Marketing Summit Attracts Nation‰’s Top Business School Talent

Some of the nation’s top business schools will compete in the 18th annual Wake Forest MBA Marketing Summit on Feb. 7-9.

Schools participating in the 36-hour MBA case competition are Brigham Young University (Marriott), Duke University (Fuqua), Northwestern University (Kellogg), Pennsylvania State University (Smeal), University of Virginia (Darden), University of Washington (Foster), University of Wisconsin-Madison and Wake Forest University (Babcock).

One of the highlights of this year’s event will be 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.” The book, which he co-wrote with his brother Chip Heath, describes the traits that link sticky ideas ranging from advertisements to urban legends. Heath is currently a consultant to the policy programs for The Aspen Institute. A columnist for Fast Company magazine, his client list includes Microsoft, Nestle, Nissan, Macy’s and the American Heart Association. He will give his keynote address at 11 a.m., Friday, Feb. 8, in Brendle Recital Hall, Scales Fine Arts Center.

The weekend’s events also include undergraduate case team presentations and several interactive professional development and networking events. While this year’s corporate sponsor will not be revealed until the summit’s kickoff, past participating sponsors have included Motorola, Yahoo!, Wachovia and Sara Lee. In the case competition, teams consisting of four to seven MBA students must develop a marketing plan to solve a real-world challenge faced by the sponsor. Last year, Motorola challenged MBA students to develop a plan to market its new Q handset to small- and medium-sized U.S. companies.