architecture company in the world, (source: BD World Architecture) AEDAS is well known for its cutting edge designs in a diverse range of markets sectors including civic, commercial, education, healthcare, hotel, integrated casino & resort, residential, retail, museum, pharmaceuticals and transport. AEDAS now employs over 1,700 highly qualified architectural staff in 25 offices across 4 continents including Europe, Asia, North & South America.
Reported to the Chairman; responsible of a team of 1 design manager and 3 designers in Hong Kong office.
My mission was to transform the Graphics Team into a business unit with a target to become an advertising agency/branding consultant as a company of Aedas. Synergy was created through proposing concepts on brand creation, marketing and communications to international clients of Aedas as well as to other external clients. Clients worked with included international banks, hotels, property developers, and charitable organizations.
Prior to becoming a business unit, the Graphics Team under my supervision was in charge of all communication supports of the Hong Kong Headquarters. The team worked closely with the architects and Communications on sponsored and international events and exhibitions in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
I attracted important clients in Real Estates in India, Dubai, China and Hong Kong. The first quotations was for an amount of HK$900,000.
04/2006-06/2007
MAJESTIC - Hong Kong SAR
Art Director
Majestic Furniture & Interior Design Limited targets on Hong Kong and Canton province. They target not only the residential customers, but also commercial customers, such as retail shops and offices. As used to perform professional technology, Majestic were producing showflats and providing furniture packages as joint promotion with over 80% of Hong Kong main property developers.
Reported to the CEO; responsible of a staff of 8 designers.
To manage the Design Department of eight staff in interior design and graphic design;
To oversee the design for the company, the setup of its showrooms, and the show flats of the land developers;
To develop an international image for the group of companies;
To manage all the marketing projects, development of the websites, events such as exhibitions, marketing promotion through any media (newspaper, magazine, commercials etc.)
—
06/2004-08/2004
CONTAINERS DU MONDE (ASF) - France
Communications Director
Exotic furnish chain with 25 branded stores and approximately 1,000 employees all over France. Sold products include furnishing from Asia, Africa and Indonesia.
Reported to the CEO.
In charge of internal / external communications of the group;
To develop a strategy of communication for the 25 branded stores;
Made recommendations on shop interior decoration/design and organized shop openings.
—
12/2002-03/2004
TRAFIC TEAM - France
Artistic Director / Project Manager
An advertising agency based in the south of France with an annual turnover between 5M – 10M Euros. Clients were from all sectors including cosmetics, services, governmental institutions, trade institutions, farm produce and wine growing industry.
Reported to the CEO.
Reason for leaving: Company went bankrupt because clients failed to pay.
Since my appointment, I gained loyalty from several accounts and secured new accounts in various sectors. Accounts included Mairie de La Brède, Group Panther (International Brand), Institut Arnaud, Jean-Claude Biguine, Cottage, Bonzaï Hotels, Kargo-Brico-Lots (1-2M euros budget/year), Sitoflor, Wynn's, B3e, Alliance Bordeaux...
08/1998-11/2002
DUM-DUM - France
CEO - Creative Director
An advertising and web design agency created by myself and was highly complimented on its quality of care and individuality by the craftsmen, SMEs and Large Accounts. The Internet creation sites benefited from media coverage, thanks to our "upmarket" positioning. As a result we proceeded to the TV channel M6 Bordeaux and received a feature/an article in the daily "Sud-Ouest" in Bordeaux. Our site was nominated for Publissimes 2000 (a competition organized locally by ESC "Ecole Supérieure de Commerce" of BORDEAUX to reward the best advertising companies in all media categories), and we had more than 20,000 connections within the first month of existence. We also had an excellent review on www.Praktica.net; where it was the site of the week.
Between 700,000-900,000 Euros of revenue was generated during the fourth year of operation.
Permanent staff of 2 associates + freelance staff for occasional projects.
Reason for termination: Incredible amount of taxes in France
Accounts secured included institutional, B2B, law firms, professional guides/reviews, cosmetics-beauty-fashion international companies and other corporations. Because of our creativity, we gained loyalty of companies such as subsidiaries of IBM and Mediamétrie (the biggest company in audience rating-Paris Inter-professional audience measurement and survey company].
—
11/1997-07/1998
EGMA CONCEPT - France
Artistic Director
An advertising agency based in South of France with 3 employees Clients were from big corporation and institutions. The biggest client was Ministry of Gabon, Africa.
