What is content marketing in the British, and why record a podcast with dad
This is a podcast with content makers and content marketing executives. The guest of the 14th edition is Irina Sergeeva, Director of Communications at the British Higher School of Design, a mentor in the Google Launchpad project and the author of the independent podcast “ Well, pa-up! ".
Irina Sergeeva, director of communications BVShD and author of the podcast "Well, pa-ap!"
alinatestova : We have a podcast about content, and since you are at the head of communications at the British Design School of Higher Education, today I would like to talk about how to make communications at an educational institution.
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How is this different from any other company or brand? What features are there in communications at the university or any educational history?
Irina: We must begin with the fact that the British is a non-standard university. Everywhere, where I am asked to tell about my attitude towards him, I always begin by saying that I myself am a graduate of a classical educational institution, Moscow State University.
I grew up in a “classical academic scheme” and got used to it. And the Briton destroys these stereotypes every day. Probably, I am lucky that I work in the communications of this educational institution and this “product”. Communications in any case are built around a product, digital or analog. And this is a product in which I believe.
Selling education is another story than selling mobile phones or something like that. I like to work on communications that enlightens and improves a person in terms of knowledge and attitude to the world. The person working in the communications of the British in this case is very strongly tied to the product and is also a bit a productologist.
Now there is a lot of controversy about who is the product owner, who is the project manager, where the marketing power ends and the productologist's force comes in, and where are the sales managers. In education, this is a synergy that it is impossible to break it.
I can not say where the competence of our departments of educational and academic quality ends and pure communication begins, so that we simply get the product and say: "Guys, sell." Thank God, that doesn't work for us. People who are working on shaping the right message outward need to understand clearly what they are selling. Therefore, we are also a few education designers and we “stick ourselves on” this path.
A: For me, too, as a graduate of a rather classical institution of higher learning, the Higher School of Economics, it is a little strange to feel that the person who is responsible for communications works in close cooperation with the educational department. Although in the HSE, maybe this is no longer the case. The training department would seem to be less bureaucratic.
Q: I hope our training department is not listening to the podcast, they will be upset.
A: Surely this is not the case, but it is surprising how universities — in this case, a British woman — are changing in the direction of what we are used to understand as a modern brand. Let it be an educational brand, but not the “university” approach that everyone knows.
And: To which we are all accustomed.
A: Yes.
Q: So it is more correct, because we are guided by international experience and are trying to accumulate it. We have a huge amount of educational products.
I myself, for the first time in my third year, got into another educational environment when I went to Germany for an internship. There, people allowed themselves to make separate educational products on the basis of the fact that students are watching the series, and then they do something on it.
I was constantly connected with education, I studied in graduate school, wrote my candidate’s and struggled with such a classical format, when you are not quite right and not very conveniently pack knowledge. There is knowledge, but work with this product in classical education sags a little. It's nice to see new things appear like blended formats and interactive things. Even in classic structures. As MGU, I am pleased.
A: Online courses are reread at least.
And: Well, at least so.
A: British woman - initially or when did you get there - was she already like this or is this some kind of evolutionary process? When a university is becoming more open and focused on the student who uses and accumulates this knowledge.
And: British 15 years old, I got there four years ago.
A: Essentially a third of her life.
And: Yes, this is a big way. This is the place of work where I stayed the longest.
In the so-called DNA of the British brand is entered a very important parameter - human orientation. It works great in communications and in product history, when a student is at the center. Not a textbook written in 1985, but still a student. We work as much as possible with the concept of user experience, at least we are trying very hard. Even if there are any situations, we thoroughly understand why the student did not get the right experience that we tried to create for him.
The British is indeed a very open educational institution. Over the past four years we have gained a lot from the point of view of ideas that we translate outside.
This, for example, sustainable-design, because we can not read this trend. We are trying to teach - as far as I can see - not only beautiful design, but also smart. This impresses me wildly, because our brand translates quite the right thoughts that I like to promote.
A: I am partly seditious - and, perhaps, this is not only my feeling - it seems like the idea to call a student a consumer. In such a super academic environment, this seems wrong.
Many classical systems see in a student the product of their educational process, and not the consumer - a person who has more rights, who somehow votes for the educational process and influences him, and who needs to be liked. In general, in a classical educational environment there is no idea to like a student, but there is an idea to put something into it, to make a correct scientific object out of it.
And: It seems to me that there is nothing wrong with having a clear structure of what you want to lay in the student. As they say, "I am not a penny to please everyone." If you completely follow the lead of a student - this is also an imbalance.
It would be ideal to find something in the middle. Maybe with the help of electives and elective programs that can be embedded. The modular system is also a cool story. These things make me very impressed. It seems to me that now classical education [is not the same] as we demonize here with you (laughs). There, too, there are a lot of good things that, perhaps, students of “free” educational institutions receive less.
Perhaps the difference lies in the fact that there is a big difference between Western and Russian universities - namely, educational systems. And we are still bred in the Russian system and got used to what we were given.
I do not complain about what kind of education I received. It did not hurt me for sure. Rather, I acquired something in it that allows me to do the things that I do today.
A: Is it possible to say that the British woman, as a university that is oriented towards creative professions, has more freedom in connection with what is taught and taught here? From the series: mathematics needs to be brought up like this, and the designer can be a little more free.
Q: It is interesting that a huge marketing and business department has appeared in the British since last year. Here, it seems to me, everything is stricter. This is certainly a creative story, and I am also impressed that the design is inextricably linked with how to translate it into external space. Here we are entering the territory of marketing, which is quite interesting.
