NOTEBOOK: Drake, Creighton marketing teams collaborate for Solheim Cup campaign
JOE GARDYASZ Nov 18, 2016 | 9:07 pm
3 min read time
691 wordsAll Latest News, Business Record Insider, Education, The Insider NotebookSolheim Cup, meet the Murphy Cup.
 |
 |
|
Drake associate marketing professor Andy Norman, left, and Matt Seevers from Creighton display the Murphy Cup and the Solheim Cup |
This weekend, two dozen talented marketing seniors from Drake and Creighton universities are collaborating in a unique real-world project as they generate proposed marketing campaigns for the 2017 Solheim Cup golf tournament, one of Central Iowa’s highest-profile sports events.
Now in its fourth year, the Murphy Cup Marketing Strategy Competition is a 24-hour marketing challenge that brings together Drake and Creighton students to collaborate in small teams to generate marketing campaigns for real-world clients. In the past three years the university teams have generated campaigns for Nike, Yahoo Fantasy Football and Meredith Corp.’s flagship Better Homes & Gardens brand.
The challenge began this morning as 12 seniors from Drake met with 12 seniors from Creighton to hear Solheim Cup officials give them their marching orders. By early Saturday afternoon, teams of students will begin presenting 20-minute pitches of their campaigns to a panel of judges that includes representatives from the Solheim Cup.
The Murphy Cup isn’t a competition between Drake and Creighton, but rather a contest to see which four-person team — each with two Creighton and two Drake students — will generate the best campaign as determined by a panel of judges. The two universities take turns hosting the event; it’s Drake’s turn this year.
Drew Blass, assistant tournament director of the Solheim Cup, said he learned of the Murphy Cup challenge while talking with John Smith, Drake’s vice president of advancement, during a Rotary event. “His idea was, what if that could be the problem for the Murphy Cup?” Blass said.
“We’re excited to have 24 students taking on this opportunity and coming up with some great ideas. We always say, broaden your horizons. If you’ve got some great, bright students, some great things can come out of it.”
Blass said the Solheim Cup’s marketing challenge to the students will revolve around how the event can better engage the local community with the August event. The women’s professional golf tournament will be held Aug. 14-20 at Des Moines Golf and Country Club.
The Murphy Cup is the brainchild of Drake alum Chris Murphy, an Omaha bank CEO and a member of Creighton’s board of trustees, who funded the program. Murphy proposed the challenge as a way to replicate a real-world business experience by requiring students to work with people they’ve just met in an intense time frame to produce their best results.
Andy Norman, an associate professor of marketing at Drake, leads the program with Matt Seevers, chair of Creighton’s marketing and management department.
“When (Murphy) was here as a student, the most memorable and valuable course he took was a class in the School of Journalism where they were paired with a client and they consulted for that client throughout the semester,” Norman said. “He felt like that’s the kind of thing students should have nowadays, and we agree. … It seems to be accomplishing the goals we had for it from the beginning.”
Seevers noted that each university’s marketing department staff selects participating students each year, and it’s not just based on their GPAs but also on their overall potential.
Among the students I met this morning were Kayman Nixon, a business senior at Creighton originally from Sacramento, Calif., who is serving his second term as student body president. In that leadership role, Nixon has worked to raise awareness of diversity on campus and has also strived to improve student government’s marketing efforts.
Another participant, Jenna Nelson from Drake, is a senior from Fairfield who is double majoring in marketing and information systems with a minor in graphic design. She already has plans to join the marketing department at McClure Engineering Co. in Clive after she graduates.
“I have a couple of friends who did this last year,” Nelson said. “It’s definitely an honor to be chosen by the faculty for this program; I think it’s a really unique event that Drake does — not just sitting in class but actually taking a project and turning it around.”
Trending News
