V: Academics & Internships

As a business student, I think that it is incredibly interesting to compare and contrast what I have been learning at school with the work that I have been doing as a marketing and communications intern.

During my first year at University I took an Introduction to Business course. The course is taught through the Ivey case method: students are given cases based on real-life businesses and learn through a hands-on method where they make business decisions. As it was an introductory course, most of the cases concentrated on small-sized enterprises such as family and local businesses. Thus it ties in very well to the business I am working at now. NOW Project runs a series of cafes and catering business. My internship focuses around finding ways to market the newly opened Café and Bakery.

As it is a local business with a limited marketing budget, we primarily use free forums such as social media to reach our target market. In a way, the Internet is incredible because it offers so much potential ways to reach a wide audience. However it also offers the opportunity for a lot of dumping of content. I often find myself creating materials and wondering about the impact. If I’m spending so much time thinking about content and creating it, are the right people even reading it and does it affect their buying behavior whatsoever?

The primary channel we use to communicate with our audience is Facebook. However with only 200 or so likes, the reach is a mere fraction of the people who would be coming into our Café everyday. Moreover, the demographic of the people coming into our café are generally people who wouldn’t really be closely following the social media content of the café down the street. The reason why locals will go back to a good place to eat is because it is good. That is outside of my control.

But perhaps as a social enterprise, Loaf serves a purpose other than being a great café. It serves as a customer-facing example of the social enterprise sector. It has the potential to spread awareness through communities about social enterprise; serving both coffee and a social benefit.

Conclusions: Marketing is really hard. But this Loaf is a story worth being told.