From the point of view of freedom - if you look at our students on the eve of the final sessions or final exhibitions, it does not seem to me that it is somehow easier for them. On the contrary, with freedom comes responsibility. Even if students are released for the so-called reading weeks, when they have to study something on their own. Well, you do not have someone who stands above you, but you yourself must go this way - to protect and prove your point of view.
This freedom brings up in you some important things that we are just not used to. If I remember the rhythm in which we studied ... I finished in 2012, it is not too far, but not yesterday. There was constant pressure - to prepare for the exam, learn 50 tickets, attend classes and so on. There was continuity and accountability.
Models are different. I don’t know what is worse or better, but I look with great pleasure at what research our students are doing. They have a lot of research even before creating a collection of clothes, especially industrial design products or building models. These are really some big and very reasonable things.
A: Is there any gradation between media communications, what the company looks like in the media and in general in open space, and what a university should look like? Are there any barriers or things to go around? Where you need to behave differently than any other brand would behave. Or in the media communications of the university the same schemes, methods and rules work as in the case of any other brand?
Q : The rule “Reflect correctly, without distortion, in the media ecosystem, who are you” works in media communications in general. What are you broadcasting, who is your target audience and so on. If we go all the way down to the details, every university now starts advertising on social networks. To be different, to try to knock someone under, if you are not that - this is a rather strange story in communications. I have a feeling that it is not so easy for universities to do this, just “deals with the devil” do not have to be done. You sell education, it's an important thing, just talk about it. Given that, of course, time is not easy.
We understand that there is a certain context, cost, quite a lot of competition. Nevertheless, properly built communication, which will be fairly honest with the end user of your product, is the key to success.
A: As an educational product, you are guided and look for completely different players, it turns out. They can be large and small or the same universities
I: Yes, and for the Western countries as well. We look because of our product line. We have the most part - the British undergraduate. Why, in fact, the British Higher School of Design - because it is an opportunity to get a diploma of British bachelor in Moscow. This is the University of Hertfordshire franchise. The more we tell parents what they are willing to invest and what kind of education this is, the better and more useful.
There are other stories, a shorter format - a year or two. This is a program of Russian additional education, when [older people] are studying, with the first education. We could now go and enter graphic design, visual communications.
And this is a completely different communication with the consumer of such a product. Therefore, I can not say that we are competing with one person. We are competing with everyone, and everyone is competing with us.
A: Great. At first glance, it seems that a university is a rather static structure.
And: Come to us.
A: In fact, this is a huge job, everything is in full swing, and a huge number of new players appear. Just wanted to ask about the intensive, content marketing.
And: There is such a thing.
A: One thing is to talk about content, another thing is to make content, and the third is to teach content marketing. What place does this intensive place in the field of tasks of the British? How long has interest been in this area? And what did he grow from?
Q: It is necessary to make a reservation that in the British about 80 intensives take place in a year. This is a story about the interest in the maximum wide range of spheres, fields and niches in the market. In the intensives, we allow ourselves to gossip a little and go a little further than the big programs that we have. Some intensives are really probes with curators of large programs. You can test whether this format suits you and see what a British woman is.
With some intensives we can feel the ground for what is happening in the market today, what comes in or does not go in. In some cases, we simply see that there are excellent opinion leaders in the market of education, communications or culture, whom we invite with great pleasure to conduct intensive activities.
Content marketing happened to me for the first time last winter. We have already planned for this summer the fourth stream of this intensity. With him began my big "going to education." Since then I began to teach on large programs in the British, I teach on the programs "Marketing and Brand Management" and "Media Design."
It would seem that this is a business history for marketers, [but] on the other hand are designers who create prototypes of mobile applications, websites for magazines, print versions, and it is crucial for them to understand the quality of content and to have an outlook. Now a lot of husk is happening around the concept of content marketing. As before, everyone considered themselves designers and photographers — the factories were, and we all had photographers and managers — now everyone rushed to content.
Now there is such a bias in content marketing. This is not bad - it shows interest in the sector. Content marketing is well between marketing and media production. These are my two great passions of life. I have a media background, I used to work as a journalist. It attracts me endlessly - how to produce media materials, videos, texts to lure the reader. When metrics and a measure of the usefulness of your content become layered on this, content marketing is born here.
We once tried to incorporate this thing into one corporate program at the invitation of one of our curators. I spent there a little block. And it worked out so well in terms of audience acceptance. Now, once a season, 40 academic hours, I give all of myself to teach people to make good content, to count it correctly and to fit the big idea of ​​the brand - guided by what I can do in the British with my beautiful communication team.
A: For whom is this intensive first? Is it for those who work in a brand for marketers? For philologists, maybe, who want to expand their field of opportunities? For students who want to get additional pumping?
Q: I take great pleasure every time I look at the lists of students who come to my program. Unconditional backbone - marketers.
There are amazing things. There were interior designers, last season a delegation of people came from Peterhof who are engaged in museum communications. A lot of startups come. People who want to start or already have their own business.
A: Almost never.
And: Yes. And when you start testing Serbian startups, what content marketing is, if you need it there, how they react to it. There it is impossible to make a reference to any Russian company, because they simply do not know. Here begins quite interesting. And there it comes almost better than in the fields of our spacious homeland.
A: Why?
Q: Because [content marketing] is important for everyone in the face of a total lack of user attention. A billion messages a day fall on us - how can [brands] lure the user and how to be where the content consumes it? And all these standard stories about noises, through which we today build our communication between the brand and the user. How to make such things that are remembered, bring you up, give a little knowledge?
