Imagine a class in which you get to manage thousands of actual dollars, no textbook is needed and the only requirements to take the class are a creative mind and a few prerequisite courses.
This is just some of what students will find in the Marketing 472 class, Advertising Management, which is accompanied by an activity class, Marketing 478.
MontyZuma Marketing Inc. is the name of the fictitious advertising agency run by the 31 students in the classes, said Brian Holowka, public relations director for MZMI. However, in spite of the false name, he said the agency acts under real-life circumstances.
The goal of the class, which is only offered in the fall semester, is to initiate and implement a marketing plan targeted at San Diegans that creates awareness for the new 1997 Cadillac Catera, said Jared Solomon, the director of MZMI.
At the beginning of the semester, the students were separated into six departments: market research, budgeting and traffic, public relations, sales promotions, media, and creative, Solomon said. Each department is headed by a director.
Professor Michael Belch is the CEO of the agency, Holowka said.
“To me it’s been like a job,” Holowka said. “There are not too many classes in the marketing department in which you’re learning by doing.
“It’s a clean marriage of business and education.”
The class enables these students to participate in the General Motors Marketing Internship Program. Participants have worked closely with business professionals from Sgro Promo Associates, a public relations firm hired by GM to administer the internship program, Solomon said.
“The Sgro representatives gave us a crash course in crisis management,” Holowka said. “They told us how to succeed.”
As part of their marketing strategy, the students teamed up with the Marvin K. Brown Auto Center in Mission Valley to hold an event that would promote the car and benefit Voices for Children, a non-profit organization devoted to serving San Diego’s abused and abandoned children involved in court proceedings.
Over 200 toys were collected at an event held at the car dealership earlier this month. The event, which featured free food and prizes, was a surprising success, Solomon said.
“Two hundred people showed up at the event,” Solomon said, “which is phenomenal because normal attendance on a Saturday at this car dealership is 33 people, and our goal was to get 150 people here.”
He said the event was so successful because of the effective media strategies and all the hard work of the students involved.
The agency’s spending included $1,500 for air time of an ad promoting the event on KFMB radio. The ad was done by sports personality Ted Leitner, who is also a spokesman for Cadillac.
Another $1,500 paid for the printing and distribution of 20,000 inserts promoting the event in The San Diego Union-Tribune. This left the student-run agency with about $2,000, which went toward event expenses and other miscellaneous items. They managed to stay within their budget, Solomon said.
Holowka said the students pooled their resources together to save money, such as using someone’s home fax machine and by asking people they knew for donations of their time or services.
“If we had to buy everything, we would’ve spent about $15,000,” Solomon said.
Now the students will compose a post-event report that will answer their initial objectives before the plan was implemented.
Chances of the marketing plan going nationwide are nonexistent because the plan was specifically targeted to the San Diego area, Solomon said. He said the goal of the marketing plan was not for profit anyway.
“It was valuable because we got to plan and implement it all,” Solomon said. “It gave us real world experience. It’s good because it gives you something to present to a potential employer.”
