Academic | Accomodation | Advertising/Media | Auto | Auto Accessories | Beauty | Bicycles & Accessories | Billiard Tables & Accessories | Boat Charter Services | Builder/Trade | Business Broker | Car Hire | Catering/Food | Coaching/Planning | Education/Training | Events | Finance | Gifts | Health/Fitness | I.T/Networking | Industrial | Landscaping | Manufacturing | Party Hire | Photography | Private Client | Promotions | Retail/Distribution | Signwriters | Tourism | Web Services | Weddings | Weighing Equipment | Contained brand new elements of Media Technology that were different from previous units. Unit Co-ordinator Kim Rasmussen notified students of this change in a lecture. These new changes have no doubt brought many benefits to the creative industries faculty.

However, I believe that it is because of this situation, that there was a large degree of confusion for Tutors and students alike. Many students have expressed this feeling to me also. The problems I encountered can be listed in 5 parts: 1) Firstly, assignment requirements were not clearly defined by Tutors, Tutorials or Criteria Sheets: P3 is an exact printout of the Assignment 2 criteria sheet from the QUT OLT site. It nowhere states that additional experimentation with the technologies will gain extra marks, or that a lack of experimentation would result in a loss of marks. When I further enquired about how far we are expected to experiment with the technology my Tutor replied that we would get extra marks for experimenting beyond the Advertising/media’s teachings, but that we would not loose marks if we did not; since it is not a requirement.

P4 is an exact printout of the marked assignment 2, in which I have lost five marks for not experimenting further with the technologies. SUMMARY By involving the consumer in the development of communication and by a determination to find a benefit for picture messaging, planning uncovered a consumer insight which led to an original and motivating communication proposition. This in turn led to differentiated and highly creative communication which spoke directly to its intended audience and revealed a role of picture messaging that singled out Virgin Advertising/media as the one brand that really understood its audience and how they messaged one another. Its relevance to the planning debate is that pushing to find consumer benefits, even when a brand has a personality that is enough to distinguish it, will produce more relevant, motivating and better creative work.