In Centennial College’s programs, we make sure students get to practice what they’re going to be doing in the careers they’re studying. That’s why, from the very start of the program, Fashion Business and Management students are using their skills in real-life situations. This program sees you learn about the business behind the outfits, and one important part of the business is the shopping malls where fashion is most commonly purchased. The fashion world is a changing industry, full of upheaval, advancement and shifts in the global market, particularly in the wake of COVID-19, so businesses like malls need to keep current. This very real business need was the concern of Fashion Business and Management students on their latest, large-scale “capstone” project, which saw them teaming up with the Scarborough Town Centre mall.
Here’s how the project, called Centennial x STC worked: Ovecr the course of 14 weeks, four groups of FBMT students had to come up with the answers to four questions:
- How to drive foot traffic to the STC mall to generate revenue?
- How to celebrate the STC’s 50th anniversary in 2023?
- How shopping malls around the world stay competitive?
- How to adopt digital tools to engage the community?
The four student teams were tasked with researching and proposing solutions, and in December 2022, presented them to a group of Centennial College judges, including Business School Dean Barry O’Brien, Business School Chair Steven Khan, Finance Professor Lana Durst, Digital Marketing Professor Jason Beaulieu, and Pamela Richards, the Capstone Professor who organized the project. But more importantly, the student ideas were also presented to STC Management, represented by Vianna Ko, Marketing Manager, and Karen Monique Calbuso, Marketing Specialist. Here’s what the students came up with, with select quotes from each team’s detailed audiovisual presentations:
Group 1 - Claudia, Laura and Irem
"We did our market environment analysis, and we found that malls nowadays are not about shopping anymore, but about experiences," Claudia said. "Housing is getting smaller and smaller, apartments are getting smaller, so people want social interaction, to have a safe space so they can congregate with each other. So they're looking for open spaces, and malls are perfect for this."
"Have you ever looked for a cool spot to create social media content, or just to kill some time during the week, but it's a little bit more entertaining and interesting?" Laura said. "After reflecting on all of these questions, as a group, we decided to come up with the idea of creating a co-working space and content creation hub."
Group 2 - Leondra, Yelizaveta and Aliessia
"What we've considered from our research is getting the attraction of even more exciting and fun retailers and collaborators, keeping an affordable price range, thinking outside of the box and having more of an online presence for the moment," Leondra said. "So with that information for our market opportunity, we've come up with a very innovative idea in Canada and North America in general, as it is something that has never been done in malls before."
"We offer customers an unforgettable experience with the help of a game where people will search for QR codes in various stores and get discounts," Yelizaveya said. "We plan to change the QR codes every two weeks to maintain customer interest."
Group 3 - Shawny, Yolitzin, Nayeli and Luisa
"Above all, that one of the things valued most by customers digitally and physically is the personalized one-on-one experience," said Shawny.
"Our idea is to create a personalized app for the STC customers," said Luisa. "This app will focus on having an integrated cart with a personalized feature, where the app will recommend, update and remind the customer of things specific to them. To implement this idea, brands will collaborate with STC to get a special discount that can only be accessed by downloading the app. The app will be launched on the 50 anniversary, to be held at the Scarborough Town Centre."
Group 4 - Anupama, Yuksel, Mamo and Gabriel
"This very diverse team has helped us bring a lot of different ideas from our home countries to add to this project," Yuskel says. "And it also represents a little bit of how diverse Scarborough is as a community, and the STC is. The two main insights that we were able to bring from our interviews was that events bring in traffic and traffic brings in sales."
"First, we have the three-day event," Yuskel continued, "which will be celebrating 50 years of the STC, and this will include diverse food, music and entertainment. It will go on from September 1 to September 3. The second part is our new STC card, where the customers will be able to get loyalty rewards through a point system and they will be able to enter raffles directly after buying."
The Winners
At the end of their presentations, each group received feedback, and questions, from both the Centennial judges and the STC team, and when it was all over not one, but two winners were selected, due to the strength of their proposals.
"It's really hard to choose a favourite," Vianna said. "But Karen and I felt that Group 1 did a really good, amazing job with the co-working space and content creation space. Some of the reasons why we'd love to have it are because it’s a multi-use, multi-purpose activation space at our centre, and we're all about connecting people to great places. So, I thought that was really spot on with our strategy."
"We did feel that another team really appealed to us," she continued, "which was Group 3, with the personalized app. We thought it was such a cool idea of the loyalty program, the presentation was beautiful, had benefits for shoppers with personalized experience, but also for us with all the data that we can collect. It’s going to take time to develop the app and then to get people to adopt it, so maybe not for the 50th anniversary, but somewhere down the road."
Each year in Fashion Business and Management, students take part in a capstone project like this. The challenges vary, but it always goes the same way: A real problem, a real solution, and real experts to present it to. Becoming a part of the program means you’re ready to work in the business behind what we wear, and you might even graduate with a company-saving idea under your (extremely fashionable) belt.