This year’s Acadia Music Festival saw increased turnout and awareness of their event thanks to an advertising campaign from a group of Nicholls State University students majoring in Mass Communication and Business, as per this news release from the school.

The multidisciplinary group of Nicholls students all collaborated on a Mass Communication service learning project as part of their coursework for their class, MACO 380: Advertising Copy and Layout. The campaign saw the students design an integrated marketing campaign for the festival with an aim to increase the number of college students attending the music festival, and it was successful.

Account Director and Mass Communication Senior Meagan Rousse led the campaign team in helping Acadia Music Fest (AMF) planners rethink their social media strategies and online advertising schemes. The team also created a new area of the festival called “College Row,” where college students could gather to listen to a DJ at the festival.Additionally, the students designed and dispersed buttons and stickers for students to accessorize their cell phones and backpacks with, thus emphasizing and increasing awareness leading up to the event.

Thomas Meyer is a key organizer of Acadia Music Festival, and he was reportedly quite impressed after hearing pitches from the Nicholls students. Meyers gave the campaign team a $10,000 budget and even hired several of the students as paid interns to help in implementing the campaign. What resulted was a campaign project that spanned two entire semesters from conception to implementation.

Meyer expressed his excitement for the 2022 Festival by saying, “there are so many aspects of the festival to look forward to each year. I think this year, witnessing the growth that has taken place has brought a unique anticipation. Our lineup is incredible and includes local and national artists. To be able to see that amount of talent on one stage and in one day is just surreal.”

With the festival being over, this semester’s class is working on a collaboration with the Bayou Country Children’s Museum in a similar capacity. For the AMF project, the Nicholls team members, outside of Account Director Meagan Rousse were as follows: Jacob Frey, Marketing Manager; Troy Dupont, Brand Strategist; Carlie Guidry, Creative Director; Alaina Maiorana, Art Director; Hillary Fisher, Content Producer; Kade Adams, Copywriter; and Christian Downing, Digital Strategist.

Every fall semester, the Nicholls State University’s Department of Mass Communication offers the MACO 380: Advertising Copy and Layout course wherein students act as a single integrated marketing agency. This “student agency” then collaborated on an advertising campaign for a local non-profit client. The course is offered each fall to both Mass Communication and Business students at Nicholls as part of an interdepartmental minor program. The program showcases Nicholls’ commitment to both service learning projects and collaborative learning across campus.

Since 2016, the Acadia Music Festival has served as one of Thibodaux’s most popular fall events and is organized through the help of the Ben Meyer Foundation. The event was founded in honor of Ben Meyer, the Foundation’s namesake, who tragically passed away 21 years ago in a car wreck. Honoring his memory, the AMF was conceived out of a desire to keep Ben’s energy alive and present in the lives of those in the community. In that same spirit, the Acadia Music Fest annually benefits those local organizations that remind Foundation members most of Ben Meyer.

This year’s AMF benefactor was The Bridge to Independence on the campus of Nicholls State University. Thomas Meyer spoke about the organization by saying, “this outstanding program right here on Nicholls State University’s campus gives students with autism and other intellectual disabilities the opportunity for further education and a chance at independence,” Meyer said. “To be able to give back to a program that is directly enriching the future of these individuals’ lives has been the most rewarding.”

On their Facebook page, The Bridge to Independence expressed their gratitude by saying, “we want to give a big THANK YOU! to Acadia Music Fest and the Ben Meyer Foundation for naming Bridge to Independence as their 2022 AMF Event Benefactor! Your support will help us to do so much for our students!”

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