Conestoga Advertising students spearhead national mushroom marketing campaign and graduate into full-time jobs as Marketing Coordinators!
KITCHENER , On. - The Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association recently teamed up with Conestoga College's Advertising Program in hopes of getting a new logo and tag line for the association. The result was a win for five of the Advertising Program's students; three first year and two second year students.
The logo and tag line re-branding strategy was presented to the students as a contest to see who could design the best logo and who could come up with the best tag line. As a result, first place winners Vil Louangxay, logo design, and Adam Frank, tag line design, are now smitten with the fact that their work is going to be part of the new Mushrooms Canada promotional campaign set to commence in June 2006. "It's all very weird to see my work everywhere,” said first year advertising student Vil Louangxay, as she sat at the Canadian Mushroom Growers' Annual General Meeting on April 24. "I am just really excited to win,” chimes in Adam Frank, also in first year, as they both admired the placemats and table tent cards adorned with the new logo and tag line.
Not just Louangxay and Frank were happy with the win, but also industry professionals such as Denise Zaborowski of Foodland Ontario were very pleased with the alliance. "It's great to see an association such as the Canadian Mushroom Growers' connect with today's youth, tapping into their talent and providing them with rewards for the future, it's great!” she later commented. The association's members seemed equally enthusiastic and optimistic about the Conestoga College alliance.
The Advertising program at Conestoga College is in its sixth year of operation and has proven to be successful with past graduates working in many industry positions everywhere from large corporations such as Research In Motion to non profit organizations such as the Waterloo Regional Children's Museum. This year is no different. Students not only hit it big with the design competition but also with career opportunities involving Mushrooms Canada. Two of the graduating students this year, Brittany Stager and Amanda St. Marie, scored not only a co-op position with Mushrooms Canada in efforts to help with the promotional campaign but also received full time employment to continue to aid the promotions task force. "We are so proud of our students and it's great to see the opportunities that come from one promotional campaign such as Mushrooms Canada,” says Advertising program Coordinator Joe Romer. "The primary strength of our program is "Experiential Learning” whereby a student can feel, touch and be actively engaged in a dynamic learning process. The integration of strategic as well as creative courses combined with the hands-on real-life experience of client work enhances their communication competencies”
The Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association is now in the stages of re-branding themselves as Mushrooms Canada and developing a promotional campaign with Foodland Ontario . The campaign is set to commence in June of 2006 with in store materials in 675 supermarkets across the province.
If you would like more information regarding this topic please e-mail Mushrooms Canada at cmga@sentex.net .
"Funding for this project has been granted through the Canada-Ontario Research and Development Program, as funded by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs”
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Bill Stevens
Executive Vice President, Mushrooms Canada