Wake Forest University Places Third in the 21st Annual Marketing Summit

WINSTON-SALEM, NC— A team of MBA students from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania walked away with a $75,000 cash prize and the Cheerwine Cup on Saturday, Feb. 5, after winning first place in an international case competition at the 21st Annual Marketing Summit presented by the Wake Forest University Schools of Business.

VF Corporation, the Marketing Summit’s case sponsor, challenged MBA student teams to spend 36 hours developing a comprehensive marketing plan for The North Face®.

Members of the winning MBA case team included: Iris Chin, Jonathan Harmon, Rebecca Ricalde, Carolyn Schogol and Sodany Sor.

London Business School finished second, and Wake Forest University was the third place finisher in MBA case competition.

Other participating MBA programs included: Boston College Carroll School of Management, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, University of California-Berkeley Haas School of Business, University of Notre Dame, and The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business.

A team of students from Northeastern University College of Business Administration located in Boston, Mass., won first place in the undergraduate case competition which focused on VF Corporation’s Nautica® brand, taking home a $10,000 cash prize and the newly unveiled BB&T Lighthouse Trophy.

Members of the winning undergraduate case team were: Rani Pimentel, Andrew Rothbaum, Christopher Rossignol and Gregory Milne.

“I was really humbled this weekend by the passion and the dedication of all of the competitors and saw that every team had a real true commitment to corporate responsibility,” said Nina Flood, Vice President of Marketing for Nautica®.

The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania finished second in the undergraduate case competition, and the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business finished third.

Other competing undergraduate schools included: Brigham Young University, Emory University and Wake Forest University.

Brigham Young received a $1,000 prize for winning the Fan Favorite award, voted on by people all over the world via (www.marketingsummitlive.com). More than 8,000 votes were cast for the Fan Favorite during the 36-hour case competition. “We set an ambitious goal to bring international attention to the Wake Forest Marketing Summit,” said Marketing Summit co-chair, Joy Fuller (MBA ’11). “Throughout the event, we had visitors on (www.marketingsummitlive.com) from every state in the U.S. plus 70 additional countries.” The site had more than 42,000 hits, exceeding the 2010 mark by more than 34%. There were also thousands of the Marketing Summit posts on Facebook and Twitter.

A record $103,000 in prize money was awarded out Feb. 5 during a celebration at the Millennium Center in downtown Winston-Salem. Mayor Allen Joines welcomed attendees including competitors, sponsors, visiting executives, student volunteers and faculty. Corporate sponsors for this year’s event include: VF Corporation, Broyhill Family Foundation, Sam’s Club, Walmart, Altria Group, BB&T Corporation, Carolina Beverage Corporation, Fleishman-Hillard, Chick-fil-A, Primo Water and Prima Water Company.

The Marketing Summit is produced annually by more than 100 Wake Forest University Schools of Business students led by three co-chairs and faculty advisor Roger Beahm. This year’s co-chairs were: Joy Fuller (MBA ’11), Ryan McBreen (MBA’11) and Jen Stoner (MBA ’11). For more information on all of the competing teams including videos, photos, blogs and news feeds, visit (www.marketingsummitlive.com)

Click Here to see a video story about the Marketing Summit that appeared on News 14 Carolina.