Creative Ideas For Promotion Prize

Date posted: 14 March 2011

A group of creative Buxton students were recognised for their innovative promotional ideas at a prize ceremony recently.

As part of a marketing and promotion module, degree students on a range of programmes were asked to act as marketing consultants and come up with creative proposals to promote the University, complete with justification and an implementation plan, after carrying out detailed analysis of current practices and challenges in the sector.

Twenty projects made it onto the shortlist and two winners were announced. The first winner was BSc (Hons) International Spa Management degree student Sophie Collins, aged 20. Sophie had the idea of producing a branded bus that visited potential recruitment areas and fares, representing all of the hands-on courses available at the University such as Outdoor Activities and Spa Management degrees

The other award winner was Lidia Malecka, 19, a BA (Hons) Travel & Tourism Management degree student, who came up with the idea of a dance video that would promote the University virally across the internet. The music video would be filmed at the Buxton Campus, posted onto Youtube, and promoted virally through social networking.

Lidia said: "We wanted to find a new way of promoting the wide variety of exciting vocational courses on offer at the University's Buxton Campus, coupled with the fact that it attracts a large number of international students from across the globe.

"Our idea was to film students representing their various courses and home countries in a music video. They would be filmed dancing, walking and lip-syncing to a pop song, around the Dome and other key areas on campus.

"Using a music video we hoped to encourage more international students, and demonstrate that they would really enjoy there time here, have fun and make friends from all over the world during their studies."

Sheila McLaughlin said: "We are increasingly developing experiential learning projects for the students like this one, and we hope that some of these projects may reach fruition."

Sarah Rawlinson, Assistant Dean for the Faculty said: "This prize was a fantastic way to celebrate some of the creative and innovative students we have studying here. We hope they took something valuable away from completing this project."