The Charles Jago Northern Sport Centre: building brand awareness through an integrated marketing mix

The purpose of this project is to research and identify the vital components of an integrated marketing strategy to help raise the internal and external awareness of the Charles Jago Northern Sport Centre. This sport and fitness facility represents one of nine Ancillary Services units at the University of Northern British Columbia. UNBC Ancillary Services provides service-orientated and revenue-generating services that support and enhance the core activities of not only the University campuses, but of the Community of Prince George and surrounding Northern BC regions as well. This project paper will review how the Northern Sport Centre's brand awareness can be enhanced by various units from within UNBC Ancillary Services, provide recommendations not only for a re-branding strategy but also for cross promotional marketing efforts and strategies between the various units. The first part of this paper will assess and review the relevance and effectiveness of traditional mediums of marketing compared to the revolution of marketing which has led to social media becoming a driver of modern marketing efforts. This will provide a discussion on the importance of Facebook for the Northern Sport Centre's optimal marketing mix, as well as an overview on other successful social media channels that integrate well with the non-traditional mediums. The second part of this paper will discuss the essential components of an integrated marketing plan for the NSC and provide suggestions on how to leverage the use of a cohesive UNBC Ancillary Services department. Equally as important, is the NSC's ability to recognize new advertising trends and opportunities as they emerge. Next this paper will discuss the importance of community engagement and what this means to the Northern Sport Centre. Lastly, there will be a brief discussion on some of the challenges that may emerge through the implementation of establishing the optimal integrated marketing mix will be discussed. --Leaf ii.