In this sense, I am a big opponent of advertising bombing - which, of course, is part of the brand’s communication with the world. But I want to do some more sophisticated things.
This story about utility and enlightenment works in any case, be it a startup, marketers, museum workers, interior designers and media. Therefore, I see various profiles of people on my program in the British with such joy. Moreover, I divide them into teams, and when these people with completely different backgrounds begin to design content solutions together - amazing things are born at this junction every time.
A: According to the experience of mentoring in other countries, can we say that the topic of content marketing in Russia is well developed? Or, on the contrary, is it less developed than abroad? Are there any correlations between what they have and what we have?
Q: It seems to me that we are talking more about this topic today.
I was at a huge number of conferences lately [about how to make money with content and how to make good content. Everyone starts talking about himself, his successful cases, these are media and big brands. And at the same time I have a feeling that this topic has rested itself a bit.
I am terribly sorry that we are not looking at the western experience of content marketing and are a little behind the global trends of the industry. We must, of course, look there. All successful content marketing projects that used huge budgets, investments and resources have been studied and re-studied.
From this, it is impossible to give birth to something new when everything is changing so rapidly in the market - from the point of view of brands, and from the point of view of good communication.
A: What are the trends there? What distinguishes the western tradition of working with content and ours?
Q: Probably the most important thing is absolute freedom and the desire to get rid of advertising communication. Every time I see with us - even if there are some cool things, every marketer still has an idea: let's stick a button, let's drop a banner, click everything around to make it clear that this is us.
A: When it is not a pity for a brand to give some kind of benefit just like that - without considering it, without measuring it in transitions, clicks, links.
And: Yes, absolutely. At the same time, no one prevents you from continuing advertising communication parallel to this one.
Why in the West we see a huge amount of analytics, white papers, some guides that people issue every month? When this is a great analytics, they do not spare and sherut in public space. In this way, they earn their points as a brand that can be trusted and whose analytics is fairly legitimate.
A: It turns out that in Western tradition content marketing is a bit more about content ...
And: And we have more about marketing. Yes it's true. Of course, we must focus on some market realities. In our country, they are different from what is happening in the West, but for some reason we look very little even at Western examples.
When we look at cool examples with students, they say: “Well, this is not ours.” I say: "My friends, we need to look at absolutely everything." Otherwise, it is a narrowly focused thinking and the story “make me like this” is a rather close strategy.
A: I can not yet talk about podcasts a bit.
Q: In fact, this is the most pleasant topic. Let's.
A: I should ask this question anyway: how and why was the podcast born? [Speech of the podcast " Well, pa-ap! "]
And: I understood that this question would be, and I scrolled in my head, as to tell about it more efficiently. This story actually has two planes. One is rational professional. I am a huge fan of audio podcasts - since Serial appeared, and the podcasts were launched by Medusa.
For me it was a discovery that I can, driving on the subway from work to home, plunge into a completely different world. Suddenly I find myself thinking that I am beginning to laugh while standing on the subway, because something wildly funny happens in a podcast. And everyone looks at me as an abnormal person.
I felt that this is a powerful tool for storytelling and the transfer of emotions. I liked it terribly, because it also tickles my imagination a little. I have been sneaking up to creating something of my own for quite a while.
On the one hand, I’m interested in everything I know about content marketing, digital, media and storytelling.
But on the other hand, such monopodcasts, when one person sits down and languidly begins to sow his own wisdom at the microphone, I did not want to. It seemed to me that it was a little crazy - to talk with myself for half an hour and then promote it in some way.
I am also terribly interested in the story about the generational difference. All the enormous forces spent on discussing what a generation X, Y is, now Z. Some kind of public talk about this is ongoing. My good friend and I once sat in a bar, languidly discussing what generation Y was. For some reason, I then terribly wanted to launch a podcast that would simply be called Y, and I would try with my peers to explain what it is. As we understand ourselves, do we really have any difference.
We began to talk more, I began to talk more about what I was doing. It became clear that there was very little understanding of what I was doing on that side. Naturally, he has a huge interest in this. He wonders who I work with, what I say, how I teach.
Slowly I began to tell my dad more and more. In December, the whole family went abroad for an operation - this is actually a funny moment. As far as he was dramatic, and so funny. When my dad was away from anesthesia, I was there and I had to amuse him with something. He could not sleep, and my mother and I sat and tried to tell him something. Then I think: the time of pitch has come. I invented this thing beforehand and said: “Listen, there is an idea, let's launch a story where I will tell you something”.
And I was completely sure that when a person is under anesthesia, he doesn’t really remember anything. But the next day, when I arrived in the morning, the first thing that was said: “So what are we doing? I have already invented, it is necessary to make some name. How are we going to spread it? ”And so on. Getting off this topic was already generally uncomfortable at that moment. I realized that this is a wild enthusiasm for dad and this is such a family outlet - as we sit and discuss something.
And indeed, two months ago we recorded the first episode, and everything went to the people. It was absolutely amazing for me to watch how people began to say this thing on a word of mouth radio. The feedback that I received can be divided into three distinct segments. First, these are my peers, colleagues and friends. Someone is a marketer, someone is not at all - but they are interested in hearing about what I am talking about in this format. This is just about knowledge.
The second story - from somewhere daddy's peers began to catch up and comment. Not that: “Look, the director of British communications did this” - and “Sergeyeva’s daughter did a podcast with him, and you remember ...”. My dad is a bard and there is some community of people who listen to his songs. The third story is the most valuable to me. These are comments: “Talk to your dad, talk to your parents, see how cool this is.”
A: Were there any situations where it seems that everything is clear, but it turns out that a black hole opens here. And the next step opens another black hole.