Reported to the CEO.
Responsible for clientele development and design objects.
—
04/1997-10/1997
EDITIONS DU HA - France
Graphic Designer
A publishing house publishing approximately 20 books, reviews, maps and guides of cities.
Reported to the CEO.
—
07/1996-04/1997
SBR - France
Graphic Designer
A printing company of 10 staff with clients ranging from architects to government institutions and corporations.
Reported to the CEO.
In charge of building a graphic studio and managed a digital printing department.
—
05/1994-04/1996
AXIOMA - France
Graphic Designer
A business centre of 10 staff providing facility and secretarial service to tenants.
Reported to the CEO.
To provide graphic design and print services to tenants.
—————————————
PROFESSIONAL TRAINING
HND Communications
(in French: D.U.T. communication enterprises_Strategy-Design-Marketing)
—————————————
LANGUAGES
French (mother tongue), English, basic Spanish
—————————————
TECHNICAL PROFICIENCY
• MACINTOSH or PC
• QUARKXPRESS - ILLUSTRATOR - INDESIGN - PHOTOSHOP - ADOBE ACROBAT PRO - ADOBE PREMIERE - ADOBE AUDITION - ADOBE ENCORE DVD - BLOGGING – PODCASTING – AUDIO – VIDEO – DEEJAYING - RESOLUME - FINAL CUT PRO - MOTION...
• INTERNET – Basic HTML - Office 2007 (Outlook-Word-Power Point…)
• Actually learning MOTION GRAPHICS (Final Cut Pro, Motion3, LiveType, Soundtrack, Color, Compressor, After Effects…)
—————————————
OTHERS
• Availability: Immediately
• French passport holder
• Internet life:
Facebook_Vox_Suprglu_Technoratti_Stumbleupon_Blogger_Coroflot_Linkedin_Openbc_Viadeo_Squidoo_Wink_Ning_Hotgigs_Calgoo _Twitter… Well... I think I'm connected.
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Download the PDF here.
A brand is a customer experience represented by a collection of images and ideas; often, it refers to a symbol such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme.
Brand recognition and other reactions are created by the accumulation of experiences with the specific product or service, both directly relating to its use, and through the influence of advertising, design, and media commentary. A brand is a symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to a company, product or service. A brand serves to create associations and expectations among products made by a producer.
A brand often includes an explicit logo, fonts, color schemes, symbols, sound which may be developed to represent implicit values, ideas, and even personality.
The brand, and “branding” and brand equity have become increasingly important components of culture and the economy, now being described as “cultural accessories and personal philosophies”.
BRAND STRATEGY
Every organization has a brand, whether they have consciously developed it or not. A brand is simply an expectation or a promise of an experience.
Whether that expectation is trusting, authoritative, innovative, or fun, brands are short-hand for describing the way a business, organization, product, service, celebrity or other entity relates to its stakeholders (e.g., customers, donors, employees, investors, volunteers, suppliers, etc.).
A strong brand impacts everything from the ability to recruit top talent and to opportunity to grow the bottom line. Little wonder that more and more attention is being paid to measuring and managing brands as assets.
The way to build a strong brand is to put
customers and their needs at the center of
every decision the organization makes.
Over time, “customer-centric” actions create differentiation in the market place
and build emotional connections with customers. This differentiated bond, called
“brand equity”, is a real and valuable asset with tangible returns in terms of
customer loyalty, profitability, and insulation from negative publicity or competitive
action.
The process of managing brands as assets begins with understanding the brand
from a perspective of customers, prospective customers and other stakeholders
such as employees or marketing intermediaries (distribution sales force, etc.).
What image, reputation and perceptions does each stakeholder audience maintain
that can be either capitalized on -- or corrected -- to enhance the value of the
brand?
o How familiar are customers and prospects with the organization and
competitors?
o How favorable or unfavorable are their perceptions?
o How deeply are these views held? What emotional response do these
perceptions evoke?
o What barriers or opportunities exist for strengthening the brand?
Managing brands as assets also requires a considerable effort to measure
and quantify the impact of the brand on customers, their decisions, and the
company’s financial performance.
