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Susan White

A group of ������Ƶ University students have weighed in on the future of the province’s largest sports and events venues.

Students in Business Administration and Human Kinetics and Recreation (HKR) recently completed a marketing audit of , which runs the Mary Brown’s Centre and the St. John’s Convention Centre.

Shawna Cosgrove, a fifth-year commerce student, calls the experience “the most meaningful” of her entire degree.

“Working with St. John’s Sports and Entertainment made the stakes feel different,” she said. “That made me approach it differently, think more critically and take the work more seriously.”

Three business students and eight Human Kinetics and Recreation students undertook the audit as part of HKR 4565: Recreation Promotion and Sports Marketing with Dr. Kirby Shannahan, professor of marketing at the Faculty of Business Administration, and Leigh Fitzpatrick, a per-course instructor at HKR.

“Working with real-world companies allows students to apply the concepts of marketing live within the organization,” said Dr. Shannahan. “It gives students the opportunity to prepare for the live business world.”

Twenty-five recommendations

Acting as consultants, the students analyzed St. John’s Sports and Entertainment’s operations.

They completed competitor analysis and industry benchmarks, identified strengths and gaps and conducted other research and analysis as they looked for growth opportunities.

“They wanted actionable insights. That completely changed the way we worked.” — Shawna Cosgrove

The students also developed 25 recommendations focused on venue branding, event diversity, experience packaging and marketing and presented them to top executives, including Brent Meade, the chief executive officer at St. John’s Sports and Entertainment.

Ms. Cosgrove, one of the project leads, says the real-world implications of their work amped up the accountability.

“We were presenting to real executives who cared about our findings,” she said. “They weren’t looking for a basic marketing plan. They wanted actionable insights. That completely changed the way we worked.”

‘New insights and ideas’

Mr. Meade says he was intrigued by the opportunity to work with students, particularly as the organization wants to target the students’ demographic.

Their work, he said, was “quite comprehensive.”

“It confirmed and validated some things that we had identified and were working towards,” said Mr. Meade. “It provided a different perspective on some of those things and it opened up whole new insights and ideas as to what we can do.”

Among the students’ recommendations for St. John’s Sports and Entertainment are enhanced branding within the venues, better integration of Newfoundland and Labrador’s culture, expanding traditional and digital marketing, partnering with the local community and offering more family-friendly events.

“It was a great road map,” said Mr. Meade, adding he would “absolutely” work with ������Ƶ students again.

He plans to explore hiring work-term students to implement the recommendations.

Persistence pays off

Colin Major is a fourth-year student in the Bachelor of Kinesiology Program who acted as the project’s co-author and editor.

He says he learned about business concepts and interpersonal relationships as part of the course, while also learning the value of hard work.

“One challenge we encountered is that cold calling was required to gather information from other entertainment organizations,” he said. “This meant that we had to be quite persistent in our investigation.”

“Working with St. John’s Sports and Entertainment made the learning tangible and made me even more motivated to understand the concepts.” — Colin Major

It was that experience that proved the course’s biggest benefit to Mr. Major, he says.

“Working with St. John’s Sports and Entertainment made the learning tangible and made me even more motivated to understand the concepts,” he said. “I find that projects like this are very beneficial to the learning process.”

Ms. Cosgrove agrees.

“There’s a big difference between studying a business problem and actually trying to solve one. It was a learning curve but that’s what made it so rewarding.”