Magic 2 USA

The Energy Risk Professional (ERP) is a new professional designation from GARP aimed at risk professionals working in the physical and financial fields of energy. I was actually studying for the CAIA (Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst) and the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) when I became interested in energy risk management. It was intuitive to me to use energy financial instruments for risk management and hedging, but the physical aspects of the energy risk professional designation were not entirely clear to me. Still, I took the plunge and registered for the November exam in summer of 2010.

Little did I know what I had signed up for: The ERP curriculum stretched over nearly two thousand pages, consisted of over 100 readings different and academic papers, some of them very lengthy. Next to a 60 hour work week, the study material was a mountain of work. Organizing the material, summarizing it, reviewing and practicing for the exam were made even more difficult by the lack of study material and preparation resources, as only one (!) practice exam was available at the time.

The curriculum stretches from physical aspects of petroleum (hydrocarbon genesis, refining, transport with tankers, pipelines) over coal and natural gas, to alternative energy such as solar, hydro, wind, and biomass. There is also a segment of nuclear energy, financial trading instruments, valuation of energy transactions, financial disclosure, and laws and regulations. A large part of the material is electricity. The finance part was easy for me, as it covered mainly options, futures, forwards, swaps and little structured derivatives. Energy futures was a different bag altogether, but not too remote from what I already knew.

Marketing is, of course, the main way a business will get themselves into the public eye and adverts are one of the main avenues that marketers will pursue. Choosing an advertising agency is a decision which shouldn’t be taken lightly and you should familiarise yourself with the sorts of tasks that a fully integrated advertising agency will carry out for you if you choose to utilise their services.

Brands don’t become household names overnight and it takes dedicated advertising campaigns over time to ensure that they become entrenched within the public consciousness. Examples of companies who have really capitalised on the use of skilled advertising agencies include the likes of Microsoft, Apple, Nike and they now have huge customer loyalty and immensely strong brand identities – courtesy of the quality of their products and the creativity of an advertising or branding agency.

Laying an Advertising Campaign Bare

Each agency will have their own way of approaching a marketing campaign but there will be various elements which are fairly universal across all advertising agency campaigns. Just some of the actions an advertising agency will undertake on your behalf include:

• Devise and Manage Creative Advertising Campaigns – Coming up with visually striking, relevant and engaging advertising campaign is no small feat and it takes a skilled and dedicated team of creative professionals to achieve this objective. The company will usually provide a brief of what they hope to achieve from their marketing and then leave it to the advertising agency to come up with a variety of concepts. Advertising campaigns are ordinarily to promote a new product or to reinforce the strength of a current brand.