names and myspace

We had to decide on a name and after much deliberation and research we decided on lantern creative. At first I thought it was perfect but now I’m not 100% sure of it. I think that it may not pack enough punch. It was a very difficult task, we kept in mind the fact that we really don’t want prospective customers to look us up on the internet and find another agency called lantern creative/design or advertising we wouldn’t want people to confuse us with another business. Overcoming the issue of finding a name that wasn’t taken was much more difficult than we expected!

I have started up a myspace page
http://www.myspace.com/lanterncreative

The purpose of this page will be to look into the kinds of people/youth in the Albury area and its surrounds. This will provide some excellent insight to one of our key markets. It will also be a way to be in contact with local media such as street press and local creatives and industry people. It will help us overcome the issue of distance.

the business plan comp.

Finally I can long in to my word press account without Safari closing down! Don’t know what was going on.
Well it has been an insane week, I’ve been working like crazy, Nat is down from Sydney again and mum put the pressure on to finish the house. It was so good to hand in the comm. Rev. essay. I feel I almost went insane last week! In terms of ‘The business’ I have been analysing naming and thinking about the design and visual aspects of our identity. It needs to identify us, look professional, unique and modern and needs appeal to our audience.

I entered the RMIT business plan competition, the entry took no less than nine hours to complete. Hopefully we get back some good feedback and get to the next stage, it would be amazing to get a head start with some cash flow and advice.

Following are the questions and answers that I submitted.

RMIT BUSINESS COMPETITION – Questions & Answers

What is your business opportunity?

Describe the business opportunity in terms of the product or service, and what need or desire will be met. What specific market(s) is your venture seeking to penetrate? Is there a specific time frame or window of opportunity in which to act?

A shortage of advertising services in rural Australian areas means that business owners in country areas such as Albury/Wodonga are posed with the inconvenience of having to source advertising work from agencies in other cities such as Melbourne and Sydney which is highly inconvenient and as is the case for all but the largest businesses, is not likely to happen. Almost all creative heads which live in these areas move to larger cities find work where there are more jobs and money. Our team will start up an agency to service these clients who are lacking.

Why have you been attracted to this opportunity?

How and why was the opportunity identified? How does your idea or venture address this opportunity? Is the opportunity a result of market failure, consumer dissatisfaction, technology breakthrough or any other reason?

We came across the opportunity as my partner Verity had moved to Albury temporarily. She was present at the filming of a commercial for a local business and began talking to a member of the film crew. In conversation the member from the film crew was complaining about the lack of advertising and media services in the area. We carried out some investigation and discovered that there were no significant ‘advertising agencies’ doing creative or interesting work in the area.
A trend has arisen which has seen the move of creatives from the country to larger cities. This has created a gap in the advertising sector, consumers are not identifying with the advertising currently being done.
We would like to take this opportunity to do something inventive.

Provide a profile of a typical customer for your product/service? Is your customer and the end user the same entity? If not then explain the distinction.

He has a family and works hard to keep his business afloat and everything together. He worries about what the future holds for Albury and the surrounding areas but is proud of where he is from. He worries about things such as water shortages and the trends he sees occurring as youth move from the area. He is quite conservative in his thinking and does not feel too comfortable taking risks. He still believes that Albury has a lot to offer but that residents must work together to progress. Our customer is the business needing the communicative work but our end users are the population of Albury/Wodonga and surrounding towns. We have already created a website for an Albury client it has been a great success!

Why would customers purchase your product / service and not the product / service of your competitors
What are the needs of your prospective customers, and how will you meet them? Who are your potential competitors, and what does your venture offer that they do, or cannot offer to the market? What are the points of differentiation between your venture and existing and potential competitors? How are/can these points of differentiation be made apparent to your market?

Our customers need communicative work that the end users will identify with. We have the ability to create imaginative concepts and inventive ways of reaching these end users. Our customers will be likely to use our service as the services currently available to them are not up to scratch and can not offer them a complete service. For example those in the area who do web creation do not have any design background or our competitors offering marketing services do not offer any unique or creative branding. We will launch a campaign around these areas to gain awareness of these issues and ensure that business owners are aware of the possibilities they are currently don’t have. The campaign will take the form of ambient media, direct mail and print.

What is the Vision for your business? How are you going to achieve your vision? How much time do you believe you need to achieve your vision?

Given access to adequate resources, what will your business look like in the future? What form and in which markets will the business be trading? What is the scale, scope and status of your venture? What resources (from investors – which include yourselves) do you need to achieve your vision and how will you use them? When do you expect to achieve your vision?

In the near future we envision that our business will consist a base office located in Albury. This will only be open to the public on certain particular days. We will also have a virtual office running continuously and have the capacity to travel to clients when they can not come to us. Future projections and expansion will also include an office in Melbourne. We will be trading in various markets as we will have clients from numerous different areas. We will be operating in the communication field and will be involved in print, radio, television, the ambient market and online.

As we will be outsourcing most of the production we will need limited resources to begin our venture. We will need two Mac laptops, the programs to carry out our production and management, a car, a location for our office, a camera and two phones. We will need to cover the costs of our initial launch campaign, our website hosting and the printing of our business cards

Have you considered Intellectual Property protection?

