ROCOL Marketing Communications Executive, Shaun Heys, has visited Beckfield Coop Primary in Leeds to talk to Year 6 students about marketing and branding.
The class, led by its teacher Mr. Phillips, have been working on a project to design, cost and develop a business plan to build a theme park in the school’s playground.
The aim of the day was to introduce the concepts of marketing and branding so that the children could incorporate them into their theme park plans. After an exercise looking at the logos that rollercoasters use and the target audience for them Shaun discussed the feeling that a brand can give you and the message that it leaves you with.
He also used examples of ROCOL branding to talk about consistency across as well as how shapes and colours can represent a message or provide information about a company.
“The children’s enthusiasm to create something from scratch was inspiring and their ability to pull apart and understand famous brands, understand why they exist and the implications for the business was insightful,” commented Shaun.
The session rounded off with a Q&A session, with Shaun being grilled on things such as what makes a good slogan, what colours should a brand use and his favourite brand. The children also picked their favourite brands and talked about why they are so effective. “This was really great to get the kids thinking about how they could create good ideas and questions for their own theme parks,” added Shaun.
The task for the class is to finish their logos and general branding for their theme parks with Shaun providing further help as they come to final designs.
Year 6 teacher, Matt Phillips, said of the day, “The children really enjoyed seeing a concept brought to life, they always have more enthusiasm when a project is in context and Shaun’s ability to communicate fairly complex subject material on their level really helped. They’re now really excited to put what they’ve learnt into practice as they form their own brand for a theme park.”
Mr Phillips went on to add, “Having guest speakers in to talk to the children adds credibility as they love hearing and finding out things from people who live it day to day. As a teacher I’m always keen to draw on any expertise I can offer children in a range of life experiences, both in and out of school, to broaden their horizons and give them as many options as they can in their education and life beyond.
“Following Shaun’s visit, several of the class have mentioned marketing and branding as a field that they might want to work in when they are older. Previously, this was outside their frame of reference.”
