Immersion 2009: Marketing

March 15, 2009

Looking Back...

Brian David, Class of 2012-

Living the past 5 days in the scenic metropolis of Carmel, IN. has been an amazing experience during my spring break. I came into this immersion trip with a little knowledge in marketing through an internship back home during my senior year, but this week completely blew me away. I’ve had the opportunities to actually see marketing strategies we’ve learned put into practice. I was able to see ones that work and others that didn’t.

Today, we actually were able to create our own marketing plan for a fake company set in the lovely Crawfordsville, IN area. My group received the job to promote a home repair company. Using the tools and strategies we learned throughout the week such as the 4 P’s of marketing, segmentation, targeting, branding, as well as many others. We had about two hours to come up with a 20-25 minute presentation for our business. After visiting several companies in the past few days, we were able to build upon the strategies we have learned. We had several different ideas flowing and it was really tough to cut them down in order to fit the time. The two hours working were among the shortest I’ve ever experienced because every minute was used.

It was then time for everyone to present and everyone had exceptional presentations. Each had unique strategies and it was really cool to see the way their plans came together. After everyone presented, Roland and Angie gave out constructive criticism to each group and the criticism was extremely beneficial. It is not often that you can receive free advice in marketing in a business setting. At the end, they selected a winner, and my group actually won.

I had the opportunity to return home to the suburbs of NYC to see my friends during spring break this year, but instead endeavored into the world of marketing. It was a sacrifice that was definitely worth it. I feel that Wabash offers its students so many opportunities to fully experience a liberal arts education and this type of program absolutely demonstrates that. I hope that future students are lucky enough to participate in this program because it was definitely worth the five days of my spring break.

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Final Presentations

Yangnan (Paul) Liu, Class of 2012-

Five days flashed so fast that I could not believe it’s the end of the immersion trip. Today is the final presentation day. After helping us review all the marketing terms, principles, and strategies, Mr. Roland divided us into four groups and assigned each group a project and we are going to make marketing plans to attract investment from Angie and him. The four virtual businesses are Bait shop, Home Removal Company, Spa Palace and Jewelry Store. Patrick, Drew and I “luckily” got the Jewelry store project and none of us have any knowledge about jewelry business.

Fortunately, Angie, the only female sitting in the presentation room gave us lots of ideas and demographic information about jewelry market in Crawfordsville. We started brainstorming and got out numerous interesting ideas including targeting customers in Wabash College students to make college and fraternity rings, exclusively designed engage and wedding rings, and multi-culture style jewelry and accessories. We all did a great god on presentation and everybody was so amazed by the crazy ideas and creative presentations.

I am so glad that I participated in this great immersion trip. These five days ensured my goal to work in marketing area and opened my doors of networking with so many successful alumni as well as met lots of cool Wabash friends. I would strongly encourage every Wabash man interested in business taking this opportunity to explore in marketing world.

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March 12, 2009

South Bend

Tian Tian, Class of 2011-

After three day’s immersion training on the marketing terms and case studies with Mr. Roland Morin, our team went all the way from Carmel to South Bend for a whole day’s marketing-based field trip. After the morning visit to the Football Hall of Fame and a hot-chocolate-break, we went to the Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center, where we met our alumni, Mr. Andrew J. Snyder, Vice President of Marketing at Saint Joseph. I felt we have arrived at a perfect time because the Medical Center has recently come up a plan of moving the entire organization into a new location in December 2009! Mr. Snyder gave us a one-hour presentation about the entire plan of the moving process, which covers almost every aspect about marketing strategies. We were totally impressed by the moving plan which sounds seamless. Mr. Snyder really showed us a successful marketing plan does not come spontaneously but requires tremendous amount of details and professional skills. For instance, the seemingly simple installation of power plugs in the patient rooms directly affects the satisfaction level in the long run, so the right way of installation will decrease medical error in a large scale. Moreover, I am especially astounded by the power of public relation as a mighty tool of marketing in the case of Saint Joseph. Meanwhile, I have never thought before that medical industry could involve such great creativity and originality when it comes to the marketing domain, which makes me more optimistic about the possibilities of my own career orientation in the future.

Looking back of the four days’ amazing experience, this marketing immersion trip experience has been filled with excitement and brainstorming. I feel like I came here with almost zero background of professional marketing, but started directly from the peak of the industry. In this way, I am truly grateful to everyone that makes this trip happen, and especially our alumni Mr. Roland Morin, who devotes his own vacation and put such great enthusiasm in helping us.

