Photo by Steven St. JohnTribune

Tribune

At the University of New Mexico's Anderson Schools of Management, some classes are more than textbook theory and tests. Some classes throw senior students into real-world situations, as marketing students were when they took Promotions Management 487. The students participated in a nationwide competition to pitch Subaru's 2008 vehicle lineup to Generation Y (people born between 1976 and 1994). Above, marketing student Jennifer Williams gets a boost from fellow senior student Matt Baser (left) and Benavidez. Williams was removing tape that stuck to the window from a Subaru poster.

Photo by Steven St. JohnTribune

Tribune

UNM marketing students David Pincus (left) and Mark Ortiz, dressed as Su-Bear-Ru, wait in the hall before presenting the results of their semesterlong marketing campaign to Subaru regional executives. The students are competing against seven other universities for a chance to pitch their marketing scheme to top Subaru executives in Cherry Hill, N.J.

More Local Business

• Mineral leases concern residents in eastern New Mexico
• PNM: Power Saver plan would reduce electricity use in peak demand cycle
• Air-bag waiver brings Tesla car plant one step closer to Albuquerque

MOST RECENT TRIB STORIES

• ABQTrib.com to remain available
  08:48 a.m., February 25, 2008
• Congressman is indicted
  08:37 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Series of attacks target Green Zone
  08:36 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Iran is defying U.N., agency says
  08:35 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Waterboarding approval probed
  08:34 a.m., February 23, 2008

TRIB IN THE BLOGOSPHERE*

• Ty Murray Invitational thrills fans in Albuquerque
• Is Rome Burning?
• Ominous Skies
• The Road to Invalidation
• Albuquerque company participates in “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”

*Note: The Tribune does not create and is not responsible for the blogosphere's headlines and stories. These links to blogs talking about ABQTrib.com are automatically generated. Use them at your own risk.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

SHARE THIS STORY [?]

At first blush, University of New Mexico marketing instructor John Benavidez thought his students' plan for their Subaru semester project was a bear of an idea.

Three months later, Benavidez readily admits the last laugh is on him.

"Someone had the idea, `Let's get a bear costume with a Subaru shirt.' I thought it was stupid, to spend $80 of their budget on a bear costume . . .

"But the bear gave blood," he said. "The bear got a UNM ID card. Everyone wanted to take a picture with the bear."

"Su-Bear-Ru," as the bear was named, was a hit on campus, and it is one of the novel ideas that might help the 38 students in Benavidez's promotions management class win one of the two top prizes in Project Acceleration: The Subaru Impreza Collegiate Challenge.

The competition pits the Anderson Schools of Management senior marketing class against seven other university classes across the nation, among them the University of Florida, the University of Georgia and San Jose State.

The goal of the competition is twofold: immerse senior marketing students in real-life work situations that will benefit a company, too. To that end, the students had to come up with a campaign that would publicize Subaru's 2008 car lineup to Generation Y, those born between 1976 and 1994.

Anderson's Interim Dean Amy Wohlert said: "Students become excited about their future careers, and employers become excited about our students' fantastic skills."

Jessica Kunkle, 23, is one of those students. She is a senior international management major who is in Benavidez's class this semester. She'll be looking for a professional job in the coming spring semester.

"There are classes that we can put on our r‚sum‚ that can be called relevant course work to be applied to a job," Kunkle said. "But these classes give us relevant projects so we can actually beef up our r‚sum‚s. We don't have a whole lot of applicable experience, so it's nice to have that."

Experiential learning

Benavidez, who owns a direct-mail marketing company, has taught at the Anderson Schools of Management for 10 years.

His class is one of several in which seniors get a chance to use their classroom knowledge in the real world.

For example, students in the professional selling class visit local companies and analyze the sales process up close. In an investment class, the students actually manage a portfolio. In a marketing research class taught by Catherine Roster, students do marketing research for Albuquerque-area companies that can't afford to pay for such research and are willing to let students do the footwork.

