Class Project

Strategic Marketing to Grow the “Next Generation Neighborhood Pub”

The Project: Strategic Marketing Management Professor Anne Iarocci challenged her students to create a full scale multi-media integrated marketing communication plan for The Corner Place, a successful bar/restaurant in Downtown Toronto, that has been steadily growing each year.

The Objectives: Increase overall revenue by 20% by building the The Corner Place lunch business during weekdays, and increase awareness of the establishment and its service offerings to new customers.

The Results: Students created multi-media campaigns that included print, PR, direct campaigns and digital campaigns to meet The Corner Place’s marketing objectives. Students shared fresh ideas such as hosting heritage events such as a Mexican celebration to engage ethnic communities and drive foot traffic.

Student Experience: Students used everything they had learnt in class and in previous projects to create integrated campaigns for a real-life scenario that they could add to their professional portfolios.

“This project allowed us to be collaborative. We went to the Corner Place, we had a feel for what the business actually stood for.”
Bernadine Almariego, Business Administration - Finance student

Client Experience: The Student presentations provided The Corner Place with various ideas that fit perfectly with the business’ overall strategy.

“A lot of what they said is what I was missing. They filled in the blanks of my business.”
Charles Co, Owner of The Corner Place

Students come Face to Face with Industry Executives in Exam Jam

The Project: Sports and Event Marketing Professor Peter Widdis has innovated the exam experience for students with the Exam Jam, which is held annually. Covered by the Toronto Star for its innovative approach to real world experience, students pitch their integrated marketing communications plan to a panel of distinguished sports marketing veterans who decide the winner. One of the past clients was the Toronto Argonauts.

The Objectives: Optimize the Toronto Argonauts brand appeal to its current fan-base and drive strategic partnerships for the Argo brand. Address key corporate partner marketing issues while creating collaborative opportunities for the Argos with the Michael “pinball” Clemons Foundation.

The Results: Students created integrated marketing plans that included PR, digital marketing and traditional advertising that aligned with both the Toronto Argonaut’s brand and the corporate partner they were assigned. Students demonstrated the ability to align campaigns with their client and their client’s sponsor while activating the franchise’s fan-base. They were all-encompassing campaigns with feedback from some of the industry’s best.

Student Experience: Students implemented their program learning in a 20 minute presentation in front of prominent professionals such as Toronto Argonauts Director of Marketing, Tyler Puley, and Michael “Pinball” Clemens.

“The type of panel we had, had a variety of experience. We had to really own the moment, we had to be ready for anything.”
Andrew Unsworth, Sport and Event Marketing Student

“The experience of pitching our ideas in front of a real corporate panel was invaluable. It definitely allowed us to show the growth and learning from all our classes.”
Julia Pizzolato, Sport and Event Marketing Student

Client Experience:

“This is the ultimate mesh between getting real experience and academia. I’m always excited about getting involved.”
Noah Kone, Director of Business Development at K-One Media

“I think what Peter’s (Prof. Peter Widdis) doing is fantastic. Students are pitching to this panel of executives and that’s invaluable.”
Tyler Puley, Director of Marketing for Toronto Argonauts

Students Develop Real World Strategy to Drive Revenue for Early Childhood Business

The Project: Strategic Marketing Management Professor Anne Iarocci encouraged students to showcase their business acumen with a day of marketing presentations to early childhood school, Tender Years Cooperative School. Tender Years is a co-operative school that provides superior education to children and requires a healthy level of revenue in order to be a sustainable non-profit organization.

The Objectives: Plan an initiative that provides additional revenue of $40,000/year and 23% growth in student enrollment in the 2017-18 school year.

The Results: Students presented comprehensive marketing plans designed to make Tender Years Cooperative School an active member in the local community. To increase brand awareness, students recommended promoting the school at local community events such as the Streetsville Bread & Honey Festival. Included was an integrated social media campaign that involved engaging with local social media influencers related to parenting such as ‘mommy bloggers’.

Student Experience: Students demonstrated real world skills with a marketing plan that included a referral program as well as a brand awareness growth strategy. All recommendations were actionable and realistic for the client.

“The biggest thing was we knew we had to be realistic. The research had to be specialized. It had to involve the community.”
Mo Tumi, Business Administration - Marketing student

“It was a great experience and it gives us more confidence going out into the workforce.”
Leah Tartavel, Business Administration - Marketing student

Client Experience: Tenders Years Cooperative School representative, Carla Ward, found what she needed to boost community awareness of the school after hearing the student’s research-based recommendations.

