Students are brushing up on luxury clothing markets and polishing their pitches in preparation for the Grant Dobson Case Competition, which takes place on March 2. They will compete for industry attention, cash prizes and bragging rights.<\/p>\n
According to Jackie Botterill, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film (CPCF), the Grant Dobson Case Competition is the culmination of years of learning, writing and thinking demanded of students in Brock University business and communication degree programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cStudents focus their creativity, discipline their ideas, exercise strategic thinking, apply research, media and marketing skills, and communicate persuasively with the goal of encouraging action in the marketplace,” she said.<\/p>\n
And the opportunity to encourage action in the marketplace is very real. The annual event, presented in conjunction with the Terry O\u2019Malley Lecture in Marketing and Advertising, has a long history of creating valuable industry relationships for students.<\/p>\n
Past competitions have featured briefs for such well-known brands as Joe Fresh, Purina, Chinet, the Globe and Mail, and WestJet. In many of these competitions, the lead judge worked for the very brand being pitched.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s competition is slightly different. In January, teams were challenged to develop a marketing campaign for the luxury brand Canada Goose. This year\u2019s lead judge, Matthew Santoro, is a well-known YouTube personality, so the brief focuses on mobilizing social media to demonstrate the brand\u2019s authenticity.<\/p>\n
Ten teams submitted written proposals. Faculty members from CPCF and the Goodman School of Business reviewed the submissions and selected the top three finalist teams.<\/p>\n
These finalists will pitch their campaigns to an esteemed panel of judges that includes<\/p>\n
\u201cThe case competition provides the opportunity for teams to present ideas in front of industry practitioners and receive constructive feedback,\u201d explains Sharon Broderick, who teaches in CPCF and the Goodman School of Business, and created the competition in 2005.<\/p>\n
Broderick designed the case competition after Terry O\u2019Malley asked her to find ways to increase student involvement with the esteemed speakers visiting for the lecture series. In 2008, the competition was named after Grant Dobson, the executive director of external relations at Brock from 1988-2004 and a long-time friend of O\u2019Malley\u2019s who was instrumental in the development of both events.<\/p>\n
The impact of the competition is evident in the number of judges who offer their time and expertise year after year, and the number of former competitors who happily volunteer to support the event long after they have graduated from Brock.<\/p>\n
Savanna Schaus, a graduate of the Business Communication program, has participated in the day\u2019s events since 2009. Now the Economic Development & Communications Coordinator for the Town of Hanover, Schaus calls the calibre of the work and creativity demonstrated each year \u201cjaw-dropping,\u201d and credits O\u2019Malley with being her inspiration to stay committed.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis passion is contagious,\u201d she says. \u201cThat is why I continue to participate years after graduating and will continue for the life of the event.\u201d<\/p>\n
The competition is open to the public, but seating is limited. Following the competition, the Terry O\u2019Malley Lecture in Marketing and Advertising takes place at 7:30 p.m.\u00a0in the David S. Howes Theatre on campus. Tickets are free but required. To reserve your seat for either event, please contact events@brocku.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Students are brushing up on luxury clothing markets and polishing their pitches in preparation for the Grant Dobson Case Competition, which takes place on March 2. They will compete for industry attention, cash prizes and bragging rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":37845,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,4,38],"tags":[3865,3867,864,2755,3864,3866,3863],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37843"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37843"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37846,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37843\/revisions\/37846"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}