Event Management, a course offered at Vaasan ammattikorkeakoulu (VAMK) University of Applied Sciences, gave students a chance to plan a fair stand with which to make the wooden house industry more popular in the eyes of junior high school students. The KnowHow Fair focuses on education, working life and recruitment, and 14-16 year olds form one of the target visitor groups. This year the event will take place on November 23-24. 

Mikael Alaviitala, teacher for the course, told that the students were excited about the assignment. Following theory about venues and marketing in the beginning of the course, they got to work in groups and plan a fair stand and finally present the plan for the whole of the class. The course was an optional course and the class consisted of students from different study programs at VAMK, and they represented a number of nationalities.

Getting kids motivated

To plan a fair stand for an industry that you are not familiar with is indeed a challenge. In the Ostrobothnia region the wooden house industry is a strong industry with an annual turnover of approximately 50 billion euros and around 400 employees. The future holds challenges in the form of a possible labor shortage.

The students' assignment was to plan a fair stand with which to arouse teenagers' interest in order to get possible future workers to the wooden house industry. The students had correctly concluded that the industry might not appear interesting for teenagers, and that's why the stand would literally have to stand out at the fair. The groups had various alternatives as to whether to construct a real wooden house at the stand with one wall off, or have for example walls forming a U or an L-shape. One of the plans included a summer cottage feeling with acoustical sounds such as waves and singing birds.

In order to get kids involved at the fair there would have to be games, competitions and quizzes as well as something practical for them to work on, such as engraving their names on a wooden pencil which they would then get to bring home, or sawing through a slat, or putting together a miniature paperboard house.

Mirian Bengs from Germany and James Godwin from Nigeria both thought that the course was quite challenging.
- The experience was great, both working in the group and getting to know the challenges of the wooden house industry in Finland.

Bengs studies international business and Godwin is majoring in tourism. All members in their group have worked before taking up studies leading to master's degree and they thought that it brings perspective to studying. Against this background, their group suggested that it might be better to go to vocational school after comprehensive school, because opportunities still exist later on in life. "Start earning money faster" might just be appealing to teenagers.  

Pre- and post event marketing important

What is important to keep in mind when the target group is teenagers is to find the right media for marketing and information. In the students' plans, Facebook was number one, but also visits to schools both before and after the event as well as collecting feedback were mentioned in their presentations. 

One important point that was brought up in one of the presentations was that this one event will not be enough. More needs to be done in order to give the industry a boost. Ideas for the follow-up of the event included sending information on vacancies, internships and practical training places, as well as summer part time jobs in the industry directly to persons who had visited the stand and whose e-mail addresses had been collected. As parents do have their say in their kids' future plans, information leaflets on the industry to bring home also play a role in the marketing of the wooden house industry.

- All in all, the students made a real effort, says Alaviitala. -What surprised me was that they had also paid attention to certain things such as sounds and colors at the fair stand. Even though the budget was not defined in the assignment, the students had clearly thought about the money aspect and not drawn up plans impossible to realize. It was most interesting that despite cultural differences, the class being so international, they all could put their minds into these challenges.

Professionals glad to see new ideas

The class also had an audience who listened carefully on their ideas and plans for the fair stand. In the audience was Tuulia Taanila, development coordinator for the wooden house industry in the Vaasa region, whose initiative it was to have wooden house industry as the theme for the event planned during the course.
- This was an excellent experiment on cooperation between the industry and the educational sector. For example, the idea of putting together a paperboard house was brilliant! We could print information on the wooden house factories on it and in that way spread information further.

Pia Simons, Managing Director at Simons Element, also attended the class presentations, as well as Karita Mäkinen from Pohjanmaan Expo Oy who is responsible for the KnowHow Fair.   

Simons said that the idea about informing the fair visitors about the various kinds of jobs there are in the industry was particularly good.
- All the groups had that little something extra in their plans, and what their presentations especially showed was commitment for the work.

Mäkinen reminded that the KnowHow Fair is one of the largest of its kind in Finland gathering around 9,000 visitors every year to see which educational and job opportunities there are available in the Ostrobothnia region. Possibly, we will get to see one of the students' plans or a combination of them presenting the wooden house industry at the Knowhow fair in November.