Alltel Wireless Sponsors 18th Annual Wake Forest Marketing Summit

Alltel Wireless, America's largest network, joined students, faculty and staff at Wake Forest’s Babcock Graduate School of Management to sponsor the 18th annual Wake Forest Marketing Summit held Feb. 7-10.

As part of the student-run summit, Alltel Wireless challenged MBA students participating in the 36-hour case competition to explore different ideas around a new approach to the current marketing strategy in select markets. The sponsor was kept a secret until the Thursday kickoff event at the Sawtooth Center.

"We requested the students develop a growth strategy in certain markets, leveraging our current product offerings," said Sarah Day, staff manager for Alltel Wireless.
 

Wake Forest’s MBA team came in second in the case competition and earned $3,000. From left: Babcock team members Anagha Jagtap, James Goody, Zach Denton, Karl Burns, Emily Blake Hinman, and Jim Gleitman; Alltel's chief marketing officer Frank O'Mara.

Wake Forest’s MBA team, made up of Karl Burns, Zach Denton, Jim Gleitman, James Goody, Emily Blake Hinman and Anagha Jagtap, came in second in the case competition. The team earned $3,000 for its efforts.

The top prize went to the team from the University of Washington (Foster), which took home $5,000. “The University of Washington was able to bring an innovative yet practical solution to the table that we can now work to develop and implement,” said Day, who is a 2005 Babcock graduate and served as a co-chair of that year’s Marketing Summit.

Third place and $2,000 went to the University of Virginia (Darden) team. The winner of the undergraduate case competition was the team from the University of Florida.

Among the nation’s top business schools participating in the student-run summit were Brigham Young University (Marriott), Duke University (Fuqua), Pennsylvania State University (Smeal) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

One of the highlights of this year’s event was a keynote address and book signing by Dan Heath, co-author of the 2007 New York Times best-seller “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.” Heath outlined the secret of his S.U.C.C.E.S.S.: simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, stories. Heath co-wrote the book with his brother Chip Heath, describing the traits that link sticky ideas ranging from advertisements to urban legends.

“Concreteness is the secret to getting a job,” he said. “What is the recruiter going to remember about you? Paint a mental picture.”

Another highlight occurred during Saturday night’s gala at the Millennium Center where the winners of the competition were announced. Mayor Allen Joines declared Feb. 9 Tom Ogburn Day. Ogburn has been the faculty adviser for the summit for the past nine years.

The weekend’s events also included several interactive professional development and networking events. Senior executives from Coca-Cola, VF Corp., ABC Family, HBO and the Association of National Advertisers were among those from some of the nation’s leading companies who returned to participate in this year’s summit.

Alltel Wireless is owner and operator of America’s largest network and has more than 12 million customers. To find out more about Alltel, please visit www.alltel.com.