Every year, during winter reading week, students from any program can compete in the annual Durham College Marketing Competition held at the Oshawa Campus.
This year was no different except that the competition drew the most participants since its inception. In all, 32 teams competed for the top five spots.
Students were sent a marketing case from sponsor Fastenal 24 hours before the event. They had to present solutions to a team of judges and the teams with the most points went into the top five.
Those teams presented to the losing teams. The top three won trophies and cash prizes. First place received $1,500, second earned $1,000 and third took home $500.
Even if students didn’t place in the top three, they still had the opportunity to win smaller prizes, such as Durham College hoodies, water bottles, bags and notebooks, along with gift cards to a variety of stores.
The event was sponsored by several companies, including Fastenal, Cengage, Owasco and the Newcastle and District Chamber of Commerce.
“This is our fourth year of sponsoring this event,” said Jim Noorwood of the Newcastle and District Chamber of Commerce. “It’s a fantastic day for everyone involved: the sponsors, the students, the faculty, and the volunteers. Just a wonderful day.”
The event left an impact on many, even those who were not in the Business – Marketing program.
“It was like a fun activity. We sure did put our website-making skills, like putting in our programming languages and stuff like HTML, CSS and stuff, into this marketing competition,” said Riyaan Naeem and Mohammed Aasim, competitors from the Computer Science program.
The competition was popular among students with a wishing it happened more than once a year.
“Just networking and meeting all these different brands and all these different companies is an amazing way to kind of reach out and get to know what kind of business world you’re wanting to work into,” said Mya Farquahar, a Business – Marketing student.
The winners of this year’s competition were Adeel Khan and Liam Moloney from the Business – Marketing program.