Please provide details, if any, of Intellectual Property ownership and structure.

We have considered trade marking our business logo, name and tagline. We will also have to consider copywriting our ideas and the work we produce. As we are not releasing any forms of new technology I don’t believe we have to worry about patents at this stage.

What (if any) are the significant achievements of the venture to date? What is the significance and implications of these achievements?

We have brainstormed and created various visual ideas for our business’ identity. We have developed some of these designs to a standard worthy of production. We have also created an initial website front page.

We have successfully created and put into practice a website for a client in Albury, BF panels. It is currently running and doing the job it set out to. This signifies that we are competent in carrying out real projects from conceptual stage through the production stages and following the process through on to ongoing management.

What resources do you need to take your product/service to market in order to generate revenue?

What is required and what is the strategy to achieve a regular revenue stream? When can this be achieved?

Initially we will gain interest through our launch campaign which will incorporate direct mail, print, ambient and possibly viral advertising. Our campaign will involve mass saturation to get people talking and generate some hype. We hope they will then contact us via phone or our website.

We will also personally pitch what we can offer to prospective clients who we believe can benefit greatly from our service. We will pitch to them gradually rather that all at once as this will give us a manageable amount of work. I forecast that to begin with we would take on one job a fortnight depending on the size of the job. This would gradually increase as we establish a more efficient smooth running production, we would not want to try to take on too much too soon. We would be able to begin this process as soon as our website is up and running and we have organized the logistics of our office and setup.

Over the next 12 to 18 months how will you be involved in the running of the business?

Over the next 12-18 months we will be sourcing and pitching to new clients, we will be coming up with creative briefs, concepts and strategy. We will also be involved in the creative process and production. There is the possibility that we could outsource some of the art work and production. We will be the directors of the business. We will handle the organization and the production ourselves although some we will source through some our contacts and network.

What sort of professional assistance do you believe you need (if any) over the next 12-18 months

Professional assistance will usually relate to technical expertise, financial and legal advice (including Intellectual Property protection) and marketing and public relations campaigns.

We will need professional legal advice as we will be dealing with contracts and it will be necessary as we protect ourselves to avoid possible misunderstandings and problems. We will be dealing with intellectual property in terms of our ideas, copyright and trade marking. We will need an accountant and assistance for putting in place our financial systems. We will also need advice on dealing with the companies that sell the media space we need. Professionals will need to be contracted out as we need them for particular jobs. For example, we will need to have work professionally printed, recorded and or filmed.

Who are the current management team and other key people associated with your business?

Is the management team also the owner/s of the venture? Is there an advisory board or mentor to the business? What are the academic, commercial and technical backgrounds of key personnel? Who is the primary driver of the venture?

Myself and Verity Kowal are the management team and joint owners of the venture. One of our advisors is Shelley Kirby. She is a lecturer at RMIT and holds in depth experience in all of the areas which we are intending to enter. She specializes in web design and online advertising. Myself and Verity are the primary drivers and have had the support of lecturers at the university in terms of them believing that our idea will be achievable and relevant. We also have a network which we can call on if we need to, this network involves people such as photographers another creative team consisting of an art director and copywriter, makeup artist and event manager. Verity’s specialization is Copywriting and mine is Art Direction. We form a strong team who have proven over our years at RMIT that together we work well and efficiently. Over our time at RMIT we have learnt to put into practice all of the things involved in our business from conceptual stages to final outcome.

What is the individual and collective commercial and technical skill and experience of these key people? What is their degree of industry knowledge, and is anyone familiar or experienced in the commercialization process, including fund raising and dealing with external investors?

In 5.1 I touched on the key technical skills that we posses. My mentor Shelley has in depth industry knowledge and experience, although I am not certain to what extent she has dealt with investors. I have a close personal associate who was a previous partner of Sydney advertising agency Brand House. He will be able to assist in providing us with key industry knowledge.

What gaps exist in the skills of the management team and how are these skill requirements going to be resolved in the near future?

The skills required to grow the venture will vary, but will generally be management skills rather than technical skills.

As we have not managed a business before we will need some assistance in terms of business models that will work and the logistics of how to work things efficiently. We will need to put systems into place for many things so that we can get things done on time and in a precise and professional manner.

What, if any, are the core values and guiding principles of your organization?

What core values determine the way in which you will conduct this business? For example is strategy and risk exposure determined by collective agreement or by one person? Is the business based on environmentally sound or socially aware practices?

We will have a code of ethics that we will adhere to in terms of the ways in which we deal with clients and also the manner we approach our work. We have a responsibility to society to keep the work we do in a morally correct stance. We will avoid things that are detrimental to society for example glamorizing drugs. People already have a negative attitude towards advertising and will be skeptical if not resentful of our industry. We hope to change people’s attitudes towards advertising and discover that it can be something moving, exciting and fun.
We will collaborate on all of our strategic approaches and be in close communication with our clients. Our strategy will be based on one key thing. Research. Research will form the basis for work that is on target and will be the fundamental before undertaking any task.

