The Viking Network: The Case Competition
General Overview
In this edition of the blog, we will cover Western’s marketing program’s Marketing Case Competition.
We will cover:
History of the Case Competition
Here in the marketing program at Western, the Student Marketing Association (SMA) and sponsor annually hold the Marketing Case competition. Starting as far back as 2012, with the first ever case competition, it has continuously allowed the marketing community here at Western to create a fun and engaging event. The marketing program, SMA, and faculty come together to organize and hold this competition for alumni, marketing students, and CBE students to participate. Each event, the program teams up with SMA and a company sponsor to hold and create the case for the competition.
What’s it Even About?
In short, the case competition gives an opportunity to those involved to create professional presentations and have feedback provided on those presentations by alumni and professors. Multiple teams of three students are given exactly one week to read a case about a brand, figure out what the brand’s goals and issues are, and then form a cohesive presentation that provides a marketing solution for the brand.
This daunting task allows for students to work their marketing skills and show them off, but also provides alumni the opportunity to network, gain fresh new ideas, and provide amazing feedback to students who participate. These teams compete against each other to make it to the final round of presentations, where alumni and faculty get a chance to deliberate and pick the final winner of the case competition.
Welcomes and Introductions
The day kicked off with the start of the event, welcoming both students and alumni to the event and thanking everyone for participating. After the warm welcomes, teams were off to the races, being split up into different heats, where they would take turns presenting in front of different panels of judges.
These panels consisted of 19 total judges, some were marketing professors, like Ed Love, Dan Purdy, Mark Staton, Carmell Emory, and Tej Sekhon, with the majority being marketing alumni professionals. As the event was sponsored by New Engen, a good portion of the judges were New Engen employees. In the next section, we’ll take a look at the mastermind behind the creation of this Winter 2024 Case Competition!?
Who Was Behind the 1-800 Flowers Case
Makenna Schumacher, a Western marketing alum, is the senior media services manager at New Engen. She was the writer of this year’s and last year's case for the case competition. Her favorite thing about the case competition is getting to see students?experience what it is like to work at an agency while in a growth-oriented learning environment. She saw with her career that the learning curve from college to career was intense and required a lot of additional time outside of work to ensure she was understanding her role and goals as a marketer.?
Cat Armstrong Soule is one of the marketing professors at Western and Cat helps organize the case competition every year. She finds value in the case competition because it provides so much value to western students. She likes how it gives opportunities for students to show off their analysis, strategy, and presentation skills to industry leaders and compete for prizes. She likes how the competition helps build confidence, test your skills and knowledge, while networking and connecting with marketing professionals.
Behind the Panel: Alumni Judges
Joel Solomon is a senior manager of content design at Meta. He was one of the judges of this year's case competition. He attended the Case Competition because he believes in the quality of the education programs at WWU CBE/Marketing. “The professors are deeply passionate about the student's education and provide experiences that set them up well for the world beyond Western. As a product of those programs, I want to give back by participating.” He feels rewarded when he is helping others, specifically students and people who are starting their careers.
How the Night Went Down
First Rounds of Presentation
The case competition is an invaluable experience for students. It allows students to build confidence, test their skills and knowledge, and network and connect with marketing professionals.?
“I enjoy being able to offer solutions to real-world marketing problems and it allows me to gather experience before graduating and entering the workforce,” -Abdi Sidali, one of the participants of the case competition.?
Most of the time students don’t get real-world experience before graduating from college and they have to learn a lot fast in a high-stakes situation.?
The case competition gives students the opportunity to practice real-world skills where nothing will go wrong if mistakes are made.?
“Having the opportunity to participate in the Case Competition established a connection between the Alumni who gave their time to judge the event.? Alumni are influential to my accomplishments as a marketing student and future WWU marketing alumni. The connections we are able to establish are invaluable to our future, and without this bond students, we have an infinitely harder time finding a career. Overall, the case competition gave me the opportunity to position myself as an accomplished marketing student that wouldn’t have been achievable without the help of alumni and judges that were there” - Gavin Bohling one of the winners of the case competition.?
