Bournemouth University marketing students in Google challenge success

The team of BU students, from the Events Management and Events and Leisure Marketing courses, were challenged to deliver a digital marketing campaign for a company or project of their choice, and were given $250 by Google to compete against other teams from across the world.

The BU team was the only team in the UK to reach the latter stages of the Google competition. The students came together to deliver a marketing project for their chosen client; the Bournemouth Jazz Festival, aiding with ticket sales in the run up to the event.

Bethany Dare, part of the BU team to make it to the semi finals, said, “None of us had previous digital marketing experience, but we knew it would be useful to our future careers. We picked a client, which was Bournemouth Jazz Festival, and we picked them because it really tied in with our events degree.

“With the client we came up with a 28 day AdWord brief to submit for the challenge alongside the $250 budget from Google. When it went live we watched it carefully to make sure it was a success, it got a lot of clicks and a lot of interaction, which was great, and then wrote a report to reflect on what we did.”

Bethany, who now works for Food By Dish, one of London’s top event catering agencies, concluded, “We were really happy with the result. I feel that digital marketing is something that is useful for any future job we go into. We worked really well as a team, and are delighted with our success.”

Philip Alford, Digital Marketing Unit leader at Bournemouth University, said, “Few people get through to this stage, it is a global challenge with thousands of competitors from around the world taking part, and this team is the only one in the UK to have reached this stage of the competition, so I am so proud of how they have done.

“It is down to the hard work of the team. Marketing is such a hands on world and this is learning through doing, students love it, and these students really helped to sell tickets for the Bournemouth Jazz Festival – they learned a practical tool and helped a local Festival in the process, which is great.”