Galen May
Village Creative
During my time in Fanshawe’s Village Creative agency, I collaborated on real-world marketing projects for two local businesses in London, Ontario. Below are some of the campaigns, designs, and projects I contributed to as part of the team.
BJ's COUNTRY MARKET
BJ's Country Market is a family-owned butcher shop and market near London, Ontario, that is known for its hilarious and friendly atmosphere and high-quality products. While at Village Creative, I helped support their digital presence through social media content, campaign ideas, and visual design. Our team also ran a Google Ads campaign to help boost visibility for the Butcher Brad Shop. My role focused on creating content that reflected their warm, community-oriented brand while contributing to growth and recognition.
Featured Post:
One of my favorite pieces from this project was my two-part "Meat the Zodiac" series. This was a playful post idea that combined astrological signs with a selection of BJ's products. This post not only captures the fun of BJ's itself, but is designed to engage with the audience and encourage interaction.
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Google Ads Campaign:
Beyond the creative, my team also worked on a short flight Google Ads campaign for the Butcher Brad Shop in BJ's Country Market. While we had a limited budget and timeframe, we focused on keyword strategy, industry research, and monitoring. We were able to see strong engagement and conversions despite the short run.
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Deliverables:
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Developed a 50+ post content calendar with themed posts, captions, and designs
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Designed and wrote creative social posts
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Collaborated on an industry research report
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Contributed to the Google Ads campaign
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Collaborated with my team to deliver a final presentation summarizing strategy, creative work, campaign results, and next steps
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Reflection:
This project gave me hands-on experience in balancing creativity with strategy and research. I learned how much of a difference it made to visit BJ's in person and really have a sense of the experience, which shaped the direction of our content strategy. Presenting our work to the client at the end also helped strengthen my confidence in my work.
WESTERN FAIR DISTRICT
The Western Fair District is a well-known community and entertainment hub in London, Ontario. At Village Creative, I worked with my team to develop content for The Grove, a unique location within the Western Fair District that offers space for local agri-food businesses. My team worked on brand strategy for the Western Fair District overall, while focusing our content on The Grove.
Featured Posts:
As part of this project, we focused on highlighting The Grove's story and being sure to capture the business and agricultural sides of it. These two posts were designed to highlight The Grove's tagline, "harvesting innovation," in a playful way while also capturing the space of The Grove itself. Our team was thankful to visit this location in person, to hear about the amazing businesses that have both had their start and grown because of The Grove, and to see the passion that goes into the space. ​
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Brand Guidelines & Research:
Beyond social media, our team developed a comprehensive set of brand guidelines for the Western Fair District and its sub-brands, including The Grove. We also conducted research and a survey on Taste Ex (formerly the Wine & Food Show) and delivered a research report and summary deck analyzing insights from our findings. ​
Deliverables:
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Developed a 30+ post content calendar with themed posts, captions, and designs
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Collaborated on an industry research report
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Contributed to survey creation & run
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Collaborated with my team to deliver a final presentation summarizing strategy, creative work, survey results, and next steps
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Reflection:
This project gave me experience in both primary and secondary research as well as sharpening my skills on brand voice/image. Similar to BJ's, visiting The Grove in person had a huge impact on our content and was a valuable reminder in really understanding a place in order to capture the story properly.
VILLAGE CREATIVE
Village Creative is Fanshawe's student-led digital marketing agency, allowing students the opportunity to have hands-on experience in marketing, working with live clients under the guidance of our amazing team of professors. In addition to client work, I contributed to content for Village Creative itself.
Featured Post:
One of my contributions was this carousel post, "The Campaigns That Make Us Love Marketing." This piece combined creativity, appreciation of marketing strategy, and collaboration to capture the unique way that marketing impacts us all. It was designed to be engaging for the audience, but also to represent the variety of points of view you can find through collaborating with a team.
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Reflection:
Village Creative was a truly unique experience and stands out in my time at Fanshawe. Having the opportunity to work with my amazing teammates, Marina Florencio & Faith Olowolabi, I gained so much through collaboration. It taught me how to manage deadlines, communicate with a team, build strategy, present with confidence, and to adapt my personal style to meet a client's voice.