School of Design

Branding and brand communications, particularly in relation to achieving organizational strategic, commercial and communication objectives; building brands and visually articulating values to create a desirable brand personality; managing consumer expectations; how to achieve brand sustainability.

Books

• Sheedy M (2011) The Phaidon Compendium of Graphic Design.

  Written 18 entries which are critiques of significant examples of advertising, branding, graphic design and typography from the early 20th century to today.

Conferences

• McEntaggart P; Sheedy M "Once Upon a Paradigm Shift. Cybercultures

  A story gives the gift of human attention, connecting us and touching our hearts to make us feel alive.(A. Simmons, 2006) The human brain looks for patterns in sound such as speech and music, in images it finds colours and shapes, recognising these patterns gives meaning. Just as we look for these patterns, it can be said that we also look for them in our lives and experiences and it is these wider patterns that we call stories. Stories are a large part of our lives, helping us to understand who we are and where we have come from, by creating, telling and re-telling them we can discern meaning and understand from our changing world. The technological change we have seen in recent years has been immense, affecting all aspects of communication. This research will consider why stories are an important part of communication, how they have developed over the years and explore storytelling within the context of our digital future.

• Sheedy M; McEntaggart, P "On or Off - is traditional media dead or just lying dormant". European Foundation for Commercial Communications in Education

  Following the huge growth in on-line media and subsequent transfer of advertising budgets away from off-line to on-line, is this about to foretell the imminent demise of traditional media or indicate a move towards an infinitely more sophisticated form of integrated communications? Or will Pepsi's decision to withdraw from TV spot advertising at the 2010 Super Bowl (WARC News 02. 02. 10) be the pivotal moment that sounds the death knell for traditional advertising media. It is an axiom that Advertisers and their budgets follow consumers wherever they gravitate. Therefore it would seem logical to assume that in the same way that the age of urbanization of communities created the circumstances where the public poster became the king of communication and that as consumers spent more of their leisure time at home so followed the golden age of TV. So will the new digital world of social media create the golden age of the internet where advertisers clamor to join or create social networking sites as the method of engagement with consumers? Whilst on-line provides unprecedented opportunities for interaction and developing personal, one-to-one and long term relationships with consumers brands compete to attain the holy grails of 'word of mouth' and 'consumer generated content'. Better still, it's also an ideal place to display your green or ethical credentials and demonstrate your commitment to corporate social responsibility. Indeed Pepsi's reasoning for ceasing to advertise at the Super Bowl after 25 years is to raise the profile of its 'Pepsi Refresh Project' by utilising its own website and other on-line activities, not something that it felt could be communicated as effectively by employing the traditional media of the TV commercial, no matter how large the captive but passive audience. The irony is that on-line, the most measureable and accurate data collection tool ever, ends up delivering the vague and hopeful 'engagement' and 'brand awareness'; neither of which are accurate measures in respect of sales purchasing patterns. The question is; how long will it be before media savvy, cynical consumers see through the "greenwash" and turn away from brand led social networking and "doing good" sites and will it be left to traditional media continue to "sell" products whilst on-line pursues the "black gold" of consumer data? Perhaps Apple found the right solution of on-line e commerce stores selling digital products combined with advertising campaigns utilising traditional media (Outdoor, Press and TV), whilst Tesco's Clubcard set the ground rules for all brands on-line; stop selling and start collecting.