Humber OCMC Case Study Challenges

As the weeks fly by, it's obvious to see that the hard work is paying off for Humber’s OCMC team.  Practices are becoming more fun, getting more intense and the students are becoming more close-knit. You can see that the connections between our smaller teams, like the case study challenges and Quiz Bowl (more info on the Quiz Bowl team here http://humberocmc.blogspot.ca/2014/10/an-inside-look-at-quiz-bowl-team.html), are getting stronger, which I'm sure will show when it comes time for the competition!

The entire OCMC team practices every Tuesday afternoon. This practice is geared towards enhancing our analysis and performance skills. This is great because the majority of the team will be presenting a case study analysis at the competition, of which there are 8 challenges:

•       Marketing
•       Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)
•       Marketing Research
•       Retail
•       Entrepreneurship
•       Direct Marketing
•       International Marketing
•       Prospect Pitching

At the competition, these teams will be put into a room and are allotted 30 minutes to dissect a case and create a 15-minute presentation for a panel of judges that they have never met before! (The IMC team is given 60 minutes because of the difficulty of their field). I'm freezing up during class presentations, so kudos to these teams for doing it in competition! Hopefully my skills will improve throughout the semester for my own benefit! For more information on each of the challenges, visit http://ocmc.ca/events/cases/. 

Coach Christine and James, from the IMC challenge, with his crazy hair!

It's nerve racking for sure, but I have no doubt that Humber’s OCMC Team will do very well in all elements at this year's case study competition.

An inside look at the Quiz Bowl Team!

The annual OCMC Competition is getting closer and practices are flying by! Humber's OCMC Team is comprised of 4 sections: Case Study, Sales Presentation, Job interview and Quiz Bowl. The Quiz Bowl is a segment of the competition where teams devised of 4 students, each from different schools, race to answer questions in order to earn the most points. I am lucky enough to be a part of our Quiz Bowl Team!

 

Quiz Bowl isn't like the other sections of the OCMC Team. We don't analyze or present cases, persuade someone to buy a product or sell ourselves to a prospective employer. We sit in front of a huge audience... And press a button... Oh and answer questions. Seems easy enough, right? Think again. We are expected to know 8 chapters of content front to back and 3 complete issues of Strategy Magazine! We have to understand hundreds of concepts and terms and we're only going to be asked 7 questions in each round? Wow.

 

Don't get me wrong - I love being a part of the Quiz Bowl Team. I believe that we get spoiled a bit. We have awesome practices preparing us for the Quiz Bowl competition, but on top of that, we also get trained on our presentation and case analysis skills just like everyone else. It's the best of both worlds!

 

However, I do have to give props to the other sections of the OCMC Team. They're expected to read, analyze and present a case study in only 30 minutes! From experience in the OCMC class, I know it's not easy. But it seems like the coaches are really preparing their teams and the students are improving every week. We’re all on the fast track to the podium at this year’s OCMC!

Students of Humber’s OCMC team attend IAB CANADA conference…

The IAB Canada MIXX Conference is an annual event that is held downtown Toronto at the Carlu on Yonge Street, a fantastic and very unique event venue. The students of Humber’s Ontario Colleges Marketing Competition Team (OCMC) were given the opportunity to attend this event, and what an honor it was! They were greeted by fantastic volunteers upon their arrival and quickly made their way to the first of a few presentations. Derrick Li of comScore, one of the leading companies in their field, wowed the students with fantastic research on leading trends in society and detailed information on demographic trends regarding mobile/electronic advertising. 

The students were lucky enough to see presentations from professionals at the top of their industry, like Marie Josée Lamothe from Google and Martina Martinez from AOL. The conference really showed how amazing and interesting the industry can be. The information that the students of the OCMC team received was an invaluable asset that can and will be used during their preparation, and even presentations, for the annual OCMC Competition held this year in Blue Mountain, ON!

Marketing is Storytelling

Picture this scene. There is a child is all ready for bed and grabbed their favourite Dr.Seuss book. They ran over to their bed jumping in, asking for the book to be read before they went asleep. The real question is what made the Dr.Seuss series one of the most successful and memorable books of all time?

Was it the amount of creativity that was put into the books or was it the morals and values that they taught? Was it the fact the endings were never satisfactory and always wanted to know where the story went? Whatever it was Dr.Seuss wrote 40 different books between 1937-1991, he sold half a million copies.

Markets could learn a lot from Dr.Seuss when it comes to developing the company’s marketing story. Dr.Seuss was able to define his target customers, creating something that would be relevant, inspirational, and “news worthy,” for years to come. He was the first one to step out of the box and create something that no one has ever been attempted before. Dr.Seuss was able to add morals and values that adults were proud of and wanted to teach their children.

When developing the story for your company you must always keep your main audience in mind. Like Dr.Seuss, this will help you when you’re trying to think of a creative, unique and most importantly “news worthy” story to tell your audience. The goal here is to develop a story that takes on a life of its own using the audience’s morals and values. Stories could use themes such as emotion, challenge, novelty, intrigue, and tenderness.