The new blood rising through the marketing industry ranks looks promising if the winners of the New Zealand Post Targeted Communications 2009 Student Marketers of the Year award, announced at Friday nights RSVP/Nexus Awards, are anything to go by.
The award honours excellence in marketing strategy, creativity and innovative thinking in tertiary students. To be up for the award, student marketers were asked to develop a campaign to raise both the profile and funds for Foundation for Youth Development (FYD), by creating a marketing campaign that included both internet and direct mail.
AUT students James O’Sullivan and Adam Barnes took home the award for their ‘Three Courses for Kids’ campaign, a direct marketing programme designed for the “Non-Event of the Year”, an annual FYD initiative aimed at raising funds for its current programmes Kiwi Can, Stars and Project K.
To ensure donations are put to best use, the Non-Event of the Year campaign encourages donors to host the perfect non-event from the comfort of their own home, with their own friends, instead of attending an extravagant charity ball or dinner.
Jackie Shaw from the New Zealand Post Targeted Communications team says the judges thought the way the duo integrated creative elements and marketing channels was excellent.
“The ‘Three Courses for Kids’ campaign used a clever combination of printed plates, course menus and napkins as the key visual images of a very integrated campaign that included direct mail, radio, PR, online and ambient activity,” says Shaw.
The winners of the Student Marketer of the Year Award receive travel vouchers as well as the chance to have their name in lights in front of a room of prospective employers.
