Marketing and Communications Officer, Office of Executive Vice President.
American University of Kuwait (AUK)
Total years of experience :16 years, 0 Months
• Develop, implement and evaluate strategies to establish and market the American University of Kuwait as a global educational university to a range of stakeholders, including parents.
• Managing the production of marketing materials, including leaflets, posters and fliers - this can involve writing and proofreading copy and liaising with designers, agencies and facilitating their payments and handling budgets.
• Content creation and highlight university success stories (student achievements, faculty research papers, conferences/events held on and off campus, student competitions and annual university events such as graduation, honor student and alumni events) for the university website, social media, online newsletter and for press releases for the media.
• Establishing and building media relationships as well as handling distribution of press releases, organizing press conferences and inviting the media to cover the University’s important events.
• To oversee the management of core University events, including graduation, orientation/ open day as well as majors day to ensure that they contribute to overall university objective of the university of marketing AUK’s full-fledged global Liberal Arts Education as well as maintaining the flow of potential high caliber students and their parents in the University.
• Understanding the culture differences and celebrating the local traditions with integration of the global higher education values.
• Marketing research and understanding the competition and finding the University’s edge to highlight its strengths in the market
• Building and thinking of out of the box ideas in order to have marketing/advertising effective objectives and collaborations with limited budgets.
• Event management of large scale projects from start to finish, including booking venue, marketing and promotion of event (rollups, banners, presentations etc..), working with multiple stakeholders, set up and hiring of temps staff, hiring photography, handling branding and communication online and with press, networking and evaluation of event and reporting.
• Planning, monitoring and evaluating British Council projects through working with Kuwait projects team, local and regional stakeholders/partners and customers, this includes working with Ministry of Education Kuwait, The British Embassy, Kuwait UK Alumni Network, Entrepreneur Network, Research and Science Communities, National Council of Culture Arts and education and cultural institutions in UK
• Worked on delivering high caliber events for the British Council projects team, which include (UK Alumni event series, Science collaboration events with UK and KFAS, delivering HSBC and British Council project with the MOE soft skills project TAQQADAM).
• Working closely with British Embassy in Kuwait on UK related events and ensuring both sound quality and effectiveness of delivery of projects
• Responsible for risk, venue and child risk assessments of projects and ensuring that the British Council policies are delivered.
• Working directly with Assistant Director of Projects and Regional Mangers on development of agreed strategies and plans for project delivery
• Develop and maintain active relationships and networks, as well gathering a strong database of contacts and maintaining relationships, which include regular meetings, teleconferences with stakeholders both locally and regionally.
• Monitor budgets and effective use of SAP, making sure that all working parties receive their full payments.
• Making sure guests/ trainers and speakers have hotel bookings, accommodation and transportation when arrive in Kuwait.
• Managing a project coordinator development, training and evaluation.
• Responsible for implementing the Dean's Vision of the School, as a leading high quality liberal educational School in the MENA Region.
• This is through the marketing and communication of the School's ten departments and two language Institutes through the integration of public relations, marketing and communications both through printed and online media locally and internationally
• Constructing a system of ease of two-way communication between all departments and language institutes for implementing a unified vision and mission of the School.
• Hiring, training and managing school's graphic designer as well as working with multiple freelance designers for execution of School's marketing materials.
• Managing all printed marketing materials of the school which includes but not limited to flyers, brochures, posters, banners and programs etc..
• Working and establishing deals with multiple print houses for the printing of School's marketing materials as well as quality assurance of these materials.
• Managing online marketing for the School through re-designing School's website, editing content and updating it on a daily basis as well as advertising on Facebook.
• Creating a Facebook page for the School and the innovation of a monthly newsletter for the School's events, lectures and seminars to inform both AUC community and external community of the School's wide diverse activities.
• Updating School's mailing list constantly to include culture centers, embassies, chambers of commerce, students, faculty, interested locals etc...
• Writing, reviewing, and editing all school’s press releases as well as collecting School related clippings.
