Marjon students go to market

Released: 22.02.18

Plymouth Marjon University has handed total control of two of its major marketing campaigns to third-year Journalism and Sports Journalism students.

The ground-breaking idea will give real-life industry exposure to the students, while also tapping into their unique take on the Marjon experience.

As part of a Marketing and PR module, the students will be running campaigns highlighting the university’s long history of teacher training, as well as its flourishing creative programmes.

Working for the Journalism and Media department’s in-house creative agency, JAM PR, the students have devised video-led content strategies which will be promoted across social media and targeted at the next generation of applicants.

Katy Willis, Director of Marketing and Student Experience at the University, said: “I have no doubt that this will result in more interesting and different ways we in marketing would think about doing something.

“The most important strand of our marketing strategy this year is being more student-led – using more student photos, more student quotes, and getting more fresh ideas from students.

“It seems the right thing that we should be enabling our journalism students more. They are looking for experience, and we’re looking for their experience.”

The students themselves are relishing the prospect of working alongside the marketing team at Marjon, as well as putting into practice the creative media skills they have learned so far.

Third year Journalism student Jasmine Parr, 20, said: “It’s a scarily exciting opportunity, being given the responsibility of promoting my own university. It is also giving me essential experience which I will be able to use in my CV to show to future employers. It’s given me a head start by gaining skills in a sector than runs closely alongside journalism.”

Sports Journalism student Stephen Dixon, 24, said: “It’s nice that we’ve been given responsibilities and a bit of me is nervous about that, but it’s also a good challenge. I don’t think many universities offer this kind of responsibility to their students, I think it shows they have confidence in our abilities.”

For more information contact Owen Belli in the Plymouth Marjon University Marketing team on obelli@marjon.ac.uk or 01752 636700.