The students who participated in the case competition found many values of participating from experience to making connections.?
After the first round of presentations, all the students and judges were given an opportunity to network with everyone there.? “I would say my favorite thing about the case competition is the ability to network. Networking at this event is so important and I believe it is one of the most valuable things at the case competition,” says Abdi. Both students and professionals need to develop these skills if they want to have a better chance of career success. “Marketers should be comfortable presenting to people as it is a big portion of agency and most internal marketing careers,” says Makenna. Networking is a great opportunity to get comfortable with talking and presenting to others. Networking after all is very similar to presenting to others about yourself and your skills. The case competition is a great way for students and alumni to continue making connections that further the marking program’s network. By participating in the case competition everyone is given the opportunity to build this network.
Second Round
After the first round of presentations and the networking event judges determined who was in the final four groups who would then present a second time to everyone. The judges were all combined in one group for the final rounds to judge the last groups. Many of the students who participated stayed to listen to the final four case solutions. There were also classmates and friends that came to watch the finalists.?
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Announcement of Case Comp Winners
After a long day of presenting and deliberation, everyone went back to the top floor of Parks Hall where the entire panel of judges announced the order of the finalists. With much anticipation, they announced the People’s Choice, which is given to the group with the most votes gathered from the students that watched the second round of presentations, the 4th place, 3rd place, 2nd place, and finally winners of the entire competition. The winners of this year's case competition and People’s Choice award were Kaitlin Simpson, Gavin Bohling, and Justin Casper.?
End of the Night: Key Takeaways
Without the help from all these generous people, the alumni, faculty, and volunteers, this couldn't even happen. Students volunteer their time to create and develop presentations, alumni, faculty and volunteers also provide their valuable time and feedback.?
Joel - "I was very impressed with the strong work the students put into their cases! It made me feel great about the quality of students at WWU Marketing. Just seeing the great work done by the students was inspiring. Also, feeling like I’m helping in my own small way felt great. Personally, it was nice meeting up with one of the judges I was in the same program with, Shannon, as well as the professors I knew before. Just super fun overall."?
Cat - "Every year we have between 10-15 alumni who participate as judges in the case competition. These alumni get to connect with each other and our faculty. Most importantly, they support our students' marketing, professional development, and networking skills. Alumni get to meet and mingle with our most ambitious marketing students and also offer them meaningful support in their education by participating in this event."
Makenna - "To start, I got to see some new creative ideas for a client I currently manage digital marketing strategies for (yes, 1-800-Flowers is my actual client at New Engen). New emerging ideas sometimes come from people who are not involved in the day-to-day planning of accounts, so this case gave me some insights into creative and media trends that are fresh. I highly enjoy working with students and hope to someday?become a professor of marketing. I value getting time to interact with students to prepare me for a future career in education. I also very much value connection and highly enjoy seeing the students I meet through these competitions succeed."
Final Takeaways:
Special Thanks!
To Our Alumni:
Makenna Schumacher
Madison Childs
Kieran Caile
Becca Sangwin
Megan Rahrig
Chasen Martinsen
Nabeel Chowdhury
Brian Scowcroft
Bonnie Perez
Shannon Roppel
Jeff Shearer
Kalli Rutherford
Joel Solomon
Peter Silverstein
To Our Professors: Ed Love, Mark Staton, Dan Purdy, Tej Sekhon, Carmell Emory, and Cat Armstrong Soule
To SMA and volunteers! A big thanks to the student volunteers that made the event run smoothly.?
Marketing Socials
Instagram: wwumarketing
Facebook: wwumarketing
The Viking Network Blog Team
Project Manager: Jazmin Muratalla-Sanchez?
Content Creators: Matteo Polla, Madison Ackley, Abdi Sidali, Greta Hansen
Western Washington University Alumni Business Administration- Marketing Concentration, BA
1 年Go Viking Network!!!