Marketing Week Recap
By: Kelly Vanderwall
The first week of October, we hosted our annual Marketing Week. In case you missed it, here’s a quick recap of our week:
Monday:
Monday, started off with a Launch Breakfast in the Campus Center Atrium. There was breakfast pizza, fruit, muffins, granola bars, coffee and more to greet students and let them know of the events to come during the week. There was a great turnout with over 100 students participating! Later in the afternoon, Karl Withers, Vice President of Marketing at UR Medicine, came in to talk about why marketing matters. He shared some insight with us about what he has learned in his career of over 30 years in the advertising and marketing industry. He walked us through how he came up with UR Medicine’s tagline: Medicine of the Highest Order and made us all shed a tear by showing us one of the videos where he highlighted the true heroes of his ads: the patients and doctors. Scott McGlynn, Marketing and Content Manager at Coast Professional Inc, spoke in the evening about the grit and determination that it takes to run an entire marketing department alone. He then shared some insights about what he has learned in the profession that students don’t learn in school, like necessary excel skills and the amount of hard work it really takes to be successful.
Tuesday:
Tuesday’s first guest speaker was Bob Maybee, Vice President of Customer Loyalty and Merchandising Support for Wegmans. He spoke about how Wegmans continually asks customers about what they think about different aspects of the store through their Wegmans Insiders Panel. He also spoke about how they analyze their Shoppers Club Card data to better understand and predict the needs of customers and increase their loyalty. Tuesday night was the Alumni Panel with Alex Ormond and Aimee Schenck from Launch Solutions, Rob Meacham from Dixon Schwabl and Brian from Crazy Dog T-Shirts. The alumni spoke about how their different and unique paths have led to their current careers. They also gave advice to students about how they can best prepare to enter the industry.
Wednesday:
On Wednesday, AMA E-Board members Emily Reich and Sam Servati hosted a perfect pitch seminar. Both students placed last year at AMA’s International Collegiate Conference and were able to share tips and advice to students competing in Fisher’s Perfect Pitch Competition, which was happening the next day. In the afternoon, AMA E-Board member Nate Fuller shared his photography skills by taking professional headshots for students outside of the Salerno School of Business. Later on was the Speed Networking Event with Katie Christian from Paychex, Pam Fisher from Wegmans, and Cody Mangalsingh from Combined Insurance. These panelists shared the different ways that they have used networking to advance their careers and advised students on the best practices in networking, like the importance of following up and how to reach out about opportunities you might be interested in.
Thursday:
The Perfect Pitch Competition went on for a majority of Thursday morning. The competition was sponsored by ADP and judges were from ADP, Butler Till, and Paychex. Six students advanced to the final round which will be held later this week. Thursday night was an ice cream sundae party and movie night. Students socialized and ate ice cream while watching Disney’s Moana.
Friday:
Friday was an agency crawl where students traveled to three different agencies, Soleo Communications, Dixon Schwabl, and First American Equipment Finance. At Soleo Communications, students learned how the company leads the pay-per-call industry and had a conversation with Co-Founder and CEO, Dan Gallagher, about how students can best prepare for a career in the ever-changing marketing industry. Dixon Schwabl gave students a tour of their fun and unique office while sharing examples of the company’s creative work and discussing the direction that creative ad agencies are headed in. Then, students met with three St. John Fisher alumni at First American Equipment Finance for a brief company overview before receiving a tour of the company’s office from First American CEO, Alan Sikora. Students were then joined by four other members of the First American marketing team where each member discussed their role and gave examples of the projects that they have completed.
Marketing Week not only shows SJFC AMA’s commitment to learning and development in the field of marketing, but also how supportive companies in Rochester are to develop some of the region’s top marketing talent. Thank you to all the business and professionals that helped to make our Marketing Week possible!
Interested in taking advantages of the amazing opportunities SJFC AMA has to offer? We’re always accepting new members and would love to have you join! We meet Tuesdays in Salerno 206 during free period.