• Creating Videos for the school by working with freelance video producers, editors etc.. for the schools positioning and message.
•Develop a Media Kit for the school and each school event according to their target market for PR of the events.
• Handling all media related activities and media coverage for all department's events (T.V/ reporters and press) especially events with high profile V.I.P's (ambassadors, rulers of countries and councilors etc..
• Establishing a logo and a standardized communication branding for the School
• Coordinating between the school and the University's office of Communications and Marketing and following all branding and standardizations regulations of the University.
• Aiding the School in presentations for board of directors and placing together a press kit for fundraising.
Responsible for the marketing and promotion of 4 programs in the department (Art/ Music /Film and Theatre)
• Managing the production of marketing materials, including leaflets, posters and fliers - this can involve writing and proofreading copy and liaising with designers and agencies
• Delivering these marketing materials in "Real Time" before events in the best quality to the Arts department extensive distribution and mailing list
• Updating mailing list of the Arts department (both online mailing list and hard copy mailing list)
• Quality assurance of all marketing materials of the department
• Writing press releases (English/ Arabic) for magazines and newspapers (both local and foreign)
• Handling all media related activities and media coverage for all department's events (T.V/ reporters and press) especially events with high profile V.I.P's (ambassadors, rulers of countries and councilors etc..
• Networking and maintaining good relationships with the media (both local and foreign) as well as with other parities (galleries, ministry of culture, embassies etc..)
• Responsible updating the Arts department website content and images on regular basis
• Social marketing by creating a new newsletter and blog for the Arts department, as well as sms, facebook and twitter advertising.
• Opening new opportunities for PVA to advertise and promote with limited budget
• Handling advertising and promotional budget for all 4 programs
• Monitoring competitor activity and regularly collect information from the market (prices, competition status, new products, etc...)
• Pre-study & evaluation of major marketing campaigns and critical promotional actions.
• Managing and driving the execution of advertising and promotional (local/International) campaigns by developing and prioritizing advertising opportunities to effectively enforce strong presence within the banking industry.
• Responsible for negotiating prices with local and international magazines and newspapers for publishing and finalizing deals.
• Managing the production of marketing materials, including leaflets, posters and flyers - this can involve writing and proofreading copy and liaising with designers and agencies
• Managing the launch of AAIB Internal Blog website in terms of design, content, requirements, customer-friendly interface, etc.
• AAIB’s sponsorship in events and coordinating all required material for events (booths/light boxes / banners/ printing materials etc..)
• Responsible for the final end of year 2007 and 2008 budget reports with details of the departments activities during the year, objectives and allocations of budget, achievements, gap reasoning and expectations for the year 2009.
• Part of the Customer Care Unit as product of Customer Delight Initiative, project that aimed to enhance bank on all levels of service, i.e., customer service and sales training, support staff training, internal and external research of service, branch layout and design, improving corporate image..
• Monitoring and revising bank’s internal advertising material, i.e., posters, brochures and signs to maintain a unified bank image in all branches.
• Maintaining and coordinating relationships with outside creative agencies that provide support for advertising and promotional campaigns.
• Managing and executing branding, layout, design and production of external printed material including outdoor advertising, newspaper ads, as well as internal newsletters. .
• Responsible for editing all English internal and external marketing copy.
• Overseeing all marketing research and trained colleagues on research design and implementation.
• Conducted customer satisfaction surveys and mystery shopping research.
• Designed and conducted research to identify target audience and its needs prior to product launch.
• Designed and conducted research to test marketing campaigns and branding prior to launch.
• Communicated with and managed research firms to assure timely delivery, budget and quality of deliverable.
• Supported in the development and logistics of internal research, e.g., focus groups, surveys, etc.
• Conducted competitive and global product research in order to identify opportunities and maintain a competitive edge.
• Prepare monthly research reports on bank's products and competitiveness in banking industry.
• Presented findings regarding customers, prospective customers, competitors, advertising campaigns and public relations activities.
