The Cleveland AMA helped to sponsor the Cleveland State University AMA Chapter as they participated in the National AMA Collegiate Case Competition last month in New Orleans. With 86 college chapters competing, CSU finished in the Top Ten Colleges, taking one of the 3rd place wins. Professor Watcher led the team from CSU and had this to say about the student in the competition, “This is a testament to the intelligence, creativity and drive of our student competitors. I continue to be awestruck by them.”
It was a deep and comprehensive learning opportunity for the students. Gina Stem said, “What a challenging project! I can’t tell you how many drafts of certain sections we worked on. As difficult as it was, this competition was very beneficial for our team as marketing students because we had the chance to work on a comprehensive marketing plan for a real company. It pushed us to spend more time on the project knowing that marketing professionals would be judging us (and eventually Hershey’s staff as well). I think everyone on the team was able to walk away with having learned something new since we focused in depth on certain sections of the project.”
Student Snjezana Selak agreed, “Personally, I feel like the case competition has better prepared me for a career in marketing than any other class or project I have taken part in at CSU. We got to solve our own problems and form our own plan on how to tackle the task at hand, while maintaining a cohesive story the entire time. There weren’t any shortcuts in developing the campaign, like in the classroom. We had to complete all of the primary and secondary research as a real firm would and then make strategic recommendations based on the analysis. Overall, this was an amazing and rewarding experience and I believe that anyone who is interested in marketing should partake in it, given the opportunity. I have learned a lot in these past few months and this experience has helped me understand marketing on a whole new level.”
Congratulations to the CSU Team!
About the Author: Kimberly Gaebelein is a consumer passionate marketing leader. She currently leads the marketing for Bil-Jac Dog Food and has been involved in a wide variety of both small and large consumer companies including P&G, Heinz, Dial and Goodwill Easter Seals Miami Valley. She has been a member of the AMA for over 8 years.
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