天美传媒 students are taking part in the development and implementation of an AdWords online advertising campaign for local businesses as part of the global Google Marketing Challenge, which will see more than 110,000 staff and students from 100 countries take part.
The challenge, set over 10 weeks, will see 12 teams from BU work with local businesses to compete in the international competition; working with businesses including media production company, LoveLove Films, Urban Beach Hotel, Restaurant Monty鈥檚 Lounge, Fab Frocks of Westbourne, and festival promoter Bournemouth Sevens.
Dr Philip Alford, a Senior Lecturer Tourism & Hospitality Marketing at BU聽who will be leading the teams, said: 鈥淭he challenge runs for ten weeks and will see teams consult with clients over the initial three to four weeks to understand better their online marketing, and where Google AdWords campaigns could work for that business, in particular key word strategies, areas for ads to appear and mobile advertising.
鈥淎 three-week campaign will then run, with $250 from Google for the team to do a test campaign. This is student-centred learning, setting up a live campaign, and then coming into lectures and seminars learning about the theory of marketing and then practising it. Last year, a BU group reached the regional semi-finals, but this year we are hoping to go much further.鈥�
Ben Swatridge, of PPC Active, a paid-search consultancy company from Ringwood, met with teams and businesses at BU to help provide advice and help to competing students: 鈥淭his is a fantastic opportunity for students to get involved in a live marketing environment. It鈥檚 a real string to their bow to take out of university and put on their CV.鈥�
Bournemouth Sevens Sales and Marketing Manager, Lucy Daryll, and Event Manager Paul Ashurst, said: 鈥淲e normally do all of our marketing over social media and 聽email campaigns.聽Google Marketing Challenge isn鈥檛 something that we鈥檝e looked into before, so we鈥檙e really keen to learn more from students.
鈥淚t鈥檚 great because it鈥檚 this area is something that we might not have had time to invest in, whereas students have been able to really look into the business.
"We鈥檙e both former BU students, so it鈥檚 fantastic, and students are our main target audience. It鈥檚 great that students will be talking about the festival and also learning about it."
Winning teams will have the chance to take part in a funded trip to California to the offices of Google.聽
To find out more about the competition, visit:
