Durham College (DC) celebrated a fine performance at the Ontario Colleges’ Marketing Competition (OCMC), held this year at St. Clair College in Windsor. The largest and most prestigious marketing competition for college students, OCMC has been running for over 30 years and features case competitions in a variety of sectors, as well as a Quiz Bowl that tests students on their knowledge of marketing concepts and current events.

DC saw wins all the way through the event. The DC Quiz Bowl team placed second overall, led by Mahalia Clarke, Tianna Walden, AJ Bello and Raven Sy. Several teams placed in the case competitions: Tyler Dunstan and Mason Wright placed third in the Entrepreneurship category, Rylee Poleon and Raven Sy placed fourth in International Marketing and Julianne Nascimento and Dianna Trevisan placed fifth in Direct Marketing.

For third-year Marketing students Mason Wright and Tyler Dunstan, this was their second trophy win at OCMC. Paired for last year’s OCMC by coaches who thought they would work well together, the two are now good friends. They will also compete for a second time in the Scotiabank Vanier College National Marketing Case Competition in February 2025.

Wright credited the team’s coaches for DC’s impressive showing at OCMC, as well as his and Dunstan’s success. “Our coaches did a fantastic job of putting us into categories where we could succeed. And we have our coaches to thank for pairing us together, because it has been an amazing experience with Tyler. We just seem to work very well together. OCMC brought us together originally, because we are very similar people, but we had never crossed paths as students.”

Coming together under the leadership of Faculty of Business professor Alison Sprayson, the teams trained for many months, practicing weekly on cases in their categories to produce a sample solution and presentation which was then critiqued by a specialist coach. While the extra-curricular requires a time commitment, Dunstan said he found a major advantage in developing closer relationships with his professors. “I love that one-on-one interaction that you get with the professors who are your coaches, sitting down and dissecting all that you’re doing,” he said.

In Wright and Dunstan’s case, professor Sheldon Koufman coached the team for their first OCMC where their focus was on Retail, and Jay Fisher for this year’s focus on Entrepreneurship, a topic that Dunstan said was an added challenge. “It was a big learning curve, just because the intricacies are different between marketing for a big company and a small business. Having those weekly practices with Jay really helped us to be comfortable with the subject.”

By the time they got to the event, all the teams had been through the format many times, which allows students 30 minutes to work on a solution and 15 minutes to make their presentation. Wright said that while the competition itself was intense, participating with so many fellow students who also shared his enthusiasm for marketing made the event special, with teams wishing each other good luck as they departed for their presentations.“ And then when we came back, we had people waiting for us, cheering, giving us hugs, asking us how it went. Throughout the day, the support, teamwork and overall collaboration was absolutely amazing. Durham College school spirit was at the forefront of everything we did on that weekend,” said Wright.