For half an hour on the evening of Oct. 6, Circle of Knowledge — a toy store at 10980 Sunset Hills Plaza — was filled with the sound of seventh graders at play. A small group of students from the Thomas Jefferson School ran up and down the aisles, hoisting bows and arrows, toy swords and stick horses as part of their digital arts and marketing lessons.
The students have been studying how social media can be used for marketing. Thomas Jefferson faculty member Myra Miller took videos of the students playing with various toys; she will condense the footage into a series of clips that the class will then use to make promotional content in the form of 10 to 30-second videos.
“It seemed like a win-win,” said the toy store owner, John Erysian. After reading a column about teenage economic impact written by a Thomas Jefferson student, Roy Jang, in the Sept. 26 edition of The Call, Erysian sought a new way to promote his store — by recruiting the help of the youth. “I don’t know much about TikTok,” he said. “I’m more into Facebook.”
Erysian reached out to the school and established a partnership with Miller, allowing students to play and create content to promote Circle of Knowledge. Miller and her students stated that their goal was to demonstrate that the toys could serve a wide age range, and they wanted the content to appear dynamic.