When it turns out that some things that seemed obvious raise questions. How do such dialogues really show the differences between generations?
Q: This is also very beautiful for me, because each podcast is a small minefield. I do not know where we will stick. If I already clearly understand the trajectory of how I lead people from the audience I understand from my stories, then I come to the absolute delight of how my dad reacts to some things that are completely clear to me. And I am so kindly mocking, of course. I make him watch the “Black Mirror” series or read 50 points [of Ilya] Dyer, which he wrote about modern media.
With Bandersnatch, the interactive series of the Black Mirror, it was funny, because people immediately start poking into different plot development options “this is the whole point. Dad started with the fact that he is not going to poke anything at all and this “chushnya” is preventing him from watching the series. Absolutely unpredictable reaction. We got stuck on the Dyer because he sat with a dictionary and translated some things. He was incomprehensible, but he prepares very carefully. He came with a piece of paper and said that he understood, and that he did not understand.
It also spurs me a little bit. I have been teaching for two years, and I have a large number of answers to the questions that I heard during my practice. [Daddy's] questions often take me by surprise.
At some points in the podcast, I realize that even I don’t understand that I could explain better and so that he understood. But since we are two rather funny characters, as people have noted, we with dignity come out of these educational situations.
A: It seems to me that such things carry additional educational assistance and workload. It's one thing when people of the same age communicate and roughly understand the meaning of certain words, put their understanding into some terms. Another thing is when a person comes from another generation and asks to make out one or another term.
And: Absolutely.
A: It turns out that you yourself seem to understand what this means, but here you need to essentially respond.
Q: Yes, because in any answer you can give a reference, a similar situation in the media or content. And when you do not have this toolkit, and you realize that it will not go down.
A: Other references are needed.
And: Absolutely.
Dad constantly compares with his work experience - he used to work on Radio Yunost, on television. He also worked in the media for most of his life, and these parallels are also very interesting. Which of us will now have something to compare with the 70s and 80s?
This is also an educational value for me, because I see how these products have worked before. In this we have a mutual educational mission.
A: Great. It seems to me that this is a great example of how additional value for both parties appears at the intersection of intergenerational communication. Including for people who want to understand the topic, which is not close to them in the field of activity.
And: Yes, it is. Of course, I was lucky, because the purity of the experiment was quite high. Dad never had a social network in his life.
He conditionally understands how Facebook works. But we stumbled upon when I asked to tell me what Instagram is. It turns out that he has a principled position, why he does not want to start a social network for himself, why this is a great evil, and so on. This is an interesting position.
I do not know whether it comes with age or with the depth and quality of your conversations with dad and a person from another generation. Now I see why. He said: “Imagine, in the 90s I am a healthy man for 40 years with lots of ideas, - he is really a creative person - suddenly at some point I understand that all the technologies have missed me. Suddenly, from somewhere all phones appeared, computers, social networks. And I just sat down and realized that I did not have time. ”
This position seemed to me quite interesting. And here I already think: “Okay, 50–60 years will come to me. How will all this develop? ”Maybe everyone will go to Tik Tok in general, in which I don’t understand anything. There, the children themselves put masks on their faces, and this, of course, is generally past us, apparently. It is also very interesting to extrapolate to your future and to think about how we will live and how to build communications. I think this is important.
A: Does the Pope change any interests or habits at the end of the conversation? Are there any changes? Suddenly he liked something from TV shows or something new?
And: You know, this is my favorite. I recently drove home and witnessed a telephone conversation between my father and his friend.
Further, we have such a story that from time to time he reads something on the Internet and starts writing to me: “Listen, do you know that Twitter launched this and that?”. We also exchange news. I, of course, have a good laugh, but this is cool. You, with your chatter, give birth to a person's interest in understanding how life proceeds today. I put some pieces from my lectures to him, and he tries to figure it out.
This desire to learn - returning to the British and what we believe in - the ideal concept of life-long learning. Especially when this source of education is not just an online course or Moscow Longevity, but an own child who explains to you what he lives for and conveys some knowledge other than personal stories.
I'm just trying to put more emphasis on knowledge, not really going to the individual. Although the transition to the individual - an integral part of our podcast.
A: This is such training in British, outside British, in media, communications, everywhere.
And: It turns out that this is really learning everywhere. This story is very rich in that when you start broadcasting some knowledge outside, [self-doubt arises]. This is not really an impostor complex, I just always have an idea inside — whether I'm talking, whether I'm talking about that, or how I did my “homework” right. This is such a complex pupil - whether I learned everything to be able to talk about this to people.
A: Great. We have made such a thematic circle.
And: Yes, yes.
A: Great, you can round out on such a cool note.
And: Cool, thank you very much.
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Irina Sergeeva, director of communications BVShD and author of the podcast "Well, pa-ap!"
alinatestova : We have a podcast about content, and since you are at the head of communications at the British Design School of Higher Education, today I would like to talk about how to make communications at an educational institution.
')
How is this different from any other company or brand? What features are there in communications at the university or any educational history?
Irina: We must begin with the fact that the British is a non-standard university. Everywhere, where I am asked to tell about my attitude towards him, I always begin by saying that I myself am a graduate of a classical educational institution, Moscow State University.
I grew up in a “classical academic scheme” and got used to it. And the Briton destroys these stereotypes every day. Probably, I am lucky that I work in the communications of this educational institution and this “product”. Communications in any case are built around a product, digital or analog. And this is a product in which I believe.
