Family is always and forever

The final post of my blog story; really sad that I naturally have to end it here. However, I am hoping my readers were able to enjoy the blogs and also take few things that can help with their life goals. Your probably thinking come on this guy is talking like he always has a positive attitude towards life, or always motivated. Definitely not! I say this to myself too but I know having a positive attitude towards life consistently is impossible. Many people’s personalities are not traits they are born with but that have been gained through negative events and unfortunate scenarios in life. I do not want to end my final blog in a negative way, but I have a strong feeling that I need to share some of my hardships that nearly brought me to the brink of giving up on many things in life and calling it quit. This was around my second year of Kingston University, there were many rumors of COVID-19 reaching the UK. At first just like any teenager at that time, I did not realize the seriousness behind this underlying news that shattered me as a person. 

Further on the year 2020, March is when a lot of people started to be admitted to hospital, and the pandemic in the UK was taken seriously. Unfortunately, I tragically lost my father in that cruel month because of Covid-19. In my existence, I have never experienced a loss of an important person and especially a man of a great caliber. I always thought in life as much as I loved being independent, that if I inevitably fail I have someone to have my back. It was like I was at an edge of a broken bridge. It does take a lot out of me to be writing about something sensitive as this but further reading on, you will understand it changed me as a person. I believe it did in a good way too. 

After that tragic event, I was completely lost for few months of my life, in the one hand, I was so broken that I thought of not continuing to my final year of University. On the other hand, being the head of the family brought in responsibilities that could not be measured. It was overwhelming, it was completely new to me. However, I did not like this feeling to be down in life for that long. I knew I cant bounce back just like that. I decided to undertake few small steps at a time. I was always a private person who carefully kept things to myself because I did not want to portray myself as someone timid. That thinking changed, the first necessary step was to talk about how I was feeling to my close friends and family. That supported me a lot, so a small burden was of my chest. The next few steps were to continue to the final year, start gym, and work a bit more but not too much. However my most key motivation remain my family, I undoubtedly had no specific goals before this and now I instantly feel like I promptly do for myself and my family. I would love to keep levelling up in my marketing journey and pursue an exceptional career. I also love my family which I believe will by my greatest honour throughout my life. This is something that I would live up to, it is quote from one of my favourite actor: ‘Family is always and forever.’ 

Marketing has been a really exciting and a driven university course for me. In my expressed opinion, it is one of the few academic courses that intentionally allows you to carefully put your unique personality within it while learning the course. I am surprised I have not stated my own definition of marketing; ‘An action process which promotes and sells products to consumers through the use of passion and creativity methods.’ It is essential for marketers to instantly think outside of the box. Data, evidence, research, and many academic/theory factor is important. However, it will be boring without a driven force to convey a product/service through a creative and innovative method. A marketer’s core personality and effective methods will precisely define them rather than their satisfactory results. 

That is my final story in my final blog, writing blogs has made me realise how much I actually enjoyed it. Since writing blogs, I started to read books again and I am also planning to write my own book one day. I would like to thanks my readers for reading my blogs and being part of my journey too. 

Self- Control is a weapon that is learnt through mistakes!

McGonigal(2013), states the first step to improve a person’s self-control, is to recognize why one loses control. Most of the key information that I will universally share about self-control in this selected blog will assuredly come from her publication ‘The willpower instinct’. I have not completed the book, however,  I could assure my audience that this book has changed my intellect on my own understanding of self-control. The book (2013) goes on to emphasize that one should make their own life as a real-world study. The most significant thing is to accept that in many things in our life that we think we have control over is our own mind playing tricks with us. To gain self-control, one must accept his own failures and problems.

As humans, ultimate perfection realistically is out of reach to us all. We all make errors, have bad habits, and some of us repeat these over and over again. Scarcely let this be smoking, drinking alcohol, making life mistakes, hurting people, being selfish and cold-hearted. The terrible temptation of replicating some of these mistakes/personal habits can endure a hard battle, I have been there and nevertheless enduring it. When the first few attempts of self-control willfully fails, it could severely strain someone’s willpower. This leads to losing our temper; this can make a person wonder if self-control really a good weapon to have in life. However, to undoubtedly gain something extraordinary like self-control to the highest level, we have to intentionally keep trying even if we have to keep attempting a hundred times (McGonigal, 2013).

However, life always gives a self-checkpoint, where it allows us to self-reflect and gives us countless opportunities to change. On the other hand, to reach this checkpoint, we must be aware of our own downfalls instead of being egoistic about it. Once we stop telling ourselves: I have this under control, I am not addicted, I will set about reducing or stopping sometime soon. The moment we accept our mistakes and start establishing steps to self-control, the sooner we grow and mentally get healthier. The really amusing thing about self-control is that it is a never-ending journey; we control one bad habit, but situations like lockdown can trigger us to start another. We must realise that we keep learning through changes, we keep improving to face another brick wall, and managing our emotions and habits throughout this journey of life will enable us to gain new skills and also develop our patience.

