Creating a Buy Local Campaign is no easy task. It takes a lot of research, hours of finding the right slogan and creating a campaign that will speak to many generations.
This year, the Greater Arlington Chamber of Commerce had the opportunity to partner with the Advertising Department at UTA as the client for students in their senior IMC & Advertising Campaigns course. Soon-to-be graduates spent a semester planning a Buy Local campaign that would energize the Arlington community to support local businesses.
We challenged them to think creatively and show us advertising strategies that we would have never thought of. To develop this campaign students executed market research, prepared media analyses, created marketing and messaging strategies, and designed sample creative executions for various digital platforms.
“Working with an actual client connects the academic experience to the real world,” said Dr. Roger Gans when asked how this partnership helped his students grow.
After spending three and half months living and breathing their buy local campaigns, we were able to see just how talented the students at UTA are. On December 12th, Chamber Chair and owner of Active Family Wellness, Dr. Kenyon Godwin, along with Mike Gerro from Frost Bank, joined Chamber CEO and staff, Michael Jacobson, Britton Merritt and Makayla Reed in judging and listening to the teams’ pitches. Each of the four “agencies” had aspects of their campaigns that really blew us away and showed off their out-of-the-box thinking. The students truly dove head first into making a campaign that would inspire them to shop local as well as speak to Arlington residents of other generations.
“It was great to have the experience of working on a holistic campaign from research to execution. I’ve enjoyed getting to explore the Arlington community and learning about the small businesses that are fundamental for the city’s success,” said Advertising student, Maegan Londenberg.
Through this experience, the Chamber got the opportunity to see what the fall 2022 advertising grads have to offer the world before they walked the stage on December 16th.
We would like to thank Dr. Roger Gans and Dr. Tom Ingram for allowing us to be the class’s client for the semester and the students for working hard on each of their campaigns. After a debrief with Gans and Ingram, you can look forward to more partnerships in the future between the Chamber and the UTA Communications Department!
Until then, be on the look out for a new Buy Local campaign coming in 2023👀