Selling education is another story than selling mobile phones or something like that. I like to work on communications that enlightens and improves a person in terms of knowledge and attitude to the world. The person working in the communications of the British in this case is very strongly tied to the product and is also a bit a productologist.
Now there is a lot of controversy about who is the product owner, who is the project manager, where the marketing power ends and the productologist's force comes in, and where are the sales managers. In education, this is a synergy that it is impossible to break it.
I can not say where the competence of our departments of educational and academic quality ends and pure communication begins, so that we simply get the product and say: "Guys, sell." Thank God, that doesn't work for us. People who are working on shaping the right message outward need to understand clearly what they are selling. Therefore, we are also a few education designers and we “stick ourselves on” this path.
A: For me, too, as a graduate of a rather classical institution of higher learning, the Higher School of Economics, it is a little strange to feel that the person who is responsible for communications works in close cooperation with the educational department. Although in the HSE, maybe this is no longer the case. The training department would seem to be less bureaucratic.
Q: I hope our training department is not listening to the podcast, they will be upset.
A: Surely this is not the case, but it is surprising how universities — in this case, a British woman — are changing in the direction of what we are used to understand as a modern brand. Let it be an educational brand, but not the “university” approach that everyone knows.
And: To which we are all accustomed.
A: Yes.
Q: So it is more correct, because we are guided by international experience and are trying to accumulate it. We have a huge amount of educational products.
I myself, for the first time in my third year, got into another educational environment when I went to Germany for an internship. There, people allowed themselves to make separate educational products on the basis of the fact that students are watching the series, and then they do something on it.
It broke stereotypes for me, and even then there were doubts about the classical “one-to-many” education scheme. When a person gets up in the pulpit and you read some absolutely important and useful things. It seemed to me that, probably, there are other ways.
I was constantly connected with education, I studied in graduate school, wrote my candidate’s and struggled with such a classical format, when you are not quite right and not very conveniently pack knowledge. There is knowledge, but work with this product in classical education sags a little. It's nice to see new things appear like blended formats and interactive things. Even in classic structures. As MGU, I am pleased.
A: Online courses are reread at least.
And: Well, at least so.
A: British woman - initially or when did you get there - was she already like this or is this some kind of evolutionary process? When a university is becoming more open and focused on the student who uses and accumulates this knowledge.
And: British 15 years old, I got there four years ago.
A: Essentially a third of her life.
And: Yes, this is a big way. This is the place of work where I stayed the longest.
In the so-called DNA of the British brand is entered a very important parameter - human orientation. It works great in communications and in product history, when a student is at the center. Not a textbook written in 1985, but still a student. We work as much as possible with the concept of user experience, at least we are trying very hard. Even if there are any situations, we thoroughly understand why the student did not get the right experience that we tried to create for him.
The British is indeed a very open educational institution. Over the past four years we have gained a lot from the point of view of ideas that we translate outside.
This, for example, sustainable-design, because we can not read this trend. We are trying to teach - as far as I can see - not only beautiful design, but also smart. This impresses me wildly, because our brand translates quite the right thoughts that I like to promote.
A: I am partly seditious - and, perhaps, this is not only my feeling - it seems like the idea to call a student a consumer. In such a super academic environment, this seems wrong.
Many classical systems see in a student the product of their educational process, and not the consumer - a person who has more rights, who somehow votes for the educational process and influences him, and who needs to be liked. In general, in a classical educational environment there is no idea to like a student, but there is an idea to put something into it, to make a correct scientific object out of it.
And: It seems to me that there is nothing wrong with having a clear structure of what you want to lay in the student. As they say, "I am not a penny to please everyone." If you completely follow the lead of a student - this is also an imbalance.
It would be ideal to find something in the middle. Maybe with the help of electives and elective programs that can be embedded. The modular system is also a cool story. These things make me very impressed. It seems to me that now classical education [is not the same] as we demonize here with you (laughs). There, too, there are a lot of good things that, perhaps, students of “free” educational institutions receive less.
Perhaps the difference lies in the fact that there is a big difference between Western and Russian universities - namely, educational systems. And we are still bred in the Russian system and got used to what we were given.
I do not complain about what kind of education I received. It did not hurt me for sure. Rather, I acquired something in it that allows me to do the things that I do today.
A: Is it possible to say that the British woman, as a university that is oriented towards creative professions, has more freedom in connection with what is taught and taught here? From the series: mathematics needs to be brought up like this, and the designer can be a little more free.
Q: It is interesting that a huge marketing and business department has appeared in the British since last year. Here, it seems to me, everything is stricter. This is certainly a creative story, and I am also impressed that the design is inextricably linked with how to translate it into external space. Here we are entering the territory of marketing, which is quite interesting.
From the point of view of freedom - if you look at our students on the eve of the final sessions or final exhibitions, it does not seem to me that it is somehow easier for them. On the contrary, with freedom comes responsibility. Even if students are released for the so-called reading weeks, when they have to study something on their own. Well, you do not have someone who stands above you, but you yourself must go this way - to protect and prove your point of view.
This freedom brings up in you some important things that we are just not used to. If I remember the rhythm in which we studied ... I finished in 2012, it is not too far, but not yesterday. There was constant pressure - to prepare for the exam, learn 50 tickets, attend classes and so on. There was continuity and accountability.
Models are different. I don’t know what is worse or better, but I look with great pleasure at what research our students are doing. They have a lot of research even before creating a collection of clothes, especially industrial design products or building models. These are really some big and very reasonable things.
A: Is there any gradation between media communications, what the company looks like in the media and in general in open space, and what a university should look like? Are there any barriers or things to go around? Where you need to behave differently than any other brand would behave. Or in the media communications of the university the same schemes, methods and rules work as in the case of any other brand?
