The Lawrence Kinlin School of Business announced this past weekend that Fanshawe’s very own marketing team has won the 2024 OCMC.
“OCMC stands for Ontario Colleges Marketing Competition and it’s an annual competition amongst Ontario colleges.” says Head Coach for the marketing team and marketing Professor Jack Michienzi.
“It’s been 36 years that they’ve run this event and it’s just an exciting way for students to be able to try out their different marketing skills in an environment that’s a little bit different than a regular classroom.”
OCMC logo (credit: OCMC)
Not only did Fanshawe’s team win the competition, but they also broke 2 records: a score of 72 points in the competition with the record being 70 and 5 gold medals won, the most in any single competition.
“It feels great. I’m really happy for the students because they put a lot of work into this. They showed a lot of dedication, and we did a lot of practicing. They worked with teams and coaches.”
“A lot of our faculty get involved and they do practice cases and they’ve been working hard since September. I’m really proud of what they were able to accomplish and the students are pretty happy about it too.”
Many people are not aware that the Lawrence Kinlin School of Business have this team, or what the competition entails.
“Usually there’s around 14-15 colleges that participate every year. The students then compete in a number of different challenges, and there’s 11 or 12 different events in which students compete in different marketing cases.”
“They usually involve analyzing a case and then doing a presentation to a panel of judges. Each school competes against each other, and the judges score students and then rank them, and the top five are awarded for every category.”
Michienzi went on to discuss why the OCMC is so important for the students on the team and what they can take away from it moving forward.
“I think it helps to build confidence. But to be honest with you, it’s not always about winning. I think that just going in and competing sometimes gives a situation for students where they can rise to a different challenge, and there’s benefits for that. Just being involved in the competition is helpful. Obviously it’s great to say we won, and that’s something that everybody is proud of.”
“But I’ve been involved in this experience for a while, and I think year after year it’s really good to see the development that the students make and hopefully it’s something that benefits them. I know it’s something that will benefit them in terms of confidence and their careers moving forward.”
Fanshawe’s OCMC team (credit: Lawrence Kinlin School of Business)
When you finish on a high note in a competition like this, it gives Professors like Michienzi lots of hope for the future of marketing at Fanshawe.
“I hope that it builds some excitement around our programs and in the team because this is something that we do every year. It’s open to marketing students in certain programs, our diploma program and our advanced diploma program and marketing are eligible for this. I’m hoping that it raises a lot of awareness in terms of this event and get students to want to participate in future years.”
The students within the team that brought home gold medals were: Elise Carlson (team captain), Avery Norris, Jaedyn Laanstra, Joshua Millard and Connor Latchford.
The competition took place November 14th and 15th hosted by St. Clair College in Windsor, Ontario.
