Wintec students partner with Western Community Centre on a brand refresh
First year communications students collaborate on a marketing campaign with clients, Western Community Centre.
By Monique Kelly and Lisette Elisala
A Wintec student project is underway to raise awareness of the services provided by the Western Community Centre.
The first year communication students are working on the digital marketing project with Senior Academic Staff Member, Abby Dalgety. The campaign also hopes to attract more funding for the centre.
The aim was for the students to gather information from the centre about their goals and values and create fresh ideas for them to implement. The skills learned over the course of the project can later be transferred into industry experience.
Communication Programme Coordinator, Cate Prestidge said having the community centre as the project client is all part of the ‘real world learning’ Wintec is known for.
Students went through a process of client consultation with centre representatives; Neil Tolan (Manager), Trish Terry (Community Connector) and Tom Hunt (Youth Development Worker). This helped them identify their target audience, the centre aims and values and their existing communication with stakeholders.
The students analysed and evaluated the existing website and social media and, in groups, came up with a range of creative strategies and concepts to pitch to the client.
The client chose the ideas they wanted to implement, which included web design, event planning, a community newsletter, brand identity and photography proposals.
Jobs were delegated to individual students in class to ensure all areas of the project were covered.
Abby Dalgety identifies the work as helping to strengthen the brand voice of the Western Community Centre. “We are planting seeds to evolve their brand and create more marketing activities for them in the future”
Students were asked what they thought about the campaign and how their ideas could strengthen the Western Community Centre’s brand.
Vanya Hayward, who is working on the website design, said, “The adaptations we’re making to the website will make it more appealing and professional and could attract more investors to the centre”
Manager at Western Community Centre, Neil Tolan said he appreciated all the ideas and wanted to implement some different aspects from all of them.
The students have been working in groups to create the different elements of the campaign including; creating new website content, writing media stories, designing a newsletter template and planning a fundraising event.
They are submitting their final projects to the client this week and will support the centre to implement these next term.
