Date of Defense

6-30-2021

Date of Graduation

8-2021

Department

Marketing

First Advisor

Karen Lancendorfer

Second Advisor

Greg Gerfen

Abstract

The American Advertising Association offers Advertising students across America the opportunity to showcase their abilities in what is called the National Student Advertising Competition. This year, the NSAC’s client was Tinder. Tinder asked more than 150 schools to create a fully integrated marketing campaign that was to be evaluated by a panel of judges, with only one of which to be selected to launch in the Fall of 2021. Tinder provided students with a variety of background information about what Tinder really stands for in addition to the guidelines for the campaign that they are looking to run. With a budget of $10 million, our team at Western Michigan University comprised of senior level advertising students led by Dr. Karen Lancendorfer researched, strategized, and executed a full marketing campaign for Tinder to potentially implement as their next campaign.

Our team of 32 students were separated into 5 teams, each of which would focus on a different area of the campaign. The 5 teams consisted of Account Executives, a Strategy and Consumer Insight department, a Media department, a Creative department, and an Art/Production department. Our team started the process by analyzing hundreds of secondary research articles to help get an understanding of our target market, which was 18-19-year-old men and women. When the secondary research was completed, our team created a survey that was sent out to individuals across the nation who fall into Generation Z. This would serve to help us identify which media outlets we would use in our campaign. Our team then went on to develop the big idea of “Why Don’t We”, an opened ended question and statement that would motivate Tinder users to embrace their experience, making it their own. As the creative elements were developed, our team was able to design and produce the campaign plans book that outlined in detail how Tinder would target their audience.

As an associate member of the production department, my role was to collaborate with the rest of my team to bring the “Why Don’t We” campaign to life. Utilizing adobe software such as InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator, my team and I were able to create the color scheme, icons, imagery, and layout that would effectively represent Tinder’s brand personality for this campaign. As each concept was finalized by the Strategy, Media, and Creative departments, Production was able to put together each page outlining and portraying the way in which our concepts would be implemented. Once the plans book was finalized, my team and I then worked hand in hand with the presenters to compile a slide deck that would be used during the competition. The slide deck was made on Microsoft PowerPoint and would serve as the visual aid as the presenters went through the data and insights that powered our campaign.

On Friday, April 9, 2021 our final integrated marketing campaign was presented to the panel of NSAC judges via Zoom. Our team placed third in the region.

Access Setting

Honors Thesis-Restricted

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