Strategic advise for Belgium and Luxembourg organisations with their PR strategy &Translating client needs into campaign ideas/ from account acquisition to account managing within various sectors such as healthcare, public affairs, communication agencies.

Title: Online Candidate Image: Analysing Online Images and Impression Management in Politics. In short, this is a study of the power of online images, researched via AI. Long: In their attempt to attract voter’s attention, informality seems to be playing an increasing role in the branding strategies of politicians around the world. This entertaining, casual self-presentation strategy has been observed not only amongst international high-profile leaders, such as former US President Barack Obama and current Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, but has often been observed amongst Belgian politicians such as Conner Rousseau. This phenomenon can be explained by citizens’ declining interest in political debates. Hence, voters are increasingly making electoral decisions based on impressions or cues at the expense of objective arguments and content - often received via media messages and images (De Landtsheer, 2004). Perception politics and impression management techniques can help to create a favourable impression or image and increase perceived political suitability amongst the voters (Diedkova, De Landtsheer, & De Vries, 2019). Although visuals are omnipresent in digital media, little is known about how voters interact and engage with the presented content. One of the possible explanations is the lack of a fast and effective methodology that allows the visual analysis of large datasets on social media platforms such as Instagram. This PhD aims to fill this gap by establishing which type of online self-presentation style garners the most voter support: a formal, conservative presentation style or a more informal style? Additionally, it proposes a solution to the problem of fast and accurate data collection of visuals on Instagram by introducing a real-time object detection program in Python. Therefore, the results in this thesis offer interesting observations and recommendations on effective digital self-presentation strategies in a politician’s visual rhetoric.

Introduction of the luxury brand to the BTC Belgium/Luxembourg market: sales and marketing development. Strategic positioning of the brand, sales strategy, account managing.

Assisting Ana Martins with PR services for NYC based accounts within fashion, lifestyle and jewellery.