Five Marketing students and one faculty member in the Shields School of Business traveled to Raleigh, North Carolina, last week to compete at the American Marketing Association’s eighth annual regional conference.
The students competed in various marketing-focused competitions and took home three awards.
Assistant Professor of Marketing Kim Flanders traveled to the conference – which was hosted by North Carolina State – with students Daniel Farrar, Camille Gagnon, Erin Golding, Lucia Johnson and Bryar Schilling.
Johnson won second place in the Perfect Pitch Competition, in which students had to promote themselves in 90 seconds to land an internship opportunity.
Johnson and Schilling teamed up to capture first-place honors in a Marketing Strategy Competition. The competition required students to develop a plan for solving a business problem.
Farrar, Gagnon and Golding placed second in the Marketing Strategy Competition behind their fellow SFU students.
Last week’s winter storm created some travel challenges for the group, but it worked through them.
The conference was scheduled for two days (Jan. 23-24) on NC State’s campus. However, due to the storm, conference organizers moved Day 2 events to virtual delivery.
Once this change in plans was announced, the SFU team decided to return to campus ahead of the storm and compete in the conference virtually from Loretto.
The group arrived back on campus very early Saturday morning after a long night of travel. The team competed in conference events from the warm rooms of Schwab Hall throughout the day on Saturday.
“We had to change our travel plans, pretty quickly, and without much notice,” said Golding. “I’m glad we were able to make it out there.”
The theme of the conference was “Surging Ahead: Future Leaders in Motion.”
“It was a very interesting competition,” said Gagnon. “In the classroom you have plenty of prep time for presentations, but here, you have six hours to be ready to perform and answer questions on the spot.
“You definitely learn a lot.”
The SFU AMA chapter is always looking for new members. For more information, check out the chapter on Instagram: @ama_sfu.
