During the project meeting held in Vilnius, students visited a branch of Nielsen, the famous international company that does research on consumers' attitudes in more than 100 countries in order to provide an overall evaluation of international trends as far as marketing of products is concerned. The Nielsen people attempt to correlate consumers with the ways they can be addressed taking their needs into consideration. The company adopts an interactive approach towards consumers so as to better promote a product. At the company's premises the students took part in a workshop which helped them to familiarise themselves with the idea of 'marketing'. Mrs Giedre, who was head of the marketing department of the company, explained the role of 'marketing' in getting the message over to the right people and thus influencing their preferences with a view to optimizing the sales of a product. She highlighted that the constituent parts of marketing  is approach, coordination and response. Through examples students realised that selling purposes for any product can be achieved by advertising since it targets consumers' buying interest and perception.

Finally, Mrs Giedre revealed that what makes advertising successful is the catalytic effect it can have on a target group. A commercial should be neither too long nor too short. It can consist of a plot lasting from 20 seconds to some minutes. Mrs Giedre's presentation was very informative and gave students the opportunity to acquire valuable knowledge in order to prepare for their which was to create their own commercials for the products selected by each national team.

As it turned out, Mrs Giedre’s presentation was developed with its theoretical part applied on students’ group work. They were encouraged to come up with ground-breaking concepts behind which every group would create their different adverts for the same product selected by the instructor. During each phase of the process, everyone in each group felt free to contribute to their final decision on meeting the criteria set by the instructor. Additionally, they took turns to justify their choices on marketing policies, while speculations about group work were made not only by Mrs Giedre, but also by the rest of the groups. Mrs Giedre kept reminding students of the target audience they addressed and the extent to which the needs of that group could be satisfied by means of a particular marketing strategy. The students focused on working out ways in order to produce an advert for a selected product which consumers would find a compelling reason for buying. The results were outstanding, whereas Mrs Giedre acknowledged students’ maturity and professional attitude.

Here is a detailed account of the practical part of the presentation as described by the Greek group:

 

Specifically, our visit to the Nielsen Company was a very useful experience for us, as we gained so much knowledge about advertising and marketing generally. We learned that it is indeed hard to persuade someone to buy your product even if you are 100% sure and ready to contrast about it. Firsty Ms Giedre welcomed us with a brιef greeting and then she continued with a small presentation of what  marketing is, why we need it and how we make an advert interesting. She began showing us world famous ads like coca-cola’s and let us discuss them. She highlighted the points that made those ads good and appealing to people. The discussion about the ads came to an end when we had to

pick a favourite one. The decision wasn’t easy but we managed to choose one as we had to move on to the next part which was to make our own ads using all the tips we had learned.

Ms Giedre split us into three groups and told us to make a commercial for apple jam. When time was up, a spokesperson for each team had to present it to the rest. The first group shows a beautiful woman followed by hordes of men and as she is walking, she appears with the apple jam on her hand implying that her beauty secret is hidden in that jar. The second one presents a mom with her son doing their shopping at a supermarket when he starts nagging her about that apple jam VERY much until his mom agrees to buy it. After that the next “scene” is at the boy’s house where  mom is preparing breakfast and her son can’t wait to  taste it. This ad closes with the boy being so happy to be tasting the jam. The third group shows us a boy’s transformation into a supernatural hero such as the Superman once he has tasted the particular apple jam which has provided him with both mental and physical skills. When all the groups were over, we discussed the pros and cons of each advert and we voted for the best.To conclude, Mrs Giedre’s presentation is one of the best we’ve ever been to and we can say that she has influenced us about our further studies. She kept giving  examples about everything she was referring to, she also used slides to project information on and  finally, she gave us the chance to take part in this activity instead of simply watching her carefully. She definitely knew how to keep us on the edge of our seats.