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College Football Hall of Fame

Steve Zajac, Class of 2010-

The 4^th day of the Marketing Immersion Program had an early start. We departed for South Bend at 7 a.m. in order to make a number of stops at businesses around the city. We arrived just before 10 at the College Football Hall of Fame. After about an hour of touring the facilities, and grabbing some hot chocolate at the nearby South Bend Chocolate Company Store, we met with the Hall of Fame’s Marketing Director. She shared with us many of her projects, goals, and difficulties she has had with the Hall of Fame. The 1^st quarter is their slowest time of year, and they are having problems attracting repeat visitors as well as new customers that want to make the journey to Northern Indiana when Notre Dame is not hosting a football game. They are actually losing millions each year, and are trying to expand their appeal to internet users around the country with social networking sites. It will be interesting to see if they are able to keep their doors open for much longer. After she spoke with us, we watched a short film about college football history and made our way over to St. Joseph’s regional medical to meet with Andrew Snyder ’83.

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Spring Break in Cancun or Carmel?

Maycdon Sprowl, Class of 2012-

Starting off with the quotidian lecture Mr. Roland Morin gave the Wabash Marketing Immersion Program participants, we knew right away we would have another amazing day. After discussing Internet Marketing, Mr. Myron introduced the keen students Scott Smalstig, class of ’88 who majored in English and is currently the Vice President of Joseph David Advertising. Mr. Smalstig, a very ambitious and energetic gentleman, declared that the main goal of his business is to “help companies and people to stand out.” And does he!

After lecturing the students, Mr. Smalstig invited us to participate in a real world project that his company and him are currently working on. Our mission: To advertise the NASCAR Hall of Fame’s Grand Opening in May 2010 and its mission, to preserve and present the history heritage of NASCAR racing. What a great hour of hands on experience!

Here we go! Our next stop is the Just Marketing International Company, where our Wabash alum, Wesley Zirkle, class of ’98, is currently the Vice President and General Counsel. Along with the tour in the company, our satisfaction and expectations were exceeded. After great advice on the motor marketing, Mr. Zirkle takes us to see the cars. There is no other reaction but the following onomatopoeia, “WOW!” Car designers have indeed creatively engineered XXI century car styles with an incomparable perfection!

While traveling to Cancun was an option, MIP provided Wabash men with a memorable 2009 Spring Break.

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Motor Sports and Chinese Food

Benjamin Muensterman, Class of 2012-

This morning I got up and ate a donut and drank chocolate milk at the
hotel. It was great, but my day was about to get much better. After we
discussed Google and Sony with Roland Miron ’92, Scott Smalstig
’88 came to give a talk about his work in advertising. He has been
making pitches to the Charolette Regional Visitors Authority to win the
rights to do the advertising campaign for the NASCAR Hall of Fame that
will open in 2010. After giving us background information, he separated
us into groups so we could come up with our own advertising campaigns for
the Hall of Fame. After we all presented our ideas, he even gave us
constructive criticism of what he thought was really good and areas in
which our campaigns were lacking. I learned a lot about how the marketing
industry works.

After eating more good food at Wendy’s we all went to Just Marketing
in Zionsville to talk to Wesley Zirkle ’98. That was great too.
Just Marketing is a motor sports marketing company, meaning they set
companies up with the advertising they need in NASCAR and Formula 1
racing. There clients include Verizon, UPS, Subway, Crown Royal, and LG.
It was great to hear more about how the business of marketing works from
the inside, and we got to see the stellar cars they had in their garage.
There was a Lotus Elite, a Lamborghini, a Ferari, and both a stock and
Formula 1 car. I asked Mr. Zirkle if he ever drove the cars, and he said
the one he drove was so powerful and fast that it made him nervous and he
just wanted to park it and get out. After our time at Just Marketing we
ate good Chinese food. It was an awesome day.

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March 10, 2009

A Typical Day

Saidel Mayar, Class of 2010- Today I woke up at 7:30AM to eat breakfast and get ready for the second day of our Marketing Immersion trip. At 9:00AM, we started our discussion with a chapter from Kotler and Armstrong’s book about marketing. The chapter outlines three core concepts of marketing which are: Market Segmentation, Target Marketing and Product Positioning. We discussed Market Segmentation until 10:15AM, and then left our hotel to visit Mr. Tim Craft, Wabash class of ’00, in Indianapolis. He is currently working at CB Richard Ellis, Inc. as a Senior Associate. He talked about Sales, which is the sister of Marketing (sort of). He then talked about the company he works for and showed us his office. After meeting Ted, we went to eat lunch. We got back to our hotel at around 1:30PM to kick off the second part of the day.

According to our schedule, we started our usual discussion with Target Marketing and Product Positioning. We went through a powerpoint and then discussed one related case. The case was about Guinness beers. We basically discussed the success of a 243-years old brand that can still appeal to new generations. We wrapped up the day with this case and came back to our rooms to relax, for a while at least. I have got tons of readings to do for tomorrow, so I have to take off for now. But I am sure you will be kept posted about our wonderful learning experience here in Carmel Indiana. Wish me a good night. Thanks.

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