Bethany Dickey and Sunjita Kapoor Named Winners of the Pearson-Sponsored WestJet Marketing Case Competition

The National Contest Challenges Undergraduates at Canadian Higher Education Institutions to Develop and Present an Innovative Marketing Campaign

TORONTO, Aug. 19, 2014 /CNW/ - Pearson and WestJet have announced the winners of the Pearson-sponsored WestJet Challenge. The competition required Canadian undergraduate college students, from two and four-year institutions, to develop and present a marketing plan around the launch of WestJet's planned overseas expansion. The WestJet case study originated from the textbook, co-authored by Gary Armstrong, Philip Kotler, Valerie Trifts, and Lilly Anne Buchwitz, entitled "Marketing: An Introduction."

The competition offered Principles of Marketing students the opportunity to compete in a national marketing case competition that challenged them to respond to a real-world marketing scenario. Students were tasked with developing a situation analysis, performing market research, developing sound integrated marketing communication plans, presenting a realistic timeline for implementation, and creating a three-minute video submission to present their plans.

Marketing plans were submitted to Pearson, and were then distributed to industry professionals for evaluation. The top two teams were selected and invited to present their marketing plans to a group of representatives from the WestJet marketing and communications teams, and the case author, Dave Gaudet, who is also an instructor at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.

First place was awarded to Bethany Dickey of Acadia University, and Sunjita Kapoor from the University of Saskatchewan. The two winners received an all-expenses-paid trip to Calgary.

Pearson Canada's Director of Marketing, Higher Education, Leigh Anne Graham, said, "Winners of the marketing case competition were selected based on a combination of their video, marketing plan, and the quality of the presentation they delivered to the WestJet team, which expanded on both the video and the written components. Ms. Dickey and Ms. Kapoor delivered a strong presentation to the board members at WestJet, who were very impressed with their level of commitment, creativity, and attention to detail. We hope that this experience will positively influence each student's future academic and career endeavors."

The winning student's marketing plans centered on a Twitter hashtag competition called #DearWestJet. Key messaging was based on WestJet's past commercials and promotional videos, which featured real-life stories and incorporated social media.

To read more about the WestJet Case Challenge, visit:http://www.pearsoncanada.ca/highered/showcase/pearson-presents-the-westjet-case-challenge.

About Pearson
Pearson is the world's leading learning company, with 40,000 employees in more than 80 countries working to help people of all ages to make measurable progress in their lives through learning. For more information about Pearson, visit http://www.pearson.com.

SOURCE: Pearson Education

Jessica Saso, Marketing Manager, [email protected], [phone]