100+ students. 20+ teams. Two real-world case studies. One of those challenges: attracting and retaining tech talent for London’s growing digital creative businesses. The result? A comprehensive campaign - with branding, websites, marketing and advertising collateral, videography, and more - created by talented and innovative students here in London.
The Interactive Media Design program at Fanshawe College prepares students for an evolving job market in digital media design, development, and production by providing experience-based training in new media technologies. Each year, the Interactive Media Design program graduating students compete in two real-world, client projects as a team. The London Economic Development Corporation (LEDC) was thrilled to be selected as one of these case studies for the 2017-18 graduating year and work with such extraordinary talent.
“Having the students go out and work on real-world projects, have client feedback, it’s truly impactful to have that experience in the classroom, and it definitely shapes and moulds them into who they’re going to be as professionals” - Justin Brunner, Program Coordinator, Interactive Media Design, Fanshawe College.
The Problem
With matching the right kind of highly skilled talent to hiring employers remains one of the top challenges businesses face in London, the LEDC challenged the students to develop a unique way to attract new talent, retain existing talent, and/or better match the right people to the right jobs.
Focusing specifically on the digital creative sector as often these highly specialized, technical roles are difficult to fill, the students set off in September 2017 to create a comprehensive campaign that would raise awareness around the growing number of job opportunities here in London.
The Process
Earlier this year, the teams of students had their first chance to share their projects with the LEDC. With only 10 minutes to pitch their campaigns, it was impressive to see how professional and collected the students were while providing us with the high-level progress they’ve made thus far on their websites, marketing materials, and branding. After providing the groups with some feedback, they were tasked to go back and incorporate changes, improve on ideas, and complete their visions.
A couple of months later, the students had one last chance to wow the LEDC before we had to narrow it down from 20+ groups to four finalists. With even quicker pitches and no time allotted for feedback, it was a true test of condensing months of work into minutes of time.
In April, 80 companies, many of which were hiring employers at the time, gathered at the Fanshawe College’s downtown campus for an Industry Night. Students in the Interactive Media and Video Game cluster programs had the chance to showcase their projects and activities to potential employers and business contacts.
During Industry Night, the LEDC had the chance to announce the winning team out of the four finalists. We’re happy to highlight their work below:
THE WINNING TEAM})
THE CAMPAIGN
The focus of this team’s campaign was around retaining current students living and learning in London and getting them better connected to job offerings. Their research gave us further background on audience demographics and behaviours, while their eye for design allowed their branding to stand out. Not only did the team focus-in on our target industry of tech, but they created a brand and campaign that could live on in different industries and fields.})
The LEDC was thrilled to work closely with all of the students in the Interactive Media Design (IMD) program at Fanshawe College for the 2017-18 graduating year. We were delighted to hear from many of the students about how this project opened their eyes to the exciting career opportunities and quality of life that London has to offer.
Having the opportunity to work on ‘real-life’ projects was a great step in preparing us for our future careers. We spent countless hours perfecting this project and learning so much in the process, and I couldn’t have asked for better team members to have accomplished that with – Taylor Eaves, Project Manager for the winning team.
Fanshawe College’s Interactive Media & Design Program
To learn more about this program at Fanshawe, take a look at their video from one of their recent Industry Night’s or visit their website here.