How will you ensure focus and commitment from your team?

We will maintain close communication and meet regularly to discuss where we are, and where we are headed. We will ensure that we remain focused by sticking to our planning and keeping things in line with our briefs. Of which will be based on thorough research.

What is your core product/service?

What is the base product/service that your venture sells or will sell? What are the benefits to the customer? ? Do you have/ need repeat sales to the same customer group, or are new customers required for every sale?

Our main product/service is providing our clients with a memorable and relevant identity and or campaign. Most of out clients do not have any strong branding or visual identity, we aim to develop this for them along with creative marketing concepts that will work to enable their positive recognition in the marketplace. This may involve all of or some of these things: business name, logo, tagline, brand identity, website, signage, print ads, brochures, direct mail, radio, TVC, ambient media and or e marketing.

We hope to establish successful relationships with our clients and have them come back to us whenever the need arises for them to develop or rethink their strategies.

Do you have a strategy to enter the market and to generate sustainable revenue?

It is imperative that a strategy of speed to market be employed. Sustained revenue generation is the primary milestone of any early stage venture.

Our strategy to enable the generation of sustainable revenue will focus on organization and timing. We will need to have reliable and professional production contacts to ensure things are completed on schedule. We will also have to have strict deadlines and be consistently looking ahead to prepare for the next incoming project. We will manage our flow of work so we do not find ourselves with too little work or too much at any one given time. We have experienced the task of having to pace ourselves throughout our course and I believe that we have successfully developed the ability to multitask which will be vital in sustaining our business.

How reliant is the development, production and delivery of your product or service on others within your industry supply chain? Can any strategy be developed to minimize this reliance on the supply chain?

The success of our business does not rely greatly on a chain of supply. We do however need to rely on our imaginations and creative outlets. There will be substantial pressure to ensure we have a continuous stream of ideas.

Explain the market environment including size, maturity, level of competitive intensity and barriers to entry.

What is the scale and scope of your market? What are the dynamics and influences in your market?

The market we are looking at is relatively small at the present time although it does cover a very large physical area. Currently it is not very mature creatively. There is potential although from what we have observed there is a great lack in direction. I think we are in a fantastic position as people seem to be eager for something new. I think that we may encounter some cultural barriers and will have to make a conscious effort not to alienate our audience or seem as though we feel to be superior.

Identify your key competitors, outlining points of differentiation. What, if anything, makes your competitors successful?

What is the competitive environment of your market? Do you understand who your competitors are, and in what context you compete?

Competitors of ours in would include marketing, web creation, and graphic design businesses mainly within the cities and towns in the areas we are looking at. We would also have some competition from advertising and design agencies from Melbourne and Sydney

Marketing mechanics is a Sydney business which advertises through Albury’s yellow pages. It offers an online service. One of the key advantages we will have over them is that we will have direct contact with clients as will be actually based in Albury. We will also be able to offer competitive pricing and a personal approach. John Jewell Design is a graphic design agency. It offers brand identity services and specializes in web design work. It is not a key competitor though as they specialize in the wine industry exclusively doing communication design and identity for wineries. Marketing mechanics based in Sydney and John Jewell Design were the only business we discovered doing work that we considered of high standard. Other supposed advertising agencies such as Albury Design Group don’t have websites and are doing work but not of the caliber which we are setting out to achieve.

What are the market distribution channels for your product/service? How are you going to access these?

How will customers purchase your product/service, and how will you reach them? What strategic linkages have to be achieved to ensure adequate distribution of your product/service to market?

Customers/ Clients will purchase our advertising services directly through us. We will reach them through a launch campaign and ongoing marketing. We will also be featured in the yellow pages so that they can find us should they search. We will have a network in place to distribute our campaign to offer a broad reach.

How much working capital do you have and how much do you need? What will you use these funds for?

How much capital do you believe you will need to source over the next 18 months in order to develop and launch your product/service to achieve a profitable and sustainable market presence? How much cash does the company currently have, and how much cash is readily accessible from alternate sources?

Over the next 18 months we will need capital for the following.
Advertising in the yellow pages, approx $2300
The purchase of two Mac laptops $5000
Adobe creative suite $500
A car $5000
Website hosting $260
The purchasing of our domain names $100
Our initial launch campaign $1000
Business cards $250

What do you believe are the primary obstacles to achieving success in your business?

What obstacles are due to a lack of internal resources and to the market environment? What are the broad strategies to overcome these?

I think that the key obstacle that we will have to overcome will have be to gain the trust and respect of our customers. Our audience is quite skeptical and may initially think that we do not understand them. Verity’s background will greatly assist in shifting this trend as she was born and grew up in Albury, she is very familiar with the people and the place. We will also face an obstacle in terms of distance. We will need to be very organized as we live in Melbourne and it will take planning to travel to Albury, we will need to make our trips there as productive as possible.

We need to acknowledge that the initial stages will probably be relatively slow as people get to know us. We will be able to overcome these obstacles. We know we will have to work hard and are prepared to put in as much effort as it takes to make our business a success.