Institute of Communication studies (Mass Communication Department of PU)

Institute of Communication Studies, also known as mass communication department is one of the department of University of Punjab, Lahore started its life back in 1941. It is situated at the New Campus of the PU, facing Lahore Canal. This department is dealing with the studies regarding media, journalism and similar disciplines.Though i have never got a chance to go inside the department but i do walk around it or have a glance at it almost regularly. I would like to share with you people what feeling the environment and students out there give regarding culture of this department. The scene is mostly like guys and girls doing chit chat, laughing, having fun sitting on roads, in car parking, in lawn and walking around. Students seem to be quite chilled out. since they are into media studies so the the way carry themselves is quite open, modern and liberal. We can say that its one of the departments of PU who kinda got modern lot in it, as PU has not got negative reputations when it comes to modernism and style of people out there etc. LOL.
Being a Govt. institute, fees are lesser compared to other private institutes. Besides regular fees, you have to face other costs as well; like in presentation, you may have to organize something special to add value to you presentation, since its all related to media and communication studies, so cameras, making videos and other stuff like that can also be added to your costs etc. In Govt. Institutions, prevailing norm is that complain against teacher costs you most of the time, cost can be in form of insult, class room behavior of teacher gets impolite, tough marking etc. Or even if there is not any cost the complain remain unheard and unnoticed. In respective Institute, this norm prevails on moderate level. Sometimes complain is heard only, sometimes implemented, sometimes not even heard etc.

Modern techniques are used by teachers like, multimedia, presenters etc, but still the course outlines and contents of the syllabus are not satisfactory. It needs more professionalism and content in it, some challenging way to make the students more competent. For the students who like to be relaxed, there is happy news that assignments are usually given once a week but students having thrust to work hard may not like it. And one more attractive thingy for most of the students, that marking in exams in not so tough it’s quite lenient.

Internship is provided to each student in prestigious organizations. A number of practical training activities on regular basis are undertaken by the students in all the courses offered by the School and the evaluation hinges upon a continuous assessment of the students performance throughout the program. Students are also encouraged to bring their talent to front; they are encouraged to participate in co-curricular activities at both institutional and national level. Events at Institute are held often. It includes conferences, seminars, welcome, farewell and others. tours are also arranged for students with in country.

History: Its history is traced back from 1941 when it was established as the first Department in Indo-Pak regarding Journalism. It was transformed to Mass Communication Department in 1985. Since then it is producing graduates with abilities to compete in th

Basic Information: Enjoying 69th year of its existence, it is striving to achieve the best place for students to learn and get trained to compete in the industry. Utilizing knowledge and experience of competent teachers, this institute is preparing best out of whole lot. The Institute has very experienced and qualified faculty. There are 6 Ph. D and 1 M. Phil in its permanent faculty of 9. Special lecturers of top most professionals are also arranged frequently. It holds a strong alumni and fresh graduates get job in renowned places in the industry. Students get admissions after Intermediate, Bachelors, Masters' Degree and also come for Diploma courses being conducted in it. For Undergraduate Program there is only morning session, whereas classes are also conducted in the evening for different programs.

Student Talk: On asking one student from the respective department about the institute, he told that its good to be a part of this institute. Certain things are really good and you have to compromise on some as well. Like, talking about the faculty he said that its a mixture of brilliance, good and average. He appreciated the Library and Computer Lab but on the other hand he said that number of class rooms are in sufficient for whole lot of the students. And furthermore, he also told that lack of common room and ground is niggling. There wasn't a cafeteria previously in the department, but its now there. Talking about studies he told that these should be improved, right now course outlines and overall studies are not very much challenging. Developments are not made rapidly and on continuous basis, rather its gradually slow process, some teachers change tradition while others keep their way and content same as previous. Overall he was almost a satisfied student.

