University of Alberta marketing students Maya Cieszynska and Michael Holmes were named Canada’s Next Top Ad Execs in Toronto Tuesday night, receiving the honour after delivering a killer campaign pitch earlier in the day for Chevrolet’s upcoming Sonic model to a panel of industry experts, including Marketing editor-in-chief Tom Gierasimczuk.
Cieszynska and Holmes were each handed keys to a new Chevrolet Sonic (which will be released in September) from Kevin Williams, president and managing director of General Motors of Canada.
The awards gala concluded a long day of “pitch or perish” presentations from 10 finalist teams from across the country. Each team was tasked with delivering a comprehensive marketing campaign for the youth-focused 2012 Chevrolet Sonic small car (see the brief here). Judges scored the teams on strategy, creativity and attention to details.
In announcing the winners, Frank Trivieri, general director, marketing for GM Canada, said he was very excited about the “dirty” and “sick” ideas—complementary terms that he learned from his son—he’d seen from the students.
“I guarantee you some of the things we saw today will be incorporated in our launch,” he said. “I’m going to be meeting with our team to make sure our agency gets started on them today.”
Now through its fifth year, the competition started with a call for entries that generated 170 responses from 28 schools across the country. The first hurdle was a two-page elevator pitch evaluated by the judges. From there, 25 entries were put through to the second round to produce a comprehensive report including key objectives, positioning, media strategy and creative execution along with a three-minute video. The 10 finalists from that short list were brought to Toronto and put up at the Thompson Hotel for the final presentations.
“While each of the top 10 contestants submitted a top-tier entry, the three winning entries displayed a professional level of strategy, creativity, research and feasibility within the $1 million budget provided,” said Meghan Brennan, co-chair, CNTAE, in a release. “These entries showed judges that marketing on campuses across Canada can be taken to a new level by using a mix of new and traditional media tools.”
Canada’s Next Top Ad Exec is based out of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., and is entirely student-run with the support of sponsoring organizations Chevrolet, MacClaren McCann, GCI Group, Fujifilm, Cascades, Creative Niche Inc. and PepsiCo.
Second-place finalists Joanna Periversoff and Patricia Wozniak, from McMaster University received $2,500 Chevrolet scholarships and a Fujifilm gift basket; and third-place winners Amanda Miller and Brittany Miller, University of Lethbridge each received $1,000 Chevrolet scholarships and a Fujifilm gift basket.