“I appreciate that they took our area into accommodation. It was individualized. Everything they have said I can do in the next few weeks.”
Carla Ward, Tender Years Cooperative School

Market Research to Drive New Insights for Premium Food Preparation Service

The Project: Applied Research professor Karen Sinotte connected students with George Brown College Chef School student and entrepreneur Sierra Butler. Sierra has launched her health driven meal prepping business, Siefood.

The Objectives: Create a marketing plan to increase brand awareness of Siefood and conduct market research of customer attitudes and preferences related to healthy food to drive pricing strategy and choice of menu items.

The Results: Students demonstrated the ability to create surveys, conduct market research and extract key insights from the research and present them as actionable items to Sierra in their presentations. Key areas examined were the importance of eating healthy for people and their propensity to spend to achieve a healthy diet. These insights were used to make recommendations about Sierra’s choice of menu and the pricing of food items.

Student Experience: Students gained the experience of using their research skills to answer important questions about the client’s potential customers. Students can now add their marketing plan to their portfolios to highlight how they made recommendations to their client based on real primary research. The students took special pride in contributing to a fellow George Brown College student’s new business.

“People felt more committed. We felt we could really contribute to their business. She is in our shoes, she understands our challenges and our goals.”
Lucila Machado, Business Administration - Marketing student

Client Experience: Siefood owner Sierra Butler was able to use insights from the student presentations to cater better to her customers’ needs and develop strategies to attract new customers.

“It was great to see them use what they know to help my passion.”
Sierra Butler, owner of Siefood

Presenting Direct Marketing Plans to a Real-Life Business Owner

The Project: George Brown College’s Database Marketing Professor Thomas Arhontoudis offered his students the hands on experience of presenting their marketing plan to real-life business owner and Voice Actor, Andrea Rooz. ARTS’ (Andrea Rooz Talent Services) most notable clients include Bell and TTC.

The Objectives: Conduct research on Andrea Rooz’s business and the voice talent services industry to create a direct marketing plan to grow her client list and increase her brand’s awareness.

The Results: Among the many tailored marketing plans presented, were recommendations such as “The Voice That Makes You Smile” branding message, as well as engaging new and existing clients with an innovative cartoon video email campaign that leverages Andrea’s voice talent with a user friendly video application. Students demonstrated a strong understanding of their client’s unique selling proposition and presented research based recommendations.

Student Experience: Students were able take all of the things they’d learned about in class and put them into action creating resume boosting experience.

“It’s definitely great hands on experience here at George Brown.”
Alexa Rotman, Business Administration - Marketing student

“We researched our competitors, it was like real work in the real world.”
Noemi Eolveei, Business Administration - Marketing student

“It was a pleasure meeting the talented voice actor, Andrea. Researching about the industry was intriguing and I had a great time presenting our ideas and insights to her.”
Saunak Patel, Business Administration - Marketing student

Client Experience: The experience wasn’t just of value for the students. Client Andrea felt she got tremendous value from working with the class.

“I’m hoping to implement the ideas that I have heard today. I’ve told a lot of people about this. This is thousands of dollars of marketing and ideas. It really turned the thinking of my business on its head.”
Andrea Rooz, voice actor and owner, ARTS (Andrea Rooz Talent Services)

Yoga and Health Consumer Insights to Drive Strategy for Business Owner

The Project: Applied Research Professor Karen Sinotte challenged students to put market research methods they had learnt into practice to help Apsara Alive Yoga owner, Charu Shankar, find new clients and explore new locations to hold her yoga classes.

The Objectives: Conduct consumer research on the client’s business location, pricing and consumer motivations. Based on the research findings, create a marketing plan with recommendations to meet Apsara Alive Yoga’s business needs.

The Results: Students conducted survey research to make recommendations about locations to hold Charu’s yoga classes to maximize her clientele. These findings answered key questions about how far people were willing to travel for yoga classes. They were also able to report on the likelihood of individuals taking advantage of incentives such as a free promotional class to acquire new customers.

Student Experience: Students gained experience dealing directly with a client in several meetings and identified the most important questions that their research needed to answer. Researching and creating marketing plans provided students with end to end market research experience that adds credibility to their resumes.

“I learnt a new way to report insight, it was fun. I’d like to do it again.”
Joshua Nkennor, Business Administration - Marketing student