Facilities: With the facilities of a modem departmental library, Computer Lab, photo Lab, Video Editing Lab,Photo copy shop, Students also enjoy all university facilities i.e. transport, medical, hostel residence, main library membership, study and excursion tours, and sports facilities. cafeteria has also opened now with number snack food and other item for students. Students are also having multimedia and projectors' facilities to showcase there work and as complements to study.

Market Worth: It holds good reputation and name in the market. Students after getting their degrees get competent jobs in all over the country. As of now media in our country has grown very vast, number of channels have been launched, so there are career opportunities for the students holding degree of this institute.

Courses:

Institute of Communication Studies offers BS (Hons.), M.S, M. Phil and Ph.D. programs in Communication Studies. M.S and M.Phil are four-semester two-year programmers. Ph. D. programs requires two semester (one year) class work and then three to five years for research work. M.S Communication Studies is four sequence programs. Following are the Programs and Courses being taught at the department:

• BS (Hons.) in Communication Studies
• M.S Communication Studies (Morning)
• M.S Communication Studies (Replica)
• M.S Communication Studies (Development Journalism)
• M. Phil Program in Communication Studies (Research Track)
  
• M. Phil Program in Communication Studies (Professional Track)
• Ph.D. in Communication Studies
• PGD in Development Support Communication
  
• PGD in Television Production
  
• PGD in Multimedia & Graphic Art

For official web page CLICK HERE:

Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

If you are running a business, how do you think you can attract customers for you products and services? or even make them aware of your business and its products/services? Answer is simple, through communicating your products/services to the target audience. You will surely use different medias like advertisement on television, in newspaper, billboards or similar things.

Communicating your products/services in simple traditional manners may not appeal them that much, with ordinary advertisement or communication material they might think of it as ordinary or other just like other available stuff around. This situation can be troublesome for you and for success of your business. Now what should you do if you are facing such situation?

The answer to this question is to make your advertisement around Unique Selling Proposition of your product/service. Unique Selling Proposition is a distinguishing and unique benefit your product is offering to the customer. This would be your competitive edge as well. Highlight that benefit to your target audience in the advertisement, it will attract the customers; tell them that they are being offered something special, different which can satisfy them more than other products/services. They will be attracted to your offers and come to you. your USP can be a slogan in your advertisement or on billboard, representing the distinctive edge which is offered.

For instance:
"It's the real thing" Coca-Cola
"The ultimate driving machine" BMW
"The best a man can get" Gillette


Since making use of the advertisement in true sense is through enlightening key benefits of your products/services to make your business offers desirable to the target audience in comparison of the prevailing competitors can make you earn money out of it.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Think of yourself in a situation when you are a customer at some company or store or anywhere, you must be wanting the best product or services with quality, care and attention. Yes for sure... and when you get such response which you expected, you are happy and satisfied.

This satisfaction and contentment of the customer are the most important for any business operating. A happy customer can turned to be a loyal one. This is the customer who can contribute increasing your sales and ultimately profit. And making profits is the basic purpose of any business.

So we conclude that Customers are the major asset of a company and should be taken care of accordingly. With this philosophy at the center of the operations of a business, trend is moving from transaction based selling to relationship building selling approach. So here comes the role of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). It is all about strategies developed to maintain long lasting relationships with potential customers through software and internet technology.

Management establishes databases regarding customer's information. This information may include customer's birth date, buying patterns, frequency to shop, addresses, age, feedback etc. then this information can be utilized to build up lasting relationships, like sending a greeting card on birthday, a cake on occasion like happy new year, Eid etc, a special discount offer and many more. these strategies make customer's feel special and this special treatment makes them loyal to the company and its products/services. Feedback helps in improving the area where a company may be lacking and through feedback company get to know their customer's preferences, likeness and latest trends. Feedback also let the customer feel important as they think that their opinions hold some values.

Building a strong customer base through customer relationship management is gaining popularity among businesses. this practice is applicable both among giants and small businesses. this practice helps in attaining competitive edge over competitors.

