[Looking back on the AMCA2023]

The level of AMCA is getting higher every time, but this year I was really surprised and very happy by the high level of content. It was a very close race, and there were two rounds of voting for the Excellence Award at the jury. I was really worried until the end. That's proof that there were a lot of good things overall.

The significance of participating in AMCA is to work hard. It's not easy to think about something and output it in front of people. In our daily lives, we are on the side of paying and consuming every day, but the side of making and providing something is completely different. And if there is competition with competitors, no matter how hard you try, you may not be appreciated and you may lose. It may be tough, but I think this experience will be very useful later on.


[AMCA celebrates its 10th anniversary]

AMCA was born when I met Mr. Yoshishige Takei, an alumnus of our university's Faculty of Law, at an event. Mr. Takei told me that he wanted to make Aogaku a university with a strong creative mindset. The first AMCA in 2014 was held only in my seminar (seminar), but Mr. Takei came up with the name "Aoyama Marketing and Creative Award (AMCA)" because he wanted to make it an activity for the whole Aogaku someday. AMCA was born out of the genuine feelings of our alumni.

From the second year of its establishment, the seminar of Professor Haga of School of Business and the seminar of Professor Eri Shigemasu of College of Education, Psychology and Human Studies also participated. In 2017, SBSL began to take on the responsibility of management with the start of tie-ups with companies, and it has been sublimated into a university-wide project in which all Aogaku students, including graduate students, can participate, and cross-faculty teams can participate. In addition, since 2018, the School of Business Alumni Association has been sponsoring the event, offering cash prizes for the best proposals.

〈Changes in Cooperating Companies〉
2017 J-WAVE Inc.
2018 House Wellness Foods Inc.
2019 DHC Corporation (DHC)
2020 (No cooperating companies due to Corona disaster)
2021 Sansan Inc.
2022 Cerulean Tower Tokyu Hotel Co., Ltd.
2023 Sony Marketing Inc.
* In the early days (2014-2016), projects were competed based on fictitious brands and issues.


[Significance of the award open to the entire university]

AMCA is an award planned and run by School of Business students, but it is characterized by the fact that it does not close only on School of Business, but breaks down the barriers between faculties and campuses, and allows university, graduate school, business school, and working students to enter. In the first place, Mr. Takei, the founder, is from Faculty of Law, so it is a cross-faculty and university-wide initiative. This year, College of Science and Engineering Department of Mathematical Sciences students from the Sagamihara campus participated in the final presentation and received the Audience Award.

The open contest is open to the entire university, giving students the opportunity to get to know students from different faculties, receive new stimulation, and allow cross-faculty teams to participate. In addition, I believe that competing with students from other faculties will motivate each other and improve the overall standard of the program.


[I want you to improve yourself through AMCA!] 】

From the search for companies to cooperate with AMCA, the AMCA project members of SBSL will take about one year to plan and operate the event. The SBSL members have also grown and become stronger. AMCA's management policy is "not to repeat the same thing." We want you to always take on new challenges, so we want you not to follow in the footsteps of the past. We look forward to continuing to devise ways to further evolve and deepen our planning and operations.

The assignment for the 11th and subsequent sessions next year is to make it more widely known to students. Although the number of participating students is increasing year by year, more efforts are needed in terms of awareness of AMCA throughout the university. We hope that AMCA will become familiar to more stakeholders and grow into a creative program that represents Aoyama Gakuin University.

There are many so-called "business contests", but not necessarily many that focus on creatives. Moreover, it is rare to find an award that is planned and operated by a student volunteer organization and logically judged by corporate professionals. Every student at our university has the opportunity to participate in such a wonderful contest. I encourage you to hone your logical planning and creative skills at AMCA, and for new School of Business students, from the standpoint of an AMCA project member of SBSL.

[Features of AMCA]

AMCA is a program focused on marketing communication, with a particular emphasis on creative planning, which is what makes it different from other business contests. The contest is run by us SBSL students, but participants come from all over Aoyama Gakuin University. Entries are accepted from all faculties, and students from graduate schools and business schools also participate.


[Planning and managing AMCA, where you can gain a variety of experiences]

We imagined that AMCA would be difficult because it was a large-scale project that took a year, but there was much more that we had to do than we had imagined. We had meetings with members almost every day and exchanged emails with teachers and companies, and AMCA was a part of our lives. This project was planned and run from scratch by ourselves, from finding and consulting with collaborating companies, to gathering participants and considering the issues, so it was often difficult, but the series of activities allowed us to acquire practical skills and flexibility.

Thanks to our efforts, such as establishing and operating an official LINE account, advertising in lectures taken by undergraduate students, and creating posters, we were able to attract the largest number of participants to date. Thanks to our hard work, the final presentation was not only great in scale but also in content, and it was very gratifying to see that everyone was satisfied. Some teams participated in AMCA while cherishing the relationships they had formed at the friendship meeting before the entrance ceremony, and we realized that the event we organized was truly useful in building bonds between students.


[How can I utilize what I learned at AMCA?]

AMCA is a business contest specializing in the fields of marketing and advertising. Therefore, specialized knowledge is required when considering the issues and deliberating on proposals. Listening to the conversations with the professors and company representatives, I heard a lot of technical terms and marketing perspectives, which was a good opportunity for me as School of Business student to deepen my practical learning. In terms of skills, I was able to acquire through AMCA the ability to write business emails quickly and appropriately, the presentation skills to moderate in front of more than 150 students, and the ability to respond flexibly in meetings with professors and company representatives.

And working as part of the AMCA project team of four people for a year was a rare experience. The members who shared the good times and the bad times toward our goal are irreplaceable lifelong friends. I think that there will be many team-based projects in the future, so I'm sure this experience will be useful.

Seminars start in the third year. We gained a lot of experience and improved our skills through the operation of AMCA. We would like to use that experience to contribute to building an organization where we respect each other and improve each other in our seminars and SBSL.


[Expectations for AMCA2024]

The project members for next year have already been decided, and we will be handing over to them in the future. They are excellent, have a strong sense of responsibility, and are passionate about AMCA, so I am sure they will make AMCA2024 even more exciting. I hope they will continue to actively promote the event next year and attract more participants than AMCA2023. I also hope they will make AMCA a larger-scale contest that is more familiar to Aogaku by gathering audiences from across the university, not just students who have entered AMCA. And above all, I hope that many students will participate in AMCA and gain invaluable experience.