A group of Northwestern Qatar students won third place for a digital strategic communications campaign they developed for a class taught by Professor Ilhem Allagui.
The students entered the campaign in the 2020 Digital Marketing Competition hosted by Purdue University Northwest and competed against more than 85 university teams. Each team submitted short videos of their campaign, which were reviewed by a panel of digital marketing professionals.
In developing the campaign, which promoted a student loan repayment app, Inaara Nizarali Gangji, Khadija Mohamed Islow, and Farina Amir conducted primary research, developed a social media plan, a search engine optimization plan, produced a series of creatives for various social media platforms, and created a budget and evaluation plan.
The Northwestern Qatar student team was one of five finalists selected to compete in the competition's final round. The director of the competition, Matt Hanson, said that the “judges analyzed hours of round one video presentations from across the world to come to these five finalists. From what our judges have said, the finals are going to be extremely competitive.”
In the final round, the team presented their campaign to a panel of judges. The presentation included research findings, paid digital marketing strategy, owned digital strategy, media placement, and evaluation methods, followed by a series of questions from the panelists.
“The competition was long and challenging,” Allagui said, “with multiple stages and several meetings. The students showed perseverance and commitment and competed hard until the very end. Their commitment was amazing, and I am very proud of them.”
The students’ participation was part of Professor Allagui’s advanced strategic communications course on digital, social, and mobile marketing.
For more information on the competition, click here.