The brand discovery process is called a “Brand Audit”; the framework that guides the strategy process is called the “Brand Equity Pyramid”; and the measurement process is known as “Return on brand investment” or “ROBI”. Together they form the fundamental building blocks of
a “Brand Strategy” and our approach to building brand strategies for our clients. This paper will briefly describe each of these elements, and the process we use to create brand strategies for our clients.
Brand Audit
Unlike a financial audit which is primarily internal, a brand audit is primarily a customerfocused exercise. It is designed to assess the “health” of the brand, uncover sources of equity for the brand (or potential sources for a new brand) and suggest ways to improve and leverage equity. A brand audit involves examining current information and often involves primary research. It serves as a foundation
for determining a brand strategy, which is simply a plan for improving stakeholder relationships.
o Existing Research Review: Review of primary and secondary research on the industry and consumer.
o Competitive Review: Who are the key competitors? What is the market position of this firm?
o Management and Employee Interviews: On-site interviews with key managers or sales force.
o Influencer Research: Perceptions of the media, analysts and other constituencies.
o Primary Customer Research: Qualitative and/or quantitative research with designated market segments to uncover customer perceptions, build the brand pyramid and identify any obstacles for strengthening the brand’s relationship with stakeholders
o Sales and Customer Analysis: Analysis of past revenue and sales information. What factors drive revenue? Which sources are growing
and where are the sources of decline? Analysis of customer demographic and usage information.
o SWOT Analysis based on marketing profile of primary Products and Services: Brand elements and marketing strategies (4P’s) associated
with each product or service. These should be reviewed, catalogued and evaluated for consistency and impact:
- Product strengths and weaknesses
- Pricing strategy and competitive position
- Distribution strategy
- Promotion strategy and spending relative to competitors
Brand Elements such as names, logos, symbols, URL’s or trademarks, Characters, “packages”, slogans, or other design elements (colors, sounds, etc.) Brand personality, characteristics and attributes
The Brand Equity Pyramid
The standard tool for understanding a brand’s associations and customers’ response to it is
the brand equity pyramid (see below). The strongest brands exhibit both “duality” (emotional
and functional associations) and richness (a variety of brand associations or “equity” at
every level, from salience to resonance). The more brand elements, generally the stronger the
brand. Understanding a brand’s equity elements and those of its competitors is the first step
toward in developing effective brand building and measurement programs.
Source: Kevin Lane Keller, Strategic Brand Management, Irwin McGraw-Hill, 2003
Brand Strategy
Brand strategy is a plan for how the company will create
value for the customers by building upon its brand
strengths and addressing its weaknesses. Brand strategies manifest themselves in
product innovations, graphic design, store layout, customer service policies, and many other
components of the “brand experience”. The strategy provides a foundation for development
of brand building programs and typically includes brand objectives, consistent brand name
and identity systems, target audiences, positioning(s), key communications messages and
prioritization of brand.
By aligning customer facing activity around a strategic idea or plan, a company can
prioritize its efforts and make more effective decisions across all of its business
functions, including but not limited to marketing. Every interaction with stakeholders
constitutes a brand “touch point” and represents an opportunity to enhance brand equity.
Once a brand strategy is in place, programs
that contribute to building relationships can be
developed, prioritized and implemented across
every aspect of the brand experience.
o Brand Vision: This work will include defining a brand vision that relates the company’s
mission to its desired perceptions. The vision provides a basis for completing the brand
equity pyramid (see above) and articulation of a specific, relevant and memorable brand
positioning.
o Brand Target(s) and Positioning. Positioning is the aspect of the vision to be communicated
to each target audience in order to create the desired perception. A differentiating and
compelling positioning is fundamental to any effective communications effort. This work will
follow directly from the stakeholder research and be designed to address the strengths,
weaknesses and opportunities which are discovered through the audit.
o Brand Elements and Identity System: (NOTE: BEYOND The scope of
THIS assignment) Careful selection of brand elements is fundamental to effective brand
building programs. They include (but are not limited to) brandmarks and logos, color and
design systems, sounds, characters, URL’s, slogans, and web designs. Once a brand vision
and positioning are articulated, a creative team can evaluate which elements identified in
the brand inventory are appropriate to the new strategy, which need to replaced and what
new elements can be employed to further bring the brand to life. The final recommendation
would include (although not be limited to)
o Overall look and feel (color palette, design concept, etc.)
