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Vic Giguere: From Kraft Dinner to Ed Sheeran's hot sauce
By Ann Lambert
Vic's hometown: Waterloo, Ontario
Vic Giguere is particularly passionate about the world of Consumer-Packaged Goods (CPG), where they get to promote many of the brands they grew up consuming directly to customers.
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Vic Giguere had many creative interests in high school: writing, film, graphic design, photography, the list goes on. When it came time to pick a university program, Vic thought these interests were competing with each other, until they heard about FIMS.
“One day my dad sent me the link to the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at Western and said ‘hey, this looks like it has everything you’ve ever talked about being interested in’ and I was like, ‘that’s exactly what it is!’”
Today, Vic has a bachelor’s degree and a Master of Media in Journalism and Communication (MMJC) from FIMS, graduating from the latter in 2022. Two years later, Vic has already seen great career success as a Marketing Partner for the Kraft Heinz Company in Toronto.
Fun Fact
Vic has a self-described "abnormal interest" in dinosaurs.
Vic wears many hats in their role at Kraft Heinz: from email marketing and packaging design, to processing orders worth up to $100,000, to presenting new products at trade shows. One of their standout trade show experiences includes presenting Tingly Ted’s hot sauce—a collaboration with Ed Sheeran—as it was being announced in Canada for the first time:
“The packaging design had just been announced, and I got to be the person who stood there and handed out samples to people saying ‘Hey, this was a collab with Ed Sheeran. This was how we made the product and this is why it tastes the way it does.’”
One aspect Vic loves about their job is how often they get to see their work on display. Some of their recent projects include the Kraft Dinner rebrand and the re-launch of Lunchables in Canada, for which they’ve helped design the packaging and communicate the product details to customers and distributors, respectively.
According to Vic, the writing experience they got at FIMS became the most important and transferrable skill they’d develop at the faculty. “Now, it allows me to communicate extremely well with customers, my boss, investors or whoever else I happen to be talking to,” said Vic.
They also praised FIMS for how it discussed emerging technology such as AI in the media world long before these conversations became mainstream. They said these topics were introduced as early as their first year, in 2017, back when “artificial intelligence wasn’t really in the conversation yet.” Now, Vic describes feeling “a couple years ahead of the game.”
Asked about their favourite MMJC memories, Vic mentioned their cohort’s low-budget MMJC prom and the intramural soccer and dodgeball teams they formed with their classmates. Unable to hold back their laughter, Vic recounted the experience with plenty of nostalgia:
“We went into this dodgeball game and we looked ridiculous with our Doge shirts on. We lost in the first round but it's probably the most fun I've ever had.”
Vic hopes to have a Creative Director-type role someday, adding that their ultimate goal would be to direct and produce a Super Bowl commercial from start to finish. In the long-term, they hope to “work really hard for 20–30 years and then retire at a nice little cottage with a garden by the water.”
The MMJC program has allowed many students to launch successful careers in journalism, communications, marketing and other media-focused industries. If you’re interested in starting your media career, apply to Western’s MMJC program to Start Your Story!
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Profiles in the Start Your Story blog are written by students in the Master of Media in Journalism & Communication program, who are enrolled in MMJC 9604 - Professional Writing.
