Business

December 12, 2007

King’s team to pitch car ad ideas

Students are Motor City-bound to compete in the edVenture Chevrolet College Marketing Challenge.

By Sheena Delazio sdelazio@timesleader.com
Staff Writer
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WILKES-BARRE – Three King’s College students will fly to Detroit on Thursday to present their marketing campaign to Chevrolet executives, with hopes of their idea being used in an ad campaign for General Motors’ largest brand.

The trio, Chris Higdon, Scott Rumble and Peter Moska, had their idea submitted to the edVenture Chevrolet College Marketing Challenge and came out as one of 10 finalists. After another round of judging, they came out as one of five finalists.

They will compete with students from the University of West Florida, Drexel University, the University of North Carolina Greensboro and the graduate program at Fairfield University for cash prizes ranging from $500 to $2,500.

“I heard about it last year, and the winners created a Super Bowl commercial,” said Dr. Amy Parsons, associate professor of marketing at King’s. “I did some research and found out about the College Marketing Challenge, and assigned the project to two of my classes.”

Parsons’ classes had 10 teams of three, all of whom worked on completing an ad campaign for a grade and a chance to become finalists.

The students had to come up with an original plan to attract 18- to 30-year-olds to Chevy’s new environmentally friendly, fuel-efficient line of vehicles.

“We began working on it pretty early on in the semester … and before we knew it, we had an idea for a campaign we felt pretty strongly about,” said Rumble, 26, a junior marketing major from Kingston. “We were really surprised (at being finalists), and we were confident with our ideas, but never thought we were doing it for competition; we were just aiming to get a decent grade.”

For its campaign, Rumble said, the group highlighted television, magazine and Internet ads, and completed the mandatory 30-slide Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.

“Our presentation isn’t overly flashy. We use storyboards to represent our commercial, illustrations of Internet ads and magazine ads, and other than that it’s just information and a lot of text,” he said.

“We put a lot of time into it,” said Higdon, a senior marketing major from Shavertown. “We’re comfortable with what we’re talking about. I feel confident they’re going to like it.”

Moska, a student at Misericordia University, is taking classes at King’s as part of a cross registration program that allows students to take courses at three local colleges.

Parsons explained the team was judged on analysis of environmental factors that influence younger Chevy buyers; their market profile, which included characteristics, attitudes and beliefs of consumers; marketing strategy and tactics; a budget and creativity.

“There’s no guarantee Chevy will use what they’ve presented, but it’ll get them a chance at internships and will look good on a resume,” Parsons said. “Their project was good, and covered a lot of detail, and was consistent with what Chevy wanted across the board. It’s pretty exciting that King’s came in fifth out of 100 schools in the nation.”

The group will have 30 minutes to present their project on Thursday to executives from Chevrolet, Chevrolet’s advertising agency Campbell-Ewald and edVenture Partners, followed by a 15-minute question-and-answer period.

Sheena Delazio, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 829-7235.

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