If you have read my previous blogs, it is pretty clear that I am a aspiring marketer. Self-control is a must in this field, because one must learn to control his emotions from facts and statistics when producing effective campaigns or when dealing with clients. The more I learn to control my own impulses, the better I will get on looking at the bigger picture. Especially when leading a team, emotions must be controlled or the whole group can fall apart. One scenario that I would like to share with you was during my second year. Some of the team members were experiencing some personal problems, which is completely understandable because we all have these. I started to get really annoyed when the team deadlines kept getting pushed back. The group morale went down of the way I got annoyed. That is when, I realised the most charismatic leader is not someone who orders, but someone that helps and shift the negative energy into a positive one. I started to manage my emotions better during the third year team work and all the team members was happy. I am far from mastering self-control and I realised the fact mastering self-control is not a destination. ‘Success is not a destination, success is a journey.’

Reference

McGonigal, K. (2013) The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It. Stanford University. 

The opening of my marketing journey

Moving on from the marketing in football and the pandemic crisis, I thought it will be interesting to let my readers know why I decided to study marketing and how my journey started. Before Kingston university, I was studying computer science bachelors at Coventry University. Did I like it? No. Did I enjoy studying the course? No, it was not my cup of tea. I always knew throughout my first year that I could not express myself the way I am in this course. I did not like the idea of coding for hours. I did not feel any personal level of satisfaction. A change was needed, but it took me till the very end of my first year to finally understand I can not keep going on with studying a course that I was not passionate about. 

Coventry University enabled me to understand that I have an interest in Marketing. The university enforces every student to do a mandatory module that does not need to relate to the course that is being studied. At the start, I wanted to learn Japanese because I’m a crazy anime fan. I could not do that because I was too late and the module was full. So, I ended up choosing marketing and presentation. I was taught the basics of the module for about one whole semester and in the end, I was tested through a presentation. Funny enough, just like my previous blog post I talked about Messi. By the end of the presentation, I was surprised to see the whole class applauding me and the lecturer said she was shocked. She said you have a pathway in selling and that I should look into marketing. 

When a marketing lecturer advises me to look into the course, it gives me a smile. It makes me understand my strength which I never really looked into until I received that feedback and advice from her. Marketing taught me in the second year to always have a SWOT(strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) plan for a business. However, I wonder if each of us can implement that in our personal life to track our growth and downfalls. In the end, we all trying to be better people through our adventures in life. I consulted with friends and family about changing courses, most of them said to follow what makes you happy and some said Computer science will bring more money. In the end, I chose marketing because it makes me happy. I seriously do not like studying before, but honestly since I started marketing at Kingston university; something changed and I wish I can be a marketing student for more years. Building knowledge is neverending. 

In the end, I feel like I made the right choice changing courses and changing my career path. I changed university because I felt homesick. Two years have already past studying marketing and my first year was wonderful, nothing I will change about it. Second-year of the course was interesting too but on a personal level, 2019-2020 was probably the worst years of life. I will talk about this in my final blog post, It will take a lot of courage to write a blog about it but the lessons learned are my strongest lessons life has given me.

The biggest economical earthquake at FC Barcelona!

As many of you already know that COVID-19 was the biggest nightmare on planet Earth after World Wars. It significantly affected the current society and communities across the world. Many deaths and life-time health injuries. This was not a pleasant time to be living, after all the whole world was fighting an invisible virus. To this day, no vaccine or cure has been found but we have made few protocols collectively to control the virus. There have been many impacts in the world economy like rising unemployment, millions of workers furloughed, the majority of countries on the brink of recession (BBC,2020). Not only daily life and counties have been affected by this but also the sporting industry. One main sport I will be talking about is football through FC Barcelona and the impacts they faced and still facing because of this deadly virus. 

FC Barcelona as stated in the previous blog made the most revenue in 2018/19. However, they were severely affected by the pandemic like many other big clubs. According to Goal(2020), it will be another two/three years of financial problems. Since March the club has made nothing from revenue, let me repeat ‘nothing’. The club was also overwhelmed by the wages and had to take measures to control the salaries of the players. They also lost some money because they had to pay 200 million euros back to the fans. This is because fans that already booked the tickets couldn’t attend games due to Covid-19 protocols. However, the club president had his say and said the club will still keep its position to be number 1 in revenues. If you ask me, he is probably saying it to save his seat as the club president as the election is coming soon.

The major impact in my opinion with marketing and the football club would be budgeting. As mentioned in the above paragraph the club has made £0 revenue from march – August. With no revenue made, they will have to use their budget by cutting down other parts of their structure. 40% of players wages has been cut because of the pandemic, they also decreased their marketing budget. This mean they can’t operate in different marketing channels with big influencing advertising agency and medium. Big campaigns requires higher budgets. This could lead to affect in sales and fan satisfaction will soon drop dramatically. That is the last thing the club needs as fans are left to feel unsatisfied because of the football performance, they would not want to feel unsatisfied from the marketing point of the club too.

