by Alexis Garcia
The American Marketing Association (AMA) club at Trevecca is set to attend a marketing conference in New Orleans in the spring, and their professor wanted them to have to some practice first.
Roy Philip, associate professor of marketing and coordinator of the club, organized for the first time on campus in October a competition like the one in New Orleans.
The AMA International Collegiate Conference is for students from all over the country to come together to compete to find a resolution for a problem a real marketing company is facing. Trevecca’s AMA club only participated in one competition in 2009. The students placed third from around 50 universities.
“So I thought. ‘How can I bring the competitive spirit to Trevecca?’ I thought of having a competition like they have in New Orleans, but have it among AMA members in middle Tennessee,” said Philip. “There are three chapters in Middle Tennessee. Belmont, Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) and Trevecca. So I thought how about bringing these three universities together for a competition.”
The event was made possible with the help of two sponsors: the Wang Foundation for Sight Restoration and Trevecca’s School of Graduate and Continuing Studies.
On the day of the event, students from Belmont and MTSU were missing. Five members were needed for the competition, and only one showed from MTSU.
Philip did not want to give up the event, so he sent some of Trevecca’s AMA members to join the MTSU team.
The teams were then given a case study from Parthenon Credit Union, and they were tasked with figuring out how to grow the company’s business and partner with other companies to expand their reach.
One of the judges was a CEO from Parthenon Credit Union.
Damaris Villlalva, a senior international business major, who was part of the MTSU group, said that although she was not on the Trevecca team she learned something.
“Although there was a situation with the groups, it gives us an extra opportunity to think fast and to see if we actually learned something and if we can apply it. I think it was a great experience that will help us in the future,” she said.
After the competition, students were lead into a question and answer and followed by a talk from Dr. Ming Wang, a lasik eye surgeon.
“I enjoyed hearing Dr. Ming Wang speak about differentiation which is the action or process of differentiating. It basically means what makes your product stand out from all the other products like it,” said Miriam Kirk, a multimedia journalism major.
The event was successful according to Damaris, and she says others should join the AMA club because it will benefit students to meet and network with other professionals in the business community.
“It is great to be involved in academic clubs no matter what it is. It’ll look great on your resume,” said Villalva. “Knowing other business people and networking with them opens up new experiences.”
