There were snappy campaign slogans like Catch a Wave with WAC and Instagram posts that invited guests to use the hashtag #WACFromWayBack.
St. Clair's third year advertising class along with professors Scott Briscoe, Casey Purdie and Steve McEachern recently presented their ideas to the Windsor Aquatic Club (WAC) for a digital campaign around the club's 50th anniversary celebration that will run for eight months.
"This is a lengthy campaign and it involved a blank slate to work from," Briscoe said.
"It was a way the students could demonstrate from semester one to semester six everything they learned in all the different classes to put it together."
From digital strategies to content creation, to building an audience, Briscoe says "it was one of those projects where the students could encompass everything."
The students have been working for about six weeks on their campaigns and Briscoe said it is an excellent example of collaboration between a non-profit organization in the city and St Clair College.
Nancy Hanes, the president of the Windsor Aquatic Club, says she was "super impressed" with the presentations. The goal is to create a buzz in the community about the upcoming anniversary and to grow the club's membership. Hanes said the students quickly grasped what the club was trying to accomplish.
"We want this event to be a huge success," Hanes said. "Fifty years is a big deal and we want it to be a big deal."
Six groups of students pitched their campaigns to three members of the WAC and now the club will confer about which aspects of the campaigns they like.
The students will then meet as a class to come up with a final campaign to present to WAC for use during the 50th-anniversary celebrations. Once finalized, the students will buy the ad placements and schedule social media posts over the length of the campaign.
Briscoe said such projects give the students real-world experience that they can put on their resumes.
"They can say I worked from a brief, created content, placed ads on Facebook, Instagram and evaluated the campaign metrics.
"We'll do everything they do in the industry, so when they get out there and they're asked, they can say, 'yeah I've done that.'"