Q : The rule “Reflect correctly, without distortion, in the media ecosystem, who are you” works in media communications in general. What are you broadcasting, who is your target audience and so on. If we go all the way down to the details, every university now starts advertising on social networks. To be different, to try to knock someone under, if you are not that - this is a rather strange story in communications. I have a feeling that it is not so easy for universities to do this, just “deals with the devil” do not have to be done. You sell education, it's an important thing, just talk about it. Given that, of course, time is not easy.
We understand that there is a certain context, cost, quite a lot of competition. Nevertheless, properly built communication, which will be fairly honest with the end user of your product, is the key to success.
A: As an educational product, you are guided and look for completely different players, it turns out. They can be large and small or the same universities
I: Yes, and for the Western countries as well. We look because of our product line. We have the most part - the British undergraduate. Why, in fact, the British Higher School of Design - because it is an opportunity to get a diploma of British bachelor in Moscow. This is the University of Hertfordshire franchise. The more we tell parents what they are willing to invest and what kind of education this is, the better and more useful.
There are other stories, a shorter format - a year or two. This is a program of Russian additional education, when [older people] are studying, with the first education. We could now go and enter graphic design, visual communications.
There are even more compressed formats - three months. There are intensives, when you get some fast pumping in 4–8 days. We also have an education for schoolchildren. I myself teach a little - communication, content marketing. My recent love is a program for schoolchildren, to which I came to read the theory of media.
The way I communicate with people who are 14 years old and what I see in them is a completely new experience. I see that this is really a different generation that thinks differently and gives other answers to the questions that are usually asked to adult marketers.
And this is a completely different communication with the consumer of such a product. Therefore, I can not say that we are competing with one person. We are competing with everyone, and everyone is competing with us.
A: Great. At first glance, it seems that a university is a rather static structure.
And: Come to us.
A: In fact, this is a huge job, everything is in full swing, and a huge number of new players appear. Just wanted to ask about the intensive, content marketing.
And: There is such a thing.
A: One thing is to talk about content, another thing is to make content, and the third is to teach content marketing. What place does this intensive place in the field of tasks of the British? How long has interest been in this area? And what did he grow from?
Q: It is necessary to make a reservation that in the British about 80 intensives take place in a year. This is a story about the interest in the maximum wide range of spheres, fields and niches in the market. In the intensives, we allow ourselves to gossip a little and go a little further than the big programs that we have. Some intensives are really probes with curators of large programs. You can test whether this format suits you and see what a British woman is.
With some intensives we can feel the ground for what is happening in the market today, what comes in or does not go in. In some cases, we simply see that there are excellent opinion leaders in the market of education, communications or culture, whom we invite with great pleasure to conduct intensive activities.
Content marketing happened to me for the first time last winter. We have already planned for this summer the fourth stream of this intensity. With him began my big "going to education." Since then I began to teach on large programs in the British, I teach on the programs "Marketing and Brand Management" and "Media Design."
It would seem that this is a business history for marketers, [but] on the other hand are designers who create prototypes of mobile applications, websites for magazines, print versions, and it is crucial for them to understand the quality of content and to have an outlook. Now a lot of husk is happening around the concept of content marketing. As before, everyone considered themselves designers and photographers — the factories were, and we all had photographers and managers — now everyone rushed to content.
Now there is such a bias in content marketing. This is not bad - it shows interest in the sector. Content marketing is well between marketing and media production. These are my two great passions of life. I have a media background, I used to work as a journalist. It attracts me endlessly - how to produce media materials, videos, texts to lure the reader. When metrics and a measure of the usefulness of your content become layered on this, content marketing is born here.
We once tried to incorporate this thing into one corporate program at the invitation of one of our curators. I spent there a little block. And it worked out so well in terms of audience acceptance. Now, once a season, 40 academic hours, I give all of myself to teach people to make good content, to count it correctly and to fit the big idea of ​​the brand - guided by what I can do in the British with my beautiful communication team.
A: For whom is this intensive first? Is it for those who work in a brand for marketers? For philologists, maybe, who want to expand their field of opportunities? For students who want to get additional pumping?
Q: I take great pleasure every time I look at the lists of students who come to my program. Unconditional backbone - marketers.
There are amazing things. There were interior designers, last season a delegation of people came from Peterhof who are engaged in museum communications. A lot of startups come. People who want to start or already have their own business.
In fact, communication with startups is a beautiful thing. Another big side project in my life is the story of Google, where I play the role of mentor. They periodically gather strong teams of mentors and take them to nearby European countries - the last time it was Germany. And you leave mentor startups, for example, in Serbia. This rarely happens in the lives of normal people.
A: Almost never.
And: Yes. And when you start testing Serbian startups, what content marketing is, if you need it there, how they react to it. There it is impossible to make a reference to any Russian company, because they simply do not know. Here begins quite interesting. And there it comes almost better than in the fields of our spacious homeland.
A: Why?
Q: Because [content marketing] is important for everyone in the face of a total lack of user attention. A billion messages a day fall on us - how can [brands] lure the user and how to be where the content consumes it? And all these standard stories about noises, through which we today build our communication between the brand and the user. How to make such things that are remembered, bring you up, give a little knowledge?
In this sense, I am a big opponent of advertising bombing - which, of course, is part of the brand’s communication with the world. But I want to do some more sophisticated things.
This story about utility and enlightenment works in any case, be it a startup, marketers, museum workers, interior designers and media. Therefore, I see various profiles of people on my program in the British with such joy. Moreover, I divide them into teams, and when these people with completely different backgrounds begin to design content solutions together - amazing things are born at this junction every time.
