More than a decade ago, Claire Terrio\u2019s grandmother used to bring her on outings to Hannelore Headley Old & Fine Books.<\/p>\n
This year, in a group with three other students in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film, Terrio put her skills and knowledge to work for the St. Catharines store as part of a service-learning project in COMM 3P62, \u201cPublic Relations and Integrated Marketing Communication.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instructor Kate Cassidy says that while the course has always offered students a hands-on experience, she decided to refocus partnering with actual organizations due to COVID-19.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pandemic has been hard on small businesses and non-profits and has required them to pivot quickly and present themselves in new ways,\u201d says Cassidy. \u201cThis course has always been designed to include work on a social media campaign, but this year I wanted to engage with real community partners and see if there was a way we could help.\u201d<\/p>\n
Along with the bookstore, students had the opportunity to work with Pocket Change, Outdoors Oriented, Hospice Niagara and Collingwood Kambucha. Each week, they learned about public relations theory in lecture and then devoted their seminars to working in groups on their campaigns, which they ultimately presented in a video and executive summary.<\/p>\n
The top campaigns were then presented to the community partners.<\/p>\n
Terrio, Anthony Fallucco, Cameron Tomaselli and Emily Wright were chosen as one of the teams to share their campaign with Hannelore Headley Old & Fine Books, which was founded in 1972 and has been owned by Laurie Richards since Hannelore Headley\u2019s death in 2013.<\/p>\n
Although they\u2019ve never met in person, the group members collaborated virtually throughout the term during seminar, completing each incremental task without noticing they were finishing the project. They describe the process as having been \u201cbamboozled\u201d or \u201ctricked\u201d by Cassidy into getting their work done on time, though they admit it was a nice surprise.<\/p>\n
They also learned that to meet the needs of the bookshop, they had to look beyond social media alone and focus on what makes the store unique, such as their eco-friendly products and great atmosphere.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, looking at the bookstore online, I just stopped,\u201d says Cameron Tomaselli. \u201cThe way it looked, the aesthetic, was really cool, very unique, and I appreciated that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fallucco says the practical application of the project was sometimes daunting, because there was pressure tied to trying to give advice to small-business owners without the experience of having owned a small business. But he also says that connecting with local businesses has many benefits.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would encourage students to take a walk off campus and to check out these local businesses,\u201d says Fallucco. \u201cThey have valuable services that they can provide you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The students also agree that having a personal connection with the business increased their commitment and interest in producing excellent work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn’t a big box store, so we really had to think about small business,\u201d says Wright, whose parents are both small-business owners. \u201cWe’ve had a lot of marketing projects in the past where we use Nike or Adidas or other big companies and make social media campaigns for them, so it was neat to be able to do this for a small local business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Terrio says that several factors combined to make the group\u2019s project stand out for everyone involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that we got along as a group and all of us really committed to not only building a relationship with the business but also with each other reflects in our work,\u201d says Terrio. \u201cIt felt a lot more hands-on and I appreciated that because I was worried my fourth year wasn’t going to have as much of that real experience due to online learning. But this has given me that opportunity, and that’s been exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
For their part, Richards and longtime bookstore employee Cathy Steel-Ewart say they were impressed with the quality of suggestions that were developed by the student team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re grateful that someone who loves us was involved with this project, because help like this is not easy to find,\u201d Richards says. \u201cThe ideas are worth so much to us, especially coming from the younger generation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steel-Ewart says she \u201cloved the energy the students brought to our store.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey made me think about how a hashtag is not just a pound key \u2014 I really appreciated that this is actually a thing, and we do need to embrace it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Richards and Steel-Ewart are eager to implement some of the initiatives and were delighted to learn they would receive a kick-start to their plans thanks to a Teaching and Learning Innovation Grant awarded to Cassidy by Brock\u2019s Experiential Education office, as part of Co-op, Career and Experiential Education.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe students and I were thrilled to hear that we had received a grant of $250, which provides $50 dollars for each partner and can be put toward things like prizes or Google ads in order to bring the students\u2019 ideas to life,\u201d says Cassidy. \u201cWe hope that being able to present a package of campaign ideas and this small token shows how committed we are to being partners in our community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More than a decade ago, Claire Terrio\u2019s grandmother used to bring her on outings to Hannelore Headley Old & Fine Books. This year, in a group with three other students in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film, Terrio put her skills and knowledge to work for the St. Catharines store as part of a service-learning project in COMM 3P62, \u201cPublic Relations and Integrated Marketing Communication.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":71577,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9794,7,3319,1,4,38],"tags":[10167,10170,10169,5050,10171,153,703,2561,10172,1153,522,10166,2775,10168,10165],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71576"}],"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=71576"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71579,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71576\/revisions\/71579"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}