Design, develop and deliver an e-campaign, in a day!
Have you ever tried to get a child to eat broccoli? Will most of your Christmas shopping be done online, rather than in the shops? Does the thought of being without your phone for a day bring you out in a cold sweat?
If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes’, take a moment to think about the challenge facing some of our students in October: to design, develop and deliver an e-campaign that takes on one of these problems, all within a single day.
The brainchild of Rob Dalton, lecturer in PR and communications, the e-campaign in a day brings together students from different creative courses – marketing, PR, advertising and journalism – to work across disciplines on a live project.
The whole event is mediated through SOL, starting with enrolling students onto the campaign and providing resources, through to keeping in contact with them all throughout what was a hectic day.
By sharing and exchanging their skills and knowledge within the context of a real situation, the students get a taste of what it would be like to do this for a living, in an industry that is increasingly oriented towards this kind of integrated, convergent working.
From an employability perspective, they gain confidence from knowing they can produce a campaign under these conditions, in an industry-style environment. On the curriculum side, a lot of the elements that are taught more formally are brought together in a fun and engaging format. Tackling tasks like persuading people to stop buying bottled water, or committing to no more than 14 units of alcohol each week, every week, promotes engagement immediately.
So, it’s good for the students, but what about the staff? One of the most rewarding outcomes is being able to see all the talent among our students. It’s a great means of challenging and understanding the ideas and the ways of working of the next generation of communications professionals.