When you’re selling a product, marketing is everything, even when there’s a good cause behind it.
That’s why the traditional green T-shirts worn on Earth Day got a revamp for today’s event, thanks to business education students at Elgin Park Secondary.
The school’s Business Executives Club’s current international competitions team – led by Alison Bogar and James Ding, and including members Shen Lai, Lexi Reimer and technical support expert Vincent Tang – have created the Earth Shirt, which has sold this month at the school’s store.
“It’s all part of having a product that people need, but also producing something that people want,” said business education department head Jay Mundi, noting this year’s team were semi-finalists at a recent entrepreneurship contest in Washington, D.C.
The ‘cool touch’ garment – made of “sustainable” bamboo fibres – features white text, symbolizing the sky, green shades representing land masses, and blue, to emphasize the importance of water to the planet.
And it’s also responsive to a student market, Ding, the project assistant manager and designer, explained.
“People don’t like green on shirts,” he said. “It doesn’t go with people’s other clothing. The original idea of the Earth Shirt is that it should have blue as well, because water is the most important factor of life and the planet’s land masses are not so big compared to the size of the oceans.”
The bamboo fabric was chosen in consultation with former Elgin Park business student Ethan Kristoff, who helps manage his family’s Ethical Addiction Apparel store.
“The fabric feels a lot better than the old shirts,” said assistant teacher Brian Duns. “It’s really comfortable.”
The shirt is also designed to be durable and re-usable, Lai said – pointing out that while it bears the date of its original creation, it’s in the roman numerals for 2015; MMXV.
“Roman numerals don’t go out of style,” he said.
The lettering on the shirt also includes a hashtag: #leadchange.
“We’re trying to lead change,” Ding said. “We’re hoping it will influence other student ideas and form a chain reaction, maybe.”
Ding is also the proud possessor of one of Mundi’s motivational aids, a wrestling-style World Wide Marketing belt, presented to him for coming up with the product’s innovational April Fool’s Day launch ad, which paid tribute to other April Fool’s Day marketing campaigns including lululemon’s Mansy ad from 2013, the new Lego turtle toy and the Domino’s Pizza Edi-Box.
“April Fool’s is really like Christmas Day for marketers,” said Mundi, noting that almost as soon as Ding’s campaign hit the
@elginparkorcas feed it was added to a marketing list on Twitter that gained it wide exposure.
Mundi said the shirt follows up on an original concept created by last year’s international competitions team – of which Tang’s sister Vivian was a member – at an entrepreneurship contest in Chicago.
“We weren’t able to design and market it last year because of the teacher’s strike and other factors,” he said.
Working on a project like the Earth Shirt is a valuable part of the curriculum, said Ding, who plans to go into business studies either at UBC or SFU, as preparation for joining his own family’s business ventures.
“It gives you an experience you can’t get in other programs – a chance to turn an idea into a product, and learn along the way,” he said.
And even though Lai is likely to pursue engineering at the University of Toronto, he says the experience, and encountering real-life entrepreneurs at the Washington contest – including contestant Jason Lucash of Orig Audio, and Washington business tyro, Jon Carpenter – has been invaluable.
The Earth Shirts sell for $20 each at the Orca Cove school store, and each purchase helps support local community student entrepreneurs.