Taylor Burns graduated Cranston High School East as past of the class of 2013. Now, in her senior year of college at the University of Rhode Island, she has been challenged by her professor in her social media and marketing class to design and develop a valid advertising campaign for the new 2017 Acura I-LX.

The professor was contacted by a company called Basecamp (Edventure partners) to recruit one her classes for the project. Basecamp acts as the go-between for the students and Acura.

With 34 students in the class, the professor put them into different groups to focus on different aspects of the campaign. Burns and her group are dealing with the public relations aspect.

Burns has learned quite a bit about herself and her skills by becoming the team leader in her group.

“This is a cool project, and we are learning to work as a team, communicate with the multiple parts of the campaign, and meeting deadlines. One of the most frustrating parts is the delay in feedback. The process takes a while, and we cannot move on, change or fix anything until all the parts have responded,” she said.

The participants are actually competing against 20 other colleges in the campaign.

Acura is looking to pitch the new model to a younger demographic, and Burns and her group are focusing their campaigns to meet these criteria.

The final project deadline is Nov. 28. The top three teams will be selected and notified by Dec. 2. If they are selected, five students and their professor will receive an all expenses paid trip to Torrance, California, to present their project.

The first-place winner receives $5,000, while the second-place prize is $3,000. Third place gets $1,000.

They will be at a booth at the Wedding Expo on Nov. 6 and they are planning a special meet and greet of the car on the URI campus. 1