A: According to the experience of mentoring in other countries, can we say that the topic of content marketing in Russia is well developed? Or, on the contrary, is it less developed than abroad? Are there any correlations between what they have and what we have?
Q: It seems to me that we are talking more about this topic today.
I was at a huge number of conferences lately [about how to make money with content and how to make good content. Everyone starts talking about himself, his successful cases, these are media and big brands. And at the same time I have a feeling that this topic has rested itself a bit.
I am terribly sorry that we are not looking at the western experience of content marketing and are a little behind the global trends of the industry. We must, of course, look there. All successful content marketing projects that used huge budgets, investments and resources have been studied and re-studied.
From this, it is impossible to give birth to something new when everything is changing so rapidly in the market - from the point of view of brands, and from the point of view of good communication.
A: What are the trends there? What distinguishes the western tradition of working with content and ours?
Q: Probably the most important thing is absolute freedom and the desire to get rid of advertising communication. Every time I see with us - even if there are some cool things, every marketer still has an idea: let's stick a button, let's drop a banner, click everything around to make it clear that this is us.
This has to be fought every time. When I give some simple exercises to the marketing guys in the audience, they are constantly dumped into direct advertising of the product.
I urge them to make communication not grocery - at least within the framework of pure content marketing - but person-centered. To proceed from what people read and watch, how they react to it.
A: When it is not a pity for a brand to give some kind of benefit just like that - without considering it, without measuring it in transitions, clicks, links.
And: Yes, absolutely. At the same time, no one prevents you from continuing advertising communication parallel to this one.
Why in the West we see a huge amount of analytics, white papers, some guides that people issue every month? When this is a great analytics, they do not spare and sherut in public space. In this way, they earn their points as a brand that can be trusted and whose analytics is fairly legitimate.
A: It turns out that in Western tradition content marketing is a bit more about content ...
And: And we have more about marketing. Yes it's true. Of course, we must focus on some market realities. In our country, they are different from what is happening in the West, but for some reason we look very little even at Western examples.
When we look at cool examples with students, they say: “Well, this is not ours.” I say: "My friends, we need to look at absolutely everything." Otherwise, it is a narrowly focused thinking and the story “make me like this” is a rather close strategy.
A: I can not yet talk about podcasts a bit.
Q: In fact, this is the most pleasant topic. Let's.
A: I should ask this question anyway: how and why was the podcast born? [Speech of the podcast " Well, pa-ap! "]
And: I understood that this question would be, and I scrolled in my head, as to tell about it more efficiently. This story actually has two planes. One is rational professional. I am a huge fan of audio podcasts - since Serial appeared, and the podcasts were launched by Medusa.
For me it was a discovery that I can, driving on the subway from work to home, plunge into a completely different world. Suddenly I find myself thinking that I am beginning to laugh while standing on the subway, because something wildly funny happens in a podcast. And everyone looks at me as an abnormal person.
I felt that this is a powerful tool for storytelling and the transfer of emotions. I liked it terribly, because it also tickles my imagination a little. I have been sneaking up to creating something of my own for quite a while.
On the one hand, I’m interested in everything I know about content marketing, digital, media and storytelling.
But on the other hand, such monopodcasts, when one person sits down and languidly begins to sow his own wisdom at the microphone, I did not want to. It seemed to me that it was a little crazy - to talk with myself for half an hour and then promote it in some way.
I am also terribly interested in the story about the generational difference. All the enormous forces spent on discussing what a generation X, Y is, now Z. Some kind of public talk about this is ongoing. My good friend and I once sat in a bar, languidly discussing what generation Y was. For some reason, I then terribly wanted to launch a podcast that would simply be called Y, and I would try with my peers to explain what it is. As we understand ourselves, do we really have any difference.
In general, [themes of content marketing and generations] were successfully combined in one podcast, which is called “Well, pa-up!”. I do not explore any broad layers of the generation Z, children, how they develop. I turned this story over, and so far I do not see who else speaks with the elders in this format. This is the talk of generation Y with a generation not even X, but baby boomers, Dad is 65 years old.
We began to talk more, I began to talk more about what I was doing. It became clear that there was very little understanding of what I was doing on that side. Naturally, he has a huge interest in this. He wonders who I work with, what I say, how I teach.
Slowly I began to tell my dad more and more. In December, the whole family went abroad for an operation - this is actually a funny moment. As far as he was dramatic, and so funny. When my dad was away from anesthesia, I was there and I had to amuse him with something. He could not sleep, and my mother and I sat and tried to tell him something. Then I think: the time of pitch has come. I invented this thing beforehand and said: “Listen, there is an idea, let's launch a story where I will tell you something”.
And I was completely sure that when a person is under anesthesia, he doesn’t really remember anything. But the next day, when I arrived in the morning, the first thing that was said: “So what are we doing? I have already invented, it is necessary to make some name. How are we going to spread it? ”And so on. Getting off this topic was already generally uncomfortable at that moment. I realized that this is a wild enthusiasm for dad and this is such a family outlet - as we sit and discuss something.
And indeed, two months ago we recorded the first episode, and everything went to the people. It was absolutely amazing for me to watch how people began to say this thing on a word of mouth radio. The feedback that I received can be divided into three distinct segments. First, these are my peers, colleagues and friends. Someone is a marketer, someone is not at all - but they are interested in hearing about what I am talking about in this format. This is just about knowledge.
