Entire team at a "Tailgating" event- an American tradition before baseball and football games
Entire team at a "Tailgating" event- an American tradition before baseball and football games
Strathclyde Business School students, Alexandra McIver and Belinda Ritchie are currently on university exchange at East Carolina University in North Carolina. While there, they have been given the chance of taking part in a US-wide marketing competition with Honda as part of the graduate marketing strategy class they are both in.
"We are having a great time here, particularly in one of our classes where we have the amazing opportunity to take part in a nationwide marketing competition with Honda. This is just one of the experiences our exchange trip has provided us with."
Alexandra and Belinda are both studying international business and are in their third year of their undergraduate degree at the moment. They are at East Carolina University and are delighted to be gaining real-world experience with a real client – and a real budget of $3,000.
Alexandra said, "My Marketing Strategy class in the College of Business at East Carolina University has been given the privilege of competing against nineteen other universities nationwide in the Honda Marketing Challenge. We were the only school in North Carolina selected to compete in this challenge, and we are competing with many well-known colleges, including Boston College, University of Connecticut, University of Southern California and Johns Hopkins University."
The student objective is to assemble a campaign plan for the new 2013 Honda Civic Sedan. They are trying to raise awareness of the new model and increase perceptions that Honda is a fun, youthful, innovative brand. By using their knowledge concerning the interests of their college peers and conducting research, the students are hoping to create an authentic campaign targeting ECU students. As part of this, they recently planned events on campus, including a tailgate event before the baseball game against NC State on April 2 and the main event "The Honda Experience" on April 11.
Alexandra added, "In this campaign I have been a team member of the Public Relations Department, while Belinda is part of Team Strategy. We have both had a variety of tasks to complete throughout the campaign. For example, we both took part in guerrilla marketing, handing out balloons and other advertisements for the Honda Civic Sedan. We have also had to help write various press releases and create a media kit, which was sent to a variety of media sources across North Carolina."
"We are so grateful to be given an opportunity that allows us to gain invaluable real-world experience before entering the workforce. As a class, we have created the student agency, Endless Opportunities Marketing, in order to create a promising campaign for the 2013 Honda Civic Sedan. We have teams and leadership roles as part of the internship programme that has been integrated into our Marketing Strategy course.
"We would both agree that our time on exchange has been four of the best months of our lives. We are both so happy and grateful to have been given this opportunity to study abroad and we have loved every minute of it. We now have contacts and friends from all over the world, and this campaign alone has created huge opportunities for us as it can be used on our CVs as an internship with Honda, an opportunity we may not have had at home. We wish to add that we highly recommend all students take part in the exchange programme- you won't regret it!"