St. Clair College students win international digital marketing competition

Advertising students from St. Clair College won an international digital marketing competition on Dec. 2, 2023. (Source: Submitted)

A St. Clair College advertising class has pulled off the unexpected after they won an international competition over the weekend.

The group qualified for the final four of a worldwide digital marketing competition hosted by Purdue University, and made their final presentation on Saturday.

They were tasked with creating a campaign to help launch a product called Sole Search, which is a tracking tag for kids’ shoes.

To reflect the company name the team changed the campaign to Pax Guardian, and created characters called Pax Pals.

“That’s how they did it, that’s how they pitched it — it was that, we’re going to save you some money by licensing your own tags,” said Professor Steve McEachern.

St. Clair was the only team to veer off script and their campaign beat out 271 teams for the win.

“I was pretty excited, I knew like as a team we created something really great, and I guess the judges thought so as well. So when we won, we all kind of looked at each other, all screamed, all the yells happened, a couple tears were shed. Winning this thing proves we are ready for industry,” said student Zach Dillen.