Developing solutions to real-world marketing issues was at the heart of a partnership between Dr. Fernando Angulo-Ruiz’s MARK 440: Marketing Strategy and Sustainability class and Jennifer Danko’s DESN 393: Multi-disciplinary Visual Communication Design Studio class.

Throughout the Winter 2025 term, students in both courses were split into teams (four marketing students and one design student each) to work with eight community partners, including Lexus of Edmonton. Each week, groups met with their community partner to immerse themselves in the business, ask questions and gather data.

Maria Lemaistre, Shion Hirano, Chalci Maxwath, Genia Goldstein and Sierra Cysouw, along with Lexus of Edmonton’s Donovan Tordoff and Amanda Julio, both MacEwan Bachelor of Commerce alumni, teamed up to create a digital marketing campaign. 

The students analyzed the business’s current digital presence, identified opportunities, conducted competitor research, developed audience personas and built a one-week social media campaign that included standalone social posts, a carousel series, paid social ads, a landing package mockup and a concept for a video campaign. 

“Our messaging centred around community, trust and the dealership’s hands-on customer experience, differentiators that set them apart from larger corporate groups,” says Lemaistre, a Bachelor of Commerce, Marketing student. “Lexus was very open to new concepts and encouraged us to think creatively. It was rewarding to see our ideas embraced and to have a moment where everything clicked – our research, strategy and creativity.”

The students’ social media campaign outperformed expectations, demonstrating effectiveness in both reach and meaningful user engagement.

Tordoff, Bachelor of Commerce ’16, and Lexus of Edmonton’s new vehicle sales manager, helped set the students up for success. “The company has been partnering with MacEwan business students – including me – for almost a decade, and this year’s project really built on work we’ve done in previous years.”

And they will keep building. Tordoff says that these kinds of experiences are win-win. 

That was Lemaistre’s experience. “One of my biggest takeaways was the importance of deeply understanding a client’s values and voice before jumping into content creation. Working with a community partner showed me how strategy, design and storytelling must all work together to be truly effective. It also gave me confidence in collaborating with a real client, adapting to feedback and working under real-world conditions.”