Part 1: Getting Started and Choosing a Client
When I first received the brief for this assignment, I knew I wanted to pick a client that resonated with me personally. As an international student, I often find myself exploring the food scene in Manchester, and I noticed how social media plays a huge role in discovering new restaurants. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok are full of people sharing their dining experiences, posting aesthetically pleasing food pictures, and giving mini-reviews about their visits. This sparked the idea of focusing on Happy Seasons Manchester, a restaurant that seemed to attract a lot of attention online but also had opportunities to engage more meaningfully with its customers. I felt this choice would allow me to connect my own student experiences and digital media observations to the assignment tasks.
Part 2: Creating the Customer Persona
The first task was to develop an empathetic customer persona. I wanted the persona to feel real and relatable, so I imagined someone like myself — an international student living away from home, balancing university life, and looking for comfort in familiar foods. While brainstorming, I reflected on how I personally search for food recommendations. Often, I follow small content creators or students who share their daily meals and reviews online. From this observation, I conceptualized Bernice Lim, a Malaysian student who enjoys documenting her lifestyle and food experiences on social media.
I focused on several key aspects when building Bernice’s persona:
- Customer expectations
I considered what comfort food and dining experiences would make her feel at home. - Motivation
I thought about her emotional drivers — nostalgia, social sharing, and community recognition. - Emotion
I imagined how she would feel during each stage of dining — from curiosity to attachment. - Channels
I reflected on where she might see the restaurant’s content, like Instagram, TikTok, or WhatsApp groups with fellow Malaysian students. - Barriers
I considered practical issues like long queues, price sensitivity, and limited table space.
Throughout this process, I kept coming back to my own experiences as a student in a foreign country, which helped me make the persona authentic and detailed. I also researched existing literature on social media influence and food marketing, so I could justify each element of the persona academically.
Part 3: Constructing the Customer Journey Map
After finalizing Bernice’s persona, I moved on to the customer journey map. I wanted to illustrate her experience from discovering the restaurant to becoming a repeat customer, highlighting how digital marketing can shape each touchpoint.
I started by breaking down the journey into five stages: awareness, consideration, purchase, retention, and advocacy. For each stage, I asked myself:
- How does Bernice discover the restaurant?
- What motivates her to consider visiting?
- How does the digital experience (social media, website, reviews) influence her decisions?
- What keeps her coming back and sharing content?
I made sure to include at least eight digital marketing touchpoints, such as Instagram posts, TikTok reviews, website menus, Google reviews, WhatsApp group recommendations, and brand interactions like reposts or replies. For each touchpoint, I wrote annotations justifying why it was relevant to Bernice, how it aligned with her motivations, and the emotion it would evoke. This process involved linking theory to practice, using insights from service-dominant logic and social media influence on Gen Z customers.
Part 4: Writing the Professional Reflection
For Task 3, I reflected on my own digital presence and how it aligns with my career ambitions in Food & Beverage Digital Marketing. I started by considering my current platforms: a personal Instagram, occasional TikTok browsing, and no LinkedIn profile yet. I realised that while I have experience observing and understanding customer behaviour through my dad’s restaurant, I need to build a professional online identity to improve my employability.
I thought about my academic and personal values, including ethics, cultural sensitivity, and user-centred design from my UI/UX background, and connected these to how I want to present myself online. Then I created a practical action plan, including building LinkedIn, sharing curated content, and starting TikTok mini-projects to show my skills in content creation, UX, and marketing. Reflecting on these steps helped me see the connection between theory, personal experience, and professional development.
Part 5: Overall Progress and Insights
Working through these three tasks allowed me to combine my personal experiences, academic learning, and observations from social media into a cohesive portfolio. I found that relating the assignment to my own life as an international student helped make the persona and journey map more authentic. The reflection task made me think critically about how digital presence shapes career opportunities and motivated me to take real steps toward improving my professional profile.
Throughout this process, I also learned the importance of linking practical ideas with academic theory, whether through referencing service-dominant logic, digital marketing strategies, or social media influence studies. This reflective approach not only strengthened my assignment but also gave me insights into how I can apply these skills in real-world digital marketing roles, particularly in the food and beverage sector.
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