A success story for students in St. Clair College's Advertising and Marketing Communications program after two big wins at international advertising and marketing communications competitions.
A group of five students claimed a first place win in December in the CRI Global Sustainability Marketing Competition, beating more than 1,500 students across over 700 post-secondary institutions from 120 different countries.
This competition focused on sustainability and forward-thinking marketing strategies, specifically on education to the public on the critical issues arising from textile waste, what happens to textile waste, and highlight new technology on how to recycle those items.
The St. Clair team came up with a campaign called 'Every Thread Counts', and explained textile waste and how to overcome it through different marketing strategies.
The students also recently advanced to the finals of the NHL/NHLPA Hockey Innovation Competition among six other Ontario colleges and universities, and the team will need to identify ideas for more fan engagement throughout NHL arenas.
Scott Briscoe, professor in the Advertising and Marketing Communications program, says the team engaged consumers about how to recycle textile waste.
"They can take part, examine, look at it, go to events, they had pop-up events like a share event where people instead of recycling their clothes they would donate. So instead of going to a thrift store, they would go to a centralized location in the city, it would be this huge event, and just swap clothing."
Briscoe says it was great to see the team win on this scale.
"I'm proud of the students, I'm proud of Windsor. When we're looking at these, and coming from last year with a digital marketing competition and we're against Villanova, Oklahoma, these huge universities in the States, and then a single program from Windsor that we're constantly going in these global competitions and we're winning."
Steve McEachern, professor and coordinator in the Advertising and Marketing Communications program, says they teach the students how to solve marketing problems.
"That's what we do, that's what we teach the kids, that's what your job is. You work in the advertising business someone is going to come to you and say 'I've got a problem selling cars, I've got a problem selling clothes, I've got a problem selling food. What are you going to do?', and really that's what we force them to do. You've got to think and come up with ideas, and come up with concepts that are going to help these marketers solve their problems."
McEachern says the team will present their ideas for the NHL Competition to the Hockey Hall of Fame later this month.
"The problem that the NHL proposed was that they wanted to identify with more fan engagement within the arenas. Deliver a younger audience, to profile a younger audience, and engage that younger audience in a better fan experience in the venues - so at the games throughout the entire NHL using various forms of digital media, and social media, and things like that."
The students will be presenting their ideas at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto on January 29.
This marks the second consecutive year that the program has claimed international acclaim. Last year, St. Clair College became the first Canadian institution to win the Global Digital Marketing University Competition.