Graduate / Marketing and Brand management masters programme in Lund University, letter [5]

Probably there are many errors to be corrected, i need your advises and feedback urgently!
I wrote this letter for International Marketing and Brand management masters programme in Lund University, Sweeden.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------

When I was a little boy, we used to go to the shore and play in the sands. I remember that we were building cars and towers in the sand. Today, I can see my friends designing cars in the wet sands become engineers! I was the one building company centers dreaming himself as a manager of a nice company in that sand-made building. Now, I can say that it was a marketing position!

A child's dream paved the way for business administration education. I have won Business Administration at Izmir University of Economics with a full scholarship in 2002 after getting a high score in the national university placement examination.

I would like to inform you about some of the studies i have made over the entire university education. I have carried out many projects consisting presentations, term-papers, cases within many groups. Almost in all groups, i have participated actively whether in brain storming or leading. My first presentation was for introduction to business course in which i met with SWOT analysis for the first time.

After learning basic marketing concepts, i have prepared a marketing plan for the marketing management course investigating laptop brands and competition between them. Then in semester V, I have met with marketing research methods for the first time. I have got excited to learn how marketing information obtained and used in real life. Also, i have practiced on SPSS. Currently, by using some of the techniques i have learned from marketing research, i make a personal research over the internet trying to find strengths and weaknesses of Turkcell, Vodafone and Avea which are the telecommunication brands operating in Turkey. Research examines the strenghts and weaknesses of the brands in five dimensions that consumers perceive. Based on research results i am going to develop strategies suitable to each brand.

During the marketing courses i have taken, I had decided to target a career in marketing. For this reason, I have chosen my elective courses from the marketing field: Consumer behavior & International Marketing. I have enjoyed with looking more closely to consumer behavior and reasons behind it. While participating International Marketing course, i have felt myself as going one step further in academic research. Every week, i was reading one article investigating international marketing issues and discussing it. I have really found pleasure in learning Hofstede Culture research and analyzing international marketing cases. Also, i have prepared and presented a term project in which I have created an imaginary brand "figo" consisting 8 pieces of figs in a nice looking purple basket with astrology cards targeting finnish female consumers. ( i have found the number 8 because of the world women's day, March 8 )

To be a successful marketer you should be a good strategist. Business Policy has introduced the term strategy to me. This course had really attracted my attention. Although course book mention to Porter's Competitive Strategy, i have bought the original Michael E. Porter's Competitive Strategy book which is published by Free Press, and read it completely by drawing under the important parts of the publication. This great interest had produced fruits of it. Clearly, I was the best student in the Business Policy class.

To enrich my marketing comprehension and understand better the perceptions of the different genders, cultures and societies, i have read hundreds of books ranging from the world classics to the books of business gurus during my university education. Shakespeare, Jack London, Voltaire are just a few of the writers that i read among World Classics. From business books in my library, Jeffrey J. Fox, Jack Trout, Peter Drucker and Kotler are the names i want to emphasize. I can say that these books really have broadened my horizon.

In this paragraph, i want to explain reasons behind my application to International Marketing & Brand Management Master's Programme in Lund University. You have witnessed that i have invested a lot in my knowledge to improve my marketing competency. All the work i put in serves to one ambition. To deserve being a successful marketing specialist in an international firm. By studying your programme, I want to gain expertise in brand management and international marketing fields. In the future, i want to choose right strategy, right segment of consumer and right positioning for the brand I will be responsible for. After five years later, when i look back, i want to see myself as a young graduate from your programme, had a beginning marketing or marketing research career. Unilever, Turkcell, Procter and Gamble, IKEA, L'oreal, Tns Piar ( marketing research firm ) are the companies I want to work in.

In every human in the world, there is a personality type that will influence his/her talents, decisions, lifelong; Katherina Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers developers of these types explain to us. For this reason, I want to inform you about my personality attributes so that you can come to a better decision in my request for international marketing and brand management master programme in Lund University. Desire toward learning new things could be seen as an inseparable part of my personality. I love to increase my knowledge of treasury and use them in developing useful strategies. New opportunities that cannot be seen by everyone is very attracting to me. Trying to find new products and analyzing them whether it would be a successful business or not is a thing that I perform almost daily. Therefore, I observe the environment surrounding me and take notes when i face with a new opportunity. Today, in my notebook there are over the 20 new product ideas which are not marketed in my country. I do not know how many of them are sold in Sweeden, yet i am very excited to investigate the shelfs of the supermarkets located in your country. An another characteristic of mine is making objective interpretations analyzing competition between the sides. These sides could be either a political situation or two rival brands fighting with each other. I prepare an turkish e-bulletin named "marketing bulletin" published on my web site sadecesezgin.com ( "sadece" means "only" in turkish ) analyzing competition between brands in Turkey and making them suggestions about their marketing problems. Also, if you need to see my some of the term-papers in the university or the researchs, bulletins of mine , you can investigate them at sadecesezgin.com whenever you want.

In conclusion, as a candidate who devoted himself to the marketing and brand management fields, I would be honored with being accepted to your International Marketing & Brand Management Master Programme in Lund University for the fall 2010. Since i am a person who was born in Bulgaria, living in Turkey and carrying traces of different civilizations, i believe that I will increase diversity of your programme. Furthermore, I doubt that you will be able to find many candidates ambitious as much as me. For this reason, i want to show the bravery of demand to the acceptance to International Marketing and Brand Management graduate programme in Lund University. Let me feed from your deep knowledge!

Best Wishes
Sezgin Yılmaz