The second story - from somewhere daddy's peers began to catch up and comment. Not that: “Look, the director of British communications did this” - and “Sergeyeva’s daughter did a podcast with him, and you remember ...”. My dad is a bard and there is some community of people who listen to his songs. The third story is the most valuable to me. These are comments: “Talk to your dad, talk to your parents, see how cool this is.”
A: Were there any situations where it seems that everything is clear, but it turns out that a black hole opens here. And the next step opens another black hole.
When it turns out that some things that seemed obvious raise questions. How do such dialogues really show the differences between generations?
Q: This is also very beautiful for me, because each podcast is a small minefield. I do not know where we will stick. If I already clearly understand the trajectory of how I lead people from the audience I understand from my stories, then I come to the absolute delight of how my dad reacts to some things that are completely clear to me. And I am so kindly mocking, of course. I make him watch the “Black Mirror” series or read 50 points [of Ilya] Dyer, which he wrote about modern media.
With Bandersnatch, the interactive series of the Black Mirror, it was funny, because people immediately start poking into different plot development options “this is the whole point. Dad started with the fact that he is not going to poke anything at all and this “chushnya” is preventing him from watching the series. Absolutely unpredictable reaction. We got stuck on the Dyer because he sat with a dictionary and translated some things. He was incomprehensible, but he prepares very carefully. He came with a piece of paper and said that he understood, and that he did not understand.
It also spurs me a little bit. I have been teaching for two years, and I have a large number of answers to the questions that I heard during my practice. [Daddy's] questions often take me by surprise.
At some points in the podcast, I realize that even I don’t understand that I could explain better and so that he understood. But since we are two rather funny characters, as people have noted, we with dignity come out of these educational situations.
A: It seems to me that such things carry additional educational assistance and workload. It's one thing when people of the same age communicate and roughly understand the meaning of certain words, put their understanding into some terms. Another thing is when a person comes from another generation and asks to make out one or another term.
And: Absolutely.
A: It turns out that you yourself seem to understand what this means, but here you need to essentially respond.
Q: Yes, because in any answer you can give a reference, a similar situation in the media or content. And when you do not have this toolkit, and you realize that it will not go down.
A: Other references are needed.
And: Absolutely.
Dad constantly compares with his work experience - he used to work on Radio Yunost, on television. He also worked in the media for most of his life, and these parallels are also very interesting. Which of us will now have something to compare with the 70s and 80s?
This is also an educational value for me, because I see how these products have worked before. In this we have a mutual educational mission.
A: Great. It seems to me that this is a great example of how additional value for both parties appears at the intersection of intergenerational communication. Including for people who want to understand the topic, which is not close to them in the field of activity.
And: Yes, it is. Of course, I was lucky, because the purity of the experiment was quite high. Dad never had a social network in his life.
He conditionally understands how Facebook works. But we stumbled upon when I asked to tell me what Instagram is. It turns out that he has a principled position, why he does not want to start a social network for himself, why this is a great evil, and so on. This is an interesting position.
From what was born [the name] “Well, pa-ap”: [in response] to the rhetoric “You are with your computers and social networks, everything in the phones is furious”. It is clear that this was: "Well, Dad, finish, better learn something yourself."
I do not know whether it comes with age or with the depth and quality of your conversations with dad and a person from another generation. Now I see why. He said: “Imagine, in the 90s I am a healthy man for 40 years with lots of ideas, - he is really a creative person - suddenly at some point I understand that all the technologies have missed me. Suddenly, from somewhere all phones appeared, computers, social networks. And I just sat down and realized that I did not have time. ”
This position seemed to me quite interesting. And here I already think: “Okay, 50–60 years will come to me. How will all this develop? ”Maybe everyone will go to Tik Tok in general, in which I don’t understand anything. There, the children themselves put masks on their faces, and this, of course, is generally past us, apparently. It is also very interesting to extrapolate to your future and to think about how we will live and how to build communications. I think this is important.
A: Does the Pope change any interests or habits at the end of the conversation? Are there any changes? Suddenly he liked something from TV shows or something new?
And: You know, this is my favorite. I recently drove home and witnessed a telephone conversation between my father and his friend.
It was such: “Petrovich, you are sitting here, trying something. Do you know that content is kommoditi? You know that marketing is now counted on such KPIs, and content should actually go for the product, and not vice versa? ”
Further, we have such a story that from time to time he reads something on the Internet and starts writing to me: “Listen, do you know that Twitter launched this and that?”. We also exchange news. I, of course, have a good laugh, but this is cool. You, with your chatter, give birth to a person's interest in understanding how life proceeds today. I put some pieces from my lectures to him, and he tries to figure it out.
This desire to learn - returning to the British and what we believe in - the ideal concept of life-long learning. Especially when this source of education is not just an online course or Moscow Longevity, but an own child who explains to you what he lives for and conveys some knowledge other than personal stories.
I'm just trying to put more emphasis on knowledge, not really going to the individual. Although the transition to the individual - an integral part of our podcast.
A: This is such training in British, outside British, in media, communications, everywhere.
And: It turns out that this is really learning everywhere. This story is very rich in that when you start broadcasting some knowledge outside, [self-doubt arises]. This is not really an impostor complex, I just always have an idea inside — whether I'm talking, whether I'm talking about that, or how I did my “homework” right. This is such a complex pupil - whether I learned everything to be able to talk about this to people.
A: Great. We have made such a thematic circle.
And: Yes, yes.
A: Great, you can round out on such a cool note.
And: Cool, thank you very much.
Our microformat on content marketing:
What do you have in an office like that?
Glyph vs staffer
PS In the profile of glphmedia there are links to all releases of our podcast.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/448838/
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