o Brand mark and brand architecture (naming scheme)
o Web Home and secondary page concepts
o Collateral material/brochure concept
o Concepts for signage
o Presentation of new identity for use with internal and external audiences
o Complete “style” guide to use in guiding application of the brand identity system and its elements
Brand Communications Plan
The company has literally thousands of interactions each day with customers, end users
and other stakeholders. Each interaction is an opportunity to communicate the brand’s key
messages. As a first step toward building a comprehensive communications strategy, we will identify and prioritize opportunities these “touch points” in terms of their ability to improve brand relationships and brand equity. Then we will recommend which messages are
critical to convey at each touch point and the most important initiatives to accomplishing this communications. Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is the way that companies coordinate the communications aspects of a brand strategy for greater efficiency. IMC is
also a strategy, an idea around which decisions can be
prioritized and aligned. A plan for an IMC program outlines the specific methods by
which this idea or strategy will be implemented.
o Identification of key touch points and message:
• Pre-purchase
• During purchase
• Post-purchase
Measuring ROBI (Return on Brand Investment)
Marketing is the single largest expense for most companies. Developing a practical,
useful approach to quantifying the impact of marketing on financial performance and brand
equity is essential to more efficient and effective marketing, just as adding more marketing
cost without showing how it translates into bottom line improvements is unrealistic. There
are many factors that influence sales revenue and profitability, many of which have little
to do with marketing. Even when it is clear that marketing is that variable that has made
the difference, that knowledge alone is nearly useless without an understanding of what
worked and what to do differently. Measuring and managing ROBI is a three step process:
1. Identify relevant measures/data and sort them into three tiers – activities, impacts and
value.
2. Use analytics such as modeling and in-market experimentation to understand the causal
relationships among the measures and their overall relationship to
financial performance/profitability.
3. Incorporate measures into ongoing management decision-making through use of balanced
scorecard or other “metrics dashboard” techniques.
This is not a process that occurs overnight; it requires a commitment to measurement and
data-based decision-making. However, without such a program in place, marketers will
continue to struggle to know what aspects of their programs are contributing the most
to company performance and to justify the expenses associated with marketing relative to
other areas of the company.
______
Summary
A brand is not a by-product, an ad campaign, a logo, a spokesperson or a slogan. It is a differentiating identity and the most important reason for employees, investors and customers to want to do business. In a real sense, it is a firm’s most important asset, the trust that will the business and make it increasingly profitable over time.
Getting started can be as simple as a brand audit and development of a brand strategy.
Hope this takes some of the mystery out of this process.
__________________________________________________
lYOUR NEEDS
[ WHAT I WANT ]
>• Inject NEW and FRESH ideas in branding strategy;
>• Manage all communication projects / advertising initiatives with outside Media, Agencies and Suppliers;
>• Lead and build a team of multi-faceted creatives with diverse interest in latest trends
>• Share ideas with management and be entrusted with the development and full responsibility of the team
>•Be valued and rewarded for my total devotion for the company
>• Category:
Advertising/Marketing/Communications
>• Industry:
Architecture/Interior design/Luxury/Clothing/Publishing/Media/Advertising/Public Relations/Marketing Services
Everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes.
Andy Warhol
Read an article about me in the "French" blogosphere.
(translation English by Google...)
I always arrive after the battle… still an engaged candidate. Didier, graphic designer experienced sought a station of in charge of communication. Mow of the candidatures without a future it took the bull by the horns, assembled two blogs (one in French and the other in English), set up of the tools in order to improve its dialogue with its readers and launched out a challenge: to leave to work in HongKong.
Result of the races: talks, and a job. In short: will, expertise, audacity… and especially the desire for testing and for exploiting to the maximum its step. Cheer!
Can you present yourself in a few words and speak to us about your professional course?
I am Didier ANTENEO, I am 35 years old, I am from Bordeaux (france) and I began my course as a GRAPHIC DESIGNER now 12 years ago. First of all in a business district; I had in load the requests for all types of communication by the customers of the companies present on the site but also of outside. This first experiment learned how to me to work quiiiiick (!) and well, on many different projects. However my HAD of Communication of the Companies out of pocket, I were not going to stop me… I progressed while acquiring more and more experiments progressively with the stations which I occupied after, in agency of council in communication or advertising agencies… Until assembling my characteristic limps in 1999, an advertising studio of creation and strategies of communication. I have an immediate success from my creativity voted by plebiscite by my customers. Working with in-house freelances, our Internet site entered + of 20.000 connections in 1 month (BCP at the time…). I thus could work with MEDIAMETRIE (multi-media) like much of others. I was not not very proud to have jointly with that, a cover media!! (article in the local daily newspaper, M6…). After this adventure more than exciting but with a cruel lack of funds to ensure perenniality of it, I integrated an agency of communication as an Artistic Director by occupying me of local and national budgets.