What is Marketing? or Marketing for Dummies

Whenever I want to understand anything, I tell the person to explain me in a way that I know nothing about it, like you are telling to any layman. Same way, when I explain something to anyone, then I try to explain it in a way that listener knows nothing about it. So find below 'Marketing' definition in my own words which I think any layman could also understand it. It could also help those who have never read Marketing before and for those too, who have got admission in their BBA or MBA.

Advertising is not the whole Marketing:

First of all make it clear in your mind that advertising is not the whole marketing. It is part of it, though one of the most sexy part of Marketing but a single part. I'm gonna divide marketing in four categories, out of these four categories, one has more six parts and out of those six parts, one is advertising. I'll come it to later in below explanation.

Marketing Definition:

Marketing is a process in which an organization analyze need of a product, create a product, determine its price, make it available at targeted place and do promotion for it.

Marketing is all about these 4P's I've highlighted in above definition. I'll give a short explaination about them below.

Organization sells whether a product or service. I'm going to use 'product' word for my easiness, however it could be any service too. You can replace 'product' with 'service' if you wish to understand it that way.

In an overview concept:

Everything and every matter about the products of organization come under the umbrella of Marketing. Organization's face, its identity, its product, everything about it, is in Marketing.

If we divide organization in departments, then Management has to do decide the vision of the organization, mission, goals and further objectives. They would give overview of their desired destination so that every department work accordingly to reach there. Then they will keep check on it and manage that every department could make it possible. Managing all the resources of organization.

Human Resource department will hire the right person for right job. They will take care of the most important resource of the organization, which is human, which can be further explained as a talent, skills that is needed for organization. They take care for those talented people, keep them happy for organization, so they could show more efficiency and give most to the organization.

In a same way the other departments work for the same objective i.e. to benefit the organization.

What is Marketing? in little detail:

Now what I'm going to tell below is all about Marketing.

It starts from analyzing the need of a product. Firstly organization research for the need of product in a market, then create the product. Which type of product it should be? What will that product offer? if it is about eating than how it taste should be? everything about the product is the start.

After creating the product then it comes to analyze the price of the product. How much it cost? How much targeted audience can pay happily? There are several strategies of setting a price which one read while studying Marketing.

After setting it's price, we have to make that product in reach of our target audience (Target audience is that group of people, for whom that product is produced. For every product there could be different target market). We have to make available that product in right place where our target audience is.

After distribution it comes to Promotion which can be done in six ways:

1. Advertising: The most sexy part of promotion and it includes almost half of the budget of whole promotion, that's why it overcomes all other aspects of promotion. However nowadays due to lot of noise (lot of adds that it become hard to concentrate on one) organizations are shifting their budget from advertising to other tools of promotion. Advertising can be done through broadcast media (T.V., radio etc.) billboards or print media.
2. Direct Marketing: If you've got chance to visit any super market then you've often seen people of certain product, for instance, a soup company has their stall over there. On which they test you the sample and sell the products directly to customer from there.
3. The Internet and Interactive Media: Internet has become a very powerful tool nowadays. As the advancement come, people have started using internet more than any other media. T.V., radio and print media are one sided in which customer don't have any option to interact with them. On the other hand Internet is the medium in which customer is interacting with the organization. This has become a very good tool to bring customers close to their products.
4. Sales Promotion: Buy one get one free, Buy a jar of Ovaltine and get a Mug free, 10% off, 50% off and other signs like that are all part of sales promotion. In this organization give a incentive to customer to buy there product.
5. Publicity and Public relations: This is unpaid promotion. When any organization launch their new product, newspaper use to publish their news which become a publicity for them and their product is promoted. Sometimes newspapers or T.V. channels make documentary on any organization's procedure and get their interview which also came under Public relations.
6. Personal Selling: This is yet another important tool in promotion where organization send their sales person house to house to sell the item. If item is related to corporate sector then sales person goes to offices to promote their product. They show their product, do direct selling there, show advertisement, give sales promotion or convince people by any mean to buy the product.