MBA students wins second place in ANGA Collegiate Energy Challenge

By Professor Andrew Cudmore, Nathan M. Bisk College of Business

This past fall semester, I introduced my Marketing Management MBA students to the ANGA Collegiate Energy Challenge. This challenge involved the implementation of an integrated promotional campaign and the creation of a unique exposition aimed at educating and informing the student community about natural gas. Through pre and post surveys the students were able to measure the knowledge and sentiments of the students, revealing the effectiveness of their event in creating positive associations about natural gas usage and development. Our success was facilitated by the personal assistance of Lexie Fatianow, our representative from EdVentures Partners, who provided valuable feedback, support, and guidance to the students as our bridge to the client.
Our MBA students quickly got to work, created a fictitious promotional company, named it (Clear Choice) and created a logo all within the first two weeks. Though not required for the competition, they created a formal strategic plan and set to work staging an impressive outdoor, on-campus event called the “Clear Choice Natural Gas Expo”. This expo was the centerpiece of their integrated marketing project. The event offered fun, informative and educational activities for Florida Tech students, staff and faculty as well as the local community. Natural gas industry and transportation professionals also came to campus as exhibitors and said this was one of the best events of this kind they had ever been to and look forward to future participation in such educational events that may be put on by Florida Tech. The Florida Tech team was recognized for the quality of its work and was one of three teams from the national competition that was invited for an all-expense paid trip to DC to present before the ANGA executive staff. The dedication, the professionalism, the clarity and the creativity all wrapped in to one power house of a presentation! Students John, Brooke, Pawin, Dennis and Eirik all should be proud of how they represented Florida Tech. The presentation was concise, articulate and they handled the questions from the executive judges very well.
We walked away from the competition with a second place prize and the judges were so impressed they talked predominantly of our team after the awards were given out and they unexpectedly gave $200 to each of the 21 MBA students in addition to the $3,000 second place awarded to the College of Business!
I was very impressed with the strategy, implementation, and measurement enacted by the students during this project. This class was one of the best experiences for me in the last 21 years of teaching. These students are committed, organized, creative, positive and hard-working. It was a great collaborative effort and teaching them was a pleasure.
The below video sums up the challenge and experience had by our MBA students.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6zCDupWByCUQk9TM2lpX1RjZWM/edit?pli=1