Two AMU Students Win National Marketing Competition
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Published on Monday, 20 February 2012 22:20
Not a lot of academic exercises get beyond the classroom, but two Ave Maria University students have won the chance to help implement a marketing plan that they developed for the higher education division of bookseller Follett Corp.
Mary Ladewski and Roman Samuels, both juniors, bested teams from more than 80 other schools in the U.S. to win the Follett Marketing Genius competition, AMU Economics Department Chair Gabriel Martinez announced Monday. The two were awarded 10-week internships at the company's head office in Chicago to put their winning marketing plan for selling books to the higher education market into practice. (Right, the two students outside Follett's headquarters in Chicago)
The two developed their plan as part of a marketing course at AMU last fall. The class broke into small teams and were challenged to create a national marketing campaign that promoted Follett's four types of book offerings: new, used, rental and digital. The contest set a marketing budget of $1 million and was limited to the existing Follett product line.
Miss Ladewski and Mr. Samuels, calling their team the "Words Worth Consulting Marketing Team," were invited along with two other teams from other schools to make final presentations Monday in Chicago to Follett executives, who named their plan the winning entry.
"I think that Roman's and Mary's success, coming so early in the development of the Ave Maria business program, speaks volumes about the quality of students that Ave Maria University is able to attract," said Dr. Martinez.."More importantly," he added, "it also indicates what our curriculum does for students. The core curriculum, the economics prerequisites, and our courses in business are a very solid foundation to succeed in any field."