To conclude, the impacts COVID-19 had on FC Barcelona helped me to understand to always have marketing strategy for the worse possible scenarios beforehand, which can help to lessen the impacts of a business. Also it made me realize to research a lot about consumer behavioral changes that can maybe never be changed again because of the pandemic. Consumer’s values and satisfaction for different services and products have changed dramatically and failure to adjusting to this has really impacted the club too. Consumers are always the top priority for most businesses, their satisfaction is always important. The pandemic has helped me to realize to not be too comfortable and always think few steps ahead as a future marketer.

References

BBC News (2020) Coronavirus: A Visual Guide To The Economic Impact. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51706225 (Accessed 13 October 2020).

Goal (2020) ‘Barcelona Are The Club Worst Affected By The Coronavirus Crisis’ – Bartomeu Predicts ‘Two To Three Years’ Of Financial Problems. Available at: https://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/barcelona-club-worst-affected-by-coronavirus-bartomeu/zotux27riwe81vkc1mu1m0ok5 (Accessed 13 October 2020).

Is this the biggest storm to hit FC Barcelona?!

Before you marketers get started reading about this sensational topic, I would like to quickly introduce myself. My name is Gavaskar, currently studying marketing final year at Kingston University. I find myself a very passionate person and for me, Marketing enables me to share my passion in a professional manner. On top of that, FC Barcelona is my favorite football team and Lionel Messi is a role model of mine. I feel like I will find this blog journey throughout the year exciting because I am able to use Marketing to share what I really like. 

FC Barcelona is one of the world’s best football club who right now are going through a crisis and is rebuilding. Messi arguably is the best football player around and maybe the best football player in history. A big storm just hit the football team a few weeks ago, MESSI ANNOUNCED HE WANTS TO LEAVE FC BARCELONA!  You probably thinking what is the big deal, players leave and join another club on a daily. It’s a different case when it comes to Messi and FC Barcelona. He has been playing for them since he was 13. He has officially played for the first team for 15 years now. One man club player is rare to come across and for his status as the best player around it even makes it more special. Why was FC Barcelona going to lose an alien of a player? 

Since 2014, the team only won one UEFA Champions league, this is a trophy to determine the best team in Europe. However, it was not the player’s fault, most of the blame went to the board. Their organizational structure and sporting project for the first team were shambles and disorganized. This started to show on the pitch slowly through the defeats: 3-0 in Rome, 4-0 in Anfield, and 8-2 against Bayern Munich. For a big team like Barcelona, these results were shambolic and utterly embarrassing. Many fans including myself were left to one of their lowest emotion as a football fan. I was boiling while watching the 8-2 loss, to make things worse I was watching it with a group of friends and they took banter to another level. I hate to admit but the atmosphere and feeling losing did not feel nice at all. However the most broken was Lionel Messi, he decided enough is enough. He needed a new challenge, an exciting sporting project that will help him lift the beautiful Champions League trophy again.

Messi is an icon in the football world along with Cristiano Ronaldo. Messi was named the world’s marketable athlete in 2020 (SportsPro, 2020). Half of the FC Barcelona fanbase is there because of Messi. He is a brand image itself to the world and losing such a powerful brand in a player will leave Barcelona in serious trouble. His popularity has boosted the football club’s popularity significantly over the years. This increased sponsors. Their main sponsors are Nike and Rakuten, but they are many logos scattered around Nou Camp (FCBarcelona, 2020). These sponsors and also his popularity increases kit sales. Barcelona made the most out of revenue among all the clubs in 2019 (Statista, 2019).  FC Barcelona would not only lose a great talent like Messi on the pitch but also a brand off the pitch. Kit sales will decrease, sponsors might pull out, they might not attract good sponsors. This will all lead to a significant revenue downfall and a decrease in fans is also a huge concern for big football clubs. After all the panic, did Lionel Messi leave? 

Fortunately, he did not leave but he was forced to stay. Every player has a release clause in their contract at Barcelona and his was 700 million euros. That means any other club that wants to buy Messi has to pay Barcelona 700 million euros, that is impossible. Many clubs finance situations have also been damaged heavily by the COVID-19 pandemic. I will be talking about how the pandemic has affected FC Barcelona in one of the upcoming blogs. 

To conclude my first blog post, I find it really interesting to write about something you really like. Brand manager is what I would love to be in the future of the marketing sector, influencers like Messi help me understand anything or anyone can be a powerful brand. It helps me to engage the marketing crisis right now in the current world, let it be a powerful person, or even because of the pandemic and how it deeply affects a big organizational structured club-like FC Barcelona. These blogs will allow me to also understand how to solve hard situations and give me insights into what I will face in my pursuing career in branding.

References

Fcbarcelona (2020) FC Barcelona | Official Website. Available at: https://www.fcbarcelona.com/en/ (Accessed 6 October 2020).

Sportspromedia (2020) Lionel Messi Named World’S Most Marketable Athlete. Available at: https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/lionel-messi-worlds-most-marketable-athlete-50mm-social-media-instagram#:~:text=International%20soccer%20icon%20Lionel%20Messi,Marketable%20Athletes%20powered%20by%20Nielsen (Accessed 6 October 2020).

Statista (2020) Football Clubs Revenue Ranking 2018/19 | Statista. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/271581/revenue-of-soccer-clubs-worldwide/ (Accessed 6 October 2020).