"I took (Roster's) class last semester and enjoyed it more than any other class that I had taken at Anderson," Kunkle said. "Now, of course, I can't choose a favorite between (Roster's and Benavidez's classes)."

Benavidez said these classes address a critical need in the work force.

"Employers continue to tell us that they are looking for students with practical experience, not just an understanding of textbook theory," Benavidez said. "Many of the Anderson faculty members, especially in the marketing area, have responded to this call."

Benavidez credits Anderson's 3-year-old partnership with California-based edVenture Partners in helping to achieve this goal.

The company pairs university marketing students with large corporations.

Benavidez said his classes so far have worked twice with Cadillac and once for the U.S. State Department. His classes took first place twice and second place once. His winning classes visited GM headquarters in Detroit.

"We have a track record," Benavidez said proudly. "One of the amazing things is, I took 14 students to Detroit. . . . For them to see how they're stacking up against other schools gives them motivation, `I'm going to go out and do great things.' "

Dogged effort

Benavidez's marketing students made their formal presentation of their marketing campaign and its results to three regional Subaru representatives and one edVenture representative Thursday.

Subaru will pick the top two schools and representatives of those schools will travel Dec. 17 to Subaru headquarters in Cherry Hill, N.J., to pitch their campaigns to Subaru's top executives. The two schools will also receive prize money - $2,500 for the first-place school and $1,500 to the second-place school.

The students should learn the outcome of their semesterlong effort by Dec. 12.

Benavidez's students began their work in August with a $3,000 budget. They named their "company" Alpha Dog Marketing Strategies. The class was divided into four "departments": advertising, campaign strategy, public relations and research. Two of the students were named "agency coordinators."

The group set out by doing a pre-campaign campuswide survey with 300 respondents.

"They had to develop a plan and pitch what they wanted to do to Subaru," Benavidez said. "Subaru people were here in September. They told them what their message was going to be. . . . They got feedback on their plan."

The pinnacle of their campaign was an Oct. 30-31 "Experience Subaru" campuswide event in which Su-Bear-Ru made his debut. Representatives of Subaru were also at that event.

"Our group descended on campus," Kunkle said. "I don't think you could walk around campus without seeing a Subaru T-shirt."

A couple thousand students participated, Benavidez said. More than 600 students actually sat in the cars and were able to fill out a card seeking more information about the Subaru lineup.

"They got a lot of people in the cars, which is what Subaru was impressed with," he said.

In addition to the campus event, the students marketed Subaru online with a YouTube.com video contest and pitched the Subaru lineup on MySpace.com and Facebook.com.

Finally, the group did another post-campaign research study of another 300 students.

"They were able to show what level of interest they got before and after," Benavidez said.

During the formal presentation to the Subaru group last week, Alpha Dog Marketing showed Subaru representatives a 56 percent overall increase in awareness of the Impreza line. And they used $2,999.84 of their budget.

"I've got the 16 cents in my pocket," said agency coordinator and senior marketing student Rachel Florino.

Subaru has the option of using the winners' ideas in its own nationwide marketing efforts - and the class's Internet strategy appeared to make an impact on the executives.

"We changed advertising agencies about a month ago," Joe Nunnery, Southwest regional sales manager for Subaru, told the class after its presentation.

The new agency, Carmichael Lynch, will "see your presentation. I think you were dead on," Nunnery told them of their Internet success with Generation Y.

The other bonus of the competition is the prize money, which goes into a special account the marketing department uses to fund future like-minded senior projects.

Now that the presentation has been made to Subaru, Benavidez has one more challenge besides waiting for the competition results: the grade.

"It's very difficult," Benavidez said. "It's been a struggle because there are no tests. A lot of it is participation, helping out, going to the events."

Each student department will be evaluated on how well it met its objectives and worked with the other departments. The students will also do peer evaluations that will help determine each student's grade.

The grade aside, the students benefit greatly from their real-life work experience, Benavidez said.

"We have kids who come back to us and say, `I got this job after I showed my portfolio,' " he said.

Nunnery couldn't agree more: "We may find some future employees."