Which is your research today?
Today, after more than one year of search for station as DA or a cd., and not finding in spite of + of 500 mails sent (very creative and expensive in sending!) and more than 1.000 emails, I am tired of the “French system”… Of these non-responses to the letters of spontaneous candidatures, of these stoppings by secretaries “dragons” and general employment situation… I thus seek elsewhere. I expatriate. I will work in HongKong where when I send 1 e-mail I have 1 in general response in the 2 hours which follow… Or the contacts are done quickly and naturally… And where my 12 years of experiments are an ASSET over there.
You opened a blog. Since when do hold it you and why you are launched to you in this step?
I created this blog (like its “English brother”) about one year ago. I benefitted from my time “off” to increase my competences. I recovered on English level by a training course from few months, and I wanted also to launch me in the Blog step because it is a formidable tool which are used to me as window of my know-how, portfolio and surcroit easy to create, and interactive.
You have a precise leading line?
What do you speak about? How do you proceed?
In fact my blog is a window… of me! I describe my professional course there, the recruiters can see my cv with the format text but also image. With the wire of time, I would like to speak there about the topicality about my profession, graphics and communication (branding) penny a sometimes sarcastic angle. What interests me much they are the different cultures in graphics and other codes, of a European culture for example confronted with that Eastern and Asian. That you brought your blog until now (contact, network, to break insulation, exchanges, helped to formulate your project….). In fact, in order to concretize my project to work in HongKong, I created several blogs, 2 blogs “pros” one will say and 1 blog more “fun” speaking about the differences between France and HongKong. These blogs brought much professional and friendly contacts to me, they especially allowed a greater speed of contact, email > blog, direct. Lastly, thanks to the tools which I put on the blog, videoconference and others I could pass FROM the DISCUSSIONS on line live with recruiters based to HongKong! And which are the principal difficulties which you encountered at the beginning? And today? The difficulties were rather of a technical nature, namely that I wanted to personalize it a maximum and for this reason one quickly intends to speak about HTML… Nevertheless the adventure is very exciting and my strong will enabled me to progress gradually… Today that goes! What I seek of a service blog it is a multidisciplinarity of services and possibilities technical and creative.
What would you advise with somebody who would like to also launch out?
That it launches out! How it is curious! That it does it with a precise discussion thread. That it is burst with its blog! There are NO rules. No rules!
Imagine that you draw a “chart professional chance”: the work of your dreams, with the role that you wish, in the context which you like, in the sector who attract you… that that you would not leave for nothing in the world. Tell us what all that would resemble.
I do not imagine it any more! … I found it! EXACTLY! I always liked architecture; I regret not having continued studies in architecture, that's no problem I said myself that one day the ideal would be to work in a large agency of architecture, as an Artistic Director, in charge of the communication of this agency. I would thus reconcile my passion of my trade, the communication, and would be close to the projects of architecture of the agency. I have been just engaged by a VERY large agency (it is a group in fact) of architecture, building enormous buildings in the world, more particularly in China, Germany, and Dubai. They are 5th World and the seat is based… in HongKong. I leave in 7 days.
A last word with the address of the recruiters?
Be professional. And RECEIVE the contacts which call you. Answer their phone calls, their e-mails… We are… But you cannot (can) not detect us. And the escape continues… Towards the foreigner… I sent e-mail on your sites (and well of others)… Nothing. 0 contact. Then what I do not include/understand this is why in HongKong (for example) I am received by cabinets and recruiters, whom they propose to me of the stations, and whom the companies find me super creative and whom I have the embarrassment of the choice. I have the impression, by seeing the sites such as LINKEDin, OPENBC, VIADUCT etc, etc that the unemployeds (naughty word that) are a source of income which is not lost for everyone… But, it is another debate. (?)
Anteneo: creativity, audacity… and a job:
Comments :
Cheers! Quite simply convinced that the determination pays…
An example moreover for all motivating us…
