Top Ad Exec – The Winners!
The third year of Canada’s Next Top Ad Exec Competition recently wrapped up - with 2 lucky students, Matt Daigle and Elizabeth-Ann McLeave from the University of New Brunswick taking the top prize - shiny new Volkswagen Golfs [each].
The competition, hosted by McMaster University’s De Groote School of Business, clearly has taken on a life of its own, as evidenced by the following statistics:
• Competition registrations grew from 147 in 2007 to 560 in 2009
• The actual qualified submissions in turn grew from 45 in 2007 to 143 in 2009 – representing schools across the country
• Approximately 30 judges participated in the various judging stages
The challenge for students in this year’s competition was to develop an experiential campaign for the Volkswagen Routon. The theme was “Face the Fear”, and the top 10 finalists who pitched their campaign to a panel of industry and academic judges did just that. The presentations and closing ceremonies took place March 31 at the Meridien King Edward, with the winners being revealed following dinner and a reception.
Memorable comments during the evening presentations included Dean Bates of the DeGroote School of Business who reminded students to “THINK BIG” and Garry Lee, President of Cundari who asserted that “great brands give back”.
Bruce Rosen, Director of Marketing at Volkswagen described the Volkswagen brand as being “approachable with iconic models and passionate about the youthful consumer”, which explains why 4000 Golfs are produced weekly, and 26 million have been sold to date.
The keynote message from Laurence Bernstein, Partner, BC3 Strategies was about “getting our heads around change”, with respect to not only current economic conditions but traditional brand building that has, until recently, stood the test of time. Signalling new media as a game changer, he challenged students to “prepare the path for those who will come after you – and equally important, you need to rescue us from our collective ignorance, to tell us what it means, to show us how it works, to forcibly pull our collective heads out of the sand and help us build the brands and businesses that will populate the world in the future – the day after tomorrow.”
Pretty scary stuff -- although the student audience didn't blink an eye.
