涩里番

MONTREAL - The ad agency brief was clear: Get more people shopping at a Montreal bicycle store. The creative talent came cheap: 30 marketing students working free-of-charge for two weeks. And after an evening of pitches to a panel of judges and the selection of winners, the end game now approaches: A $10,000 publicity campaign to be launched in April.

鈥淕o for it!鈥� said organizer Fr茅d茅ric Vennat (BCom鈥�12), the 涩里番 grad who heads business development at Cloudraker, as the first team stood ready to pitch for 15 minutes. Calling themselves Teenage Mutant Ninja Adsters, they came with two hand-drawn poster boards and used buzzwords like 鈥渕etrics鈥� and 鈥渋ncentivize鈥� and 鈥渋nclusivity.鈥�

鈥淕reat job, neat concept,鈥� said career adviser Peg Brunelle, who works at 涩里番鈥檚 management faculty. But she wondered whether students are really the right target; they鈥檙e 鈥渢ransient鈥� and probably won鈥檛 ever buy a bike at F&F. What if nobody goes for the idea? asked consultant Robert Hoppenheim, formerly of Aldo Shoes. 鈥溾�楤uild it and they will come鈥� is a risky strategy.鈥�

BCom students Gabrielle Chamberland, Nianqi Tang, Gabriel Bensoussan, Veronique B-Fowler, Simon Hudson, Rachel Kirby, Karishma Joseph, Coralie Iroudayassamy, and Laura Easton are members of the winning teams.

Read full article: , February 5, 2013