As part of our most recent industry day – we teamed up with local employer, Canon Europe to challenge our students with a real-world marketing and media comms brief around the new Canon EOS M50 Mark II camera.
The day was set up with an introduction from Canon Europe’s Marketing and Communications teams to help our students get a better understanding into the wide range of roles in the industry. Then – the brief was set by the team including Jasdev Virdee, Senior Digital Designer at Canon Europe – to work on a campaign targeting the gaming industry, specifically streamers.
All of Year 12 were tasked with the same challenge – to respond to a gaming brief, exploring how Canon can better promote its professional live streaming kits to Twitch streamers and vloggers. The students then formed smaller teams, creating a campaign concept, a digital banner and a ten-second TikTok ad within only a couple of hours. Meanwhile, Canon volunteers were on hand throughout the morning to help with any creative queries.
A few hours later (and a skipped lunch break which the students utilised to give their campaign assets a final polish), Canon volunteers, aka Global Academy’s newest panel of judges, gathered in the school auditorium to review each team’s submission. The judges were looking for campaigns that stood out in the crowded gaming market. From the responses that were presented on stage, we were impressed and inspired by the insights, creativity and technical expertise underlying each presentation. The day saw students enthusiastically embracing the gaming brief, creating fun tag lines such as ‘Twitch Without the Glitch’, social ads with product packaging flying into the frame and banners that took us deep into the bright neon landscapes of the gaming world.
The proud winner, judged by Canon volunteers, was a group of students who had developed a campaign called ‘CHANGE THE GAME’, a product-led concept that highlighted the low light and auto focus benefits of using professional kit for your live streaming. The students had created a ten-second ad that beautifully captured the product’s design features and had followed the brief closely. They will now have the chance to get their portfolios reviewed by Canon’s Design Team in dedicated mentoring sessions.
“Our Industry Day with Canon was such a great experience. I learnt so much that I can take into future projects and work. Getting the opportunity to learn from such a big and successful company like Canon was absolutely amazing”
Lucy Crane, Year 12 Pupil
“Working directly with young people at Global Academy provided us with some really interesting and thought provoking perspectives. The team really enjoyed their day with Year 12. We’re excited to work closely with Global Academy to help prepare young people for careers in marketing and communications – and look forward to more exciting opportunities to come”
Alex Thurgood, EMEA Digital Operations Canon Europe
The day was Canon’s first formal engagement with Global Academy as part of our partnership, with further industry days and mentoring sessions commencing in the near future. A big thank you to Jas Virdee, Elsie Hayibor, Constanze Bauer, Jawand Ghatoray, Katherine Stephens and Reshma Chauhan from Canon who gave up their time to plan and support the day, and importantly be part of the judging panel!
Our partnership with Canon is just one of many examples of the unique industry-led opportunities students at Global Academy receive to kickstart their careers in the creative industry – to find out more and apply click here.
