Meet the winning City College Norwich students who have been taking part in an Apprentice-style challenge in partnership with Castle Quarter, just as the long-running BBC TV show returns on 30th January for its 19th series.
A group of 40 City College Norwich students, aged 16 to 18, have been working on an Apprentice style creative brief over the past eight weeks, set by the marketing team at Castle Quarter – the city’s leading leisure, lifestyle and social destination. Each student was tasked with planning and creating an engaging, creative digital campaign to promote the centre online and on social media.
The campaign brief was issued in November as part of their Level 2 Media Studies course, with the cohort visiting Castle Quarter to ask the marketing team questions, conduct research, plan their campaigns and brainstorm ideas. They returned to the centre to shoot footage at the start of the year, before presenting back this week, on Tuesday 28th January.
Working in groups to produce original digital campaigns, the students were asked to think about how to create content that appealed to families and a young target audience, specifically using short form video content for Instagram and TikTok, and a longer online brand video to help promote the centre’s leisure, lifestyle and social experiences.
As well as getting real-life work experience, through meeting the ‘client’, students also had to approach and persuade Castle Quarter’s tenants to take part in their campaigns, including businesses like Vector VR gaming, Retro Replay, Putt Putt Social crazy golf, Itaewon Korean Supermarket and Pettitt and Boo pet store.
On Tuesday, they presented their finished campaigns back in an Apprentice style meeting. Adopting the role of Alan Sugar, Gemma Hyde, marketing and administration manager at Castle Quarter, handed out constructive feedback and picked a winning team. Unlike the show, thankfully no-one was on the receiving end of a brutal ‘you’re fired’.
Karen Buchanan, Course Leader for Level 2 Creative Media Production and Lecturer at City College Norwich, initially approached Castle Quarter to set up the partnership, and says: “We’re enormously grateful to Gemma and the team at Castle Quarter for working with us, and the kindness and encouragement they’ve shown all our students. They were nervous but really excited about the prospect of this project. Real-life briefs are an amazing opportunity for our media studies students to get hands-on, real-world experience and find out what it’s like to be out there in the industry. Going through this process and hearing encouraging feedback will benefit them in so many ways as they move ahead in their careers. You could almost see their confidence soar as the project went on, helping us to develop the next generation of media talent.”
Gemma Hyde from Castle Quarter adds: “We were so impressed with the students’ creativity, originality and media skills. They’ve worked brilliantly as a team, to plan, shoot and present digital campaigns that met our brief, and should be incredibly proud of the content they’ve created, and for conducting themselves in such a professional way.”
The winning team was made up of Katie, Lucy, Samia and Chloe.
Quotes from City College Norwich students about the experience
Ryan
“I learnt how to plan and create an advertising campaign for a business, which has been brilliant. The best bit was shooting the footage inside real companies, like Vector VR and Putt Putt Social. They were so helpful and friendly, and we really enjoyed creating content with them.”
Lucy
“We’ve been able to get real-life experience using our practical media production skills, like learning how to edit properly. I spent a lot of time behind the camera, creating the Castle Quarter brand video to appeal to families. It made me think about how to take different and interesting shots, using angles and lighting. I’d like to work in the media, and these new editing and filming skills are going to help me a lot in the future.”
Katie
“I’ve learnt loads about how to create professional content, how to plan a shoot, filming with different angles like shooting from the floor, how to get the best effects with lighting, and editing creatively. I want to go on and study Level 3 media production at college after this and my ambition is to work in radio one day.”
Edward
“I’ve been doing editing work in my own time for the past three years, and this was a chance to work as an editor for real, on a live brief from Castle Quarter. One day I hope to get a job at the BBC in editing.”
Jade
“My favourite part was the day we came into the centre to carry out customer research, asking visitors questions. I love finding out new things and meeting new people, and it was so interesting to chat to customers and find out how they celebrate Valentine’s and spend their time in the centre. And it was a rare chance to see behind the scenes at Castle Quarter, somewhere I’ve been so many times before.”
Lola
“We had a lot of fun with this project, creating content that we thought young people like us would find interesting and funny, it was a great chance to give our own personal take on the brief. We filmed me doing cartwheels for a social campaign, something I never thought I’d be doing as part of my course! Working together outside the classroom was great, giving us the freedom to think about how we, as young people, would engage with a brand campaign.”
Visit Castle Quarter Norwich.
Featured image of (left to right) Katie, Chloe and Lucy, and all other images supplied by Plain Speaking PR
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