Demonstrating Commercial Awareness in the Creative Industries: Academic and Practitioner Sources

The purpose of this assignment is to review your ability to demonstrate your commercial awareness within the context of the creative industries using research from academic and practitioner sources.  

You are required to build a portfolio of evidence that shows your understanding of what’s going in the creative industries. You will create a portfolio, relevant to you, based on several job roles that you are likely to apply for in the future. You need to demonstrate that you understand aspects of your industry within marketing and advertising, what the trends are and how organisations are addressing trends based on academic and practitioner viewpoints.

Your portfolio takes the same process of a potential a job interview: If you were asked to talk about the industry, what do you know and what do you think will happen (trends). You start broad with information of the creative industries which you could update as you move through your career, then  you focus on your area of interest.

 You can use any layout as this is your portfolio. Below are suggestions to support you.

Layout suggestion 1:

• Brief introduction to the portfolio, yourself and the creative industries (and your chosen area).
• Role of organisations involved in the marketing and advertising, within the UK creative industries
  • Visualisation of the principle actors /stakeholders involved in the creative industries in the UK
• Current trends impacting on organisations involved in marketing and advertising industry
  • Key trends impacting on your area of choice (within creative industries and/or marketing&advertising)
• At least 2 practitioner view points on the identified trends
• Evaluation of solutions to identified challenges (use trends to support you) faced by marketing and advertising organisations
• Conclusion/ Reflection on portfolio and how you see the future
  • (The reflection can be written in first person, everything else should be in third person.)
• References
• Appendix.

Layout suggestion 2:

• Brief introduction to portfolio
  • Introduce yourself and explain what are the creative industries
• a) Demonstrate an understanding of the operations and functions of organisations involved in the creative industries /marketing and advertising (consider your chosen job role).
• Create a collage or mindmap of the key organisations in your area/sector
• A visualisation of the principle actors/stakeholders involved in the creative industries in the UK
• b) Identify and analyse trends impacting on organisations involved in marketing and advertising // c) Demonstrate an understanding of discussions of current trends in appropriate practitioner sources and academic literature
  • Explain what are the current trends impacting organisations in the marketing and advertising industry
  • Explore key trends impacting on your area of choice (within creative industries and/or marketing & advertising)
  • Include at least 2 practitioner view points on the identified trends

• d) Critically evaluate current real-world solutions being applied to identified current internal and external environmental challenges impacting on marketing and advertising.
  • Evaluate solutions to identified challenges/trends faced
• Conclusion/ Reflection on portfolio and how you see the future
  • (The reflection can be written in first person, everything else should be in third person.)
• References
• Appendix.