A Brock University graduate is headed to Cannes, France after winning a prestigious national marketing contest.

Christian Di Vincenzo, a graduate of Brock’s Goodman School of Business (BBA ’13), won the Young Marketers division of The Globe and Mail’s national Young Lions and Young Marketers competition, putting him on an international stage next month at the prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity held annually in Cannes.

The competition showcases the best of the best in marketing and advertising. Only those marketers who win first place in their national divisions make it to Cannes. The three-round Canadian competition was held over the past few weeks.

Di Vincenzo works as a digital marketing consultant at Lexus Canada, where he leads the brand’s national digital marketing strategy while managing an internal team and external agency partners.

Along with his Lexus colleague Olena Sapojnikova, Di Vincenzo developed and designed a pitch for the competition, answering a call to young marketers in Canada to create a marketing campaign that incorporated their companies’ brands and David Suzuki Foundation’s Superhero Challenge, an initiative to encourage children to enjoy the outdoors and maintain healthy lifestyle habits.

Di Vincenzo credits his success to his time at Brock, where he was actively involved in co-curricular activities.

“Four key things from my Goodman experience have helped me in my career so far: co-op, international exchange, business competitions and Monster Pitch,” he said.

Di Vincenzo was on winning teams at both the Monster Pitch competition and Nicol Business Plan Competition, competed at the prestigious Royal Roads University International Undergraduate Case Competition and went on an international exchange at the University of South Australia.

“Co-op and competitions taught me how to think on my feet and come up with creative ideas,” he said. “Going on exchange and having these experiences has helped me learn to connect with people, which is ultimately the most important thing in marketing.

“You have to understand how to connect with individuals and speak to their emotions, which is essentially what advertising is all about and what we do as marketers.”

Working with their mentor, Mark Childs, chief brand officer of Samsung Canada, Di Vincenzo and Sapojnikova are now preparing for the final round of the competition. Nearly 15,000 delegates will gather in Cannes, where the coveted golden lion statue will be handed out to the contest winner.