Written by Shelley Singler, Daily Vidette Staff Writer
Wednesday, 13 October 2010
Students in Aysen Bakir’s integrated marketing communications class are participating in a competition with 24 other schools to create awareness and a campaign for the Chevy Campus promotions program.
The students are creating a campaign and awareness for Camaro, Equinox, Malibu and the new 2011 Cruze targeted at Generation Y.
Bakir said students have the opportunity to work with Chevrolet as their client and pitched ideas to company representatives on Monday.
“There were a couple of representatives from Chevrolet in class. We also had a video conference with Chevrolet National so that they could watch the student’s presentation for the campaign strategy. Chevrolet liked the campaign idea. Students will start executing the campaign starting this week,” Bakir said.
The class is also working with EdVenture Partners, an organization dedicated to developing innovative industry-education partnership programs.
“EdVenture Partners is kind of like third party and works with Chevrolet and campuses and helped set up our program. So they are like that third party that moderates between the client and the composed agency,” Hannah Myers, department head of public relations for the project and junior integrated marketing communications major, said.
Students in the class are divided up into departments, each with their own head to execute certain aspects of the project. Presentation and published reports, research, campaign strategy and execution, finance, advertising and public relations are the designated departments for the project.
Students also received a $3,000 budget allocated by Chevrolet to pay for the expenses of the campaign.
“I had to plan how much money I would need, and I think it does make it more realistic. It’s not like a game; the client gives us the money and expects us to utilize it in the best way possible. Every department sends in a budget and the finance department approves it,” Myers said.
The project is part of the course requirements for the class and students can even list the client project as an internship. If students don’t want to list the project as an internship, it can still be considered work experience on a resume.
“It’s just [a] really good experience. We are basically creating an in-house agency, and students [were able] to specify which departments they work in so they are able to get experience in the fields they want to,” Myers said.
According to Myers, class members will be having tables out in front of the COB, CVA, Milner Plaza and Schroeder plaza Nov. 1 through Nov. 3. Each day will feature a different car and on the last day, if everything goes according to plan, there will be all four vehicles. Myers also said that there will be incentives for students to learn more about it.
“At the end of the semester, they will also conduct another market research study to measure the effectiveness of their campaign. This will help them to identify whether they were able to accomplish the objectives,” Bakir said.
