Posted: 5-12-2008
Student NAMA team wins national marketing competition with campaign
Eleven UF students defeated teams from numerous institutions including The Ohio State University on their way to a national championship.
Sound familiar? The setting wasn’t a football field, but the National Agri-Marketing Association’s Student Marketing Competition, held April 15-17 in Kansas City, Mo.
UF’s NAMA student chapter took first-place honors, besting 30 other teams from the United States and Canada. With help from adviser David Barber, undergraduate coordinator with the food and resource economics department, the team put together a professional-quality campaign for “Masher Meals,” a line of children’s prepared dinners featuring mashed potatoes.
The team began preparing for the competition last fall, developing the product idea in collaboration with Wisconsin’s Russet Potato Exchange and obtaining a licensing agreement with Disney Garden, a company authorized to place the Disney brand on fresh fruits and vegetables.
During spring semester, they created a written marketing plan, targeting children ages 6-11. To gain insight they surveyed local children and parents and gained information that helped shape their marketing strategy and suggested prices that would appeal to parents.
In Kansas City, the UF team made it through preliminary and semifinal rounds, then in the finals gave a 20-minute boardroom-style presentation before the NAMA general membership.
When it was over, UF had beaten the other five finalist teams. The victory was especially sweet because for the past two years UF made it to the final round but didn’t take first place.
The team included: Michael Beck, Lauren Goodman, Jenna Greene, Brett Johnson, Mike Jones, Adam Kiefer, Kristen Kovalsky, Jessica Manning, Kerri Matson, Matthew McLaughlin, Trevor Murphy, Chelsea Spanevello and team captain Alicia Taylor.
Visit the NAMA home page here
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