I am applying for admission to the Master programme in Creative & Cultural Entrepreneurship because I would like to start a new venture in the creative industry. In particular, I am interested in figuring out the way to combine various media channels and storytelling formats to create an engaging experience. The ability to implement and execute innovative ideas in the competitive commercial world is the cornerstone for such a career. I believe that the Programme (with Media & Communications Pathway) would be invaluable in helping me achieve my career goals.
The media industry is one of the most vibrant and exciting industries in the world. In the past few years, I am impressed with the rapid growth of the industry home and abroad: new content, new formats and new platforms spring up constantly. As a student in broadcasting and hosting Communication I am glad to be part of this dynamic industry. Communication and media have truly become an integral part in the modern life. For example, I found many phenomena on social media can be explained by the communication theories. I also found it very beneficial to have a growth mindset and adapt the successes from western countries to serve home audiences. I gained plenty of new ideas from UK’s radio programme, Podcasts and social channels.
In my sophomore year, I joined a student society dedicated to cultural exchange. The society maintained a weekly blog about western culture. The articles were well written but the blog had only a few followers. I thought it was high time to reform the content delivery format in order to have wider reach and deeper engagement with the audience. It naturally occurred to me that we could run a show on Himalaya (a platform similar to YouTube) and post the content to multiple social network channels. My passion and earnest convinced other members, and I initiated an experiment with the new format. At that time, the new episode Harry Potter and the Cursed Child created a huge buzz. I found that to be a great opportunity. Hence, the first show on our channel was an in-depth discussion about the story and characters in the Harry Potter series. In the show I also invited the viewers to share their favourite scene or line in the comments. The debut turned out to be a great success. In addition to attracting three times more subscribers than we used to have, the new format allowed us to interact and engage the audience better. We found many interesting and insightful comments and decided that we should continue this way. Till today, the society have produced over fifty shows covering topics ranging from the review of the new Tomb Raider release to the me-too movement on social media.
Though we had a good starting point, the journey with the show hadn't always been easy. Unlike writing blog posts, producing shows requires considerable amount of capital. Before long, the student society ran out of budget and we had to postpone the production. At that time, I realized that a successful creative practice must be financially sustainable in order to survive let alone thrive. My first idea was the patron model: we ask the viewers to sponsor us. But before long it turned out only very few people were willing to become a patron and our viewer base was not large enough to support this model. My alternative idea was to obtain corporate sponsorship in exchange for showing their commercials. I decided to focus on the business whose target customer overlaps with our viewer base, the college students in town. Most businesses were simply not interested, but at last I manage to convince a Korean-style fried chicken shop to be our first sponsor.
Getting the first sponsor was encouraging, but building a long-lasting relation with the sponsor so that they would sponsor next time was still a challenge. From my observation, the problem was that many businesses found it very hard to measure the effect and profitability of the commercials. After some research, I found a well-implemented solution to ad tracking and attribution. We immediately applied the solution, and the performance of the commercials became fully transparent. With all the KPIs at hand, the business are now happy to continue the sponsorship. It also helped me build the case when I approach new sponsors.
Those activities that I participated is one of the most profitable experience I have in 2017. As the person who charged publicity works, my classmates and I gave a theatrical performance for charity. With the mode how I got sponsor before, the financial part is obvious easier to deal with. Only the post design for spreading is a new one for me, fortunately, one of my teammate got my back, she taught me basic PS skill and offered advice of content factors, which supported me to go much further. Also, The Haixi Art Festival, The campus Host Competition and The Campus singers, just to name a few, I met many troubles and I learn to solve them all with no excuse and hesitation, which simultaneously showed me many new connections between an activity and its commercial part.
In the final year of my undergraduate study, I came across the idea of Transmedia Storytelling in the Network Culture Communication course. I found this idea, first theorized by Henry Jenkins, deeply intriguing. The thought-provoking theory drove me to think how to combine established media formats such as movie, literature, or even games in an creative way in order to create a fresh and multi-dimensional experience. I have run an experiment with this idea in our culture show. After we aired the show about plastic pollution in the ocean, we organized a workshop for the interested viewers to create visualization and infographics illustrating the urgency of the problem. We then selected the best presentations, reprinted them, and posted them on the school billboards. The on-line show, combined with the off-line workshop and the physical form of posters created a multi-channel narrative that reminds everybody involved of the danger of plastic pollution. Transmedia Storytelling opens up numerous opportunities to engage the audience and I wish I can explore this area further in my further studies in both theoretical and practical aspects.
It is with excitement when I discovered the programme has a course about theories of capital in creative and cultural industries. This is exactly the theoretical foundation I expect to improve. I am always eager to learn new knowledge and transferring it into practices. I also noticed that the entrepreneurial modelling module will allow students to run a project by themselves. It is a great news to me because I have already several vague plans in my mind but I need guidance to carry them out. Another aspect that attracts my interest is the possibility to choose other pathway’s course. I am looking forward to meet different people from other field and we can exchange or combine our mind to create more new thoughts.
My exposure to the real-world challenge to build a sustainable creative practice showed me the potential as well as the challenge of the creative entrepreneurship. At the same time, I desperately feel that I need more business skills in order to achieve my dream. Being able to choose from a large variety of courses and develop entrepreneurial skills makes the Creative & Cultural Entrepreneurship programme stand out. I know that I have only touched the tip of the iceberg of creative entrepreneurship but I am eager to deepen my understanding about this field by further my study at Goldsmith.