Northwestern, UCLA among top teams entered in Wake Forest MBA Marketing Case Competition

An elite field of eight graduate business schools will compete in the 16th annual Wake Forest MBA Marketing Case Competition as part of the MBA Marketing Summit, scheduled for Feb. 9-11 at Wake Forest University’s Babcock Graduate School of Management.

Teams of marketing students from the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Michigan, Northwestern University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Washington, the University of Wisconsin, Vanderbilt University and Wake Forest will compete at the Worrell Professional Center on the Wake Forest campus.

Student teams develop a marketing plan for a sponsoring company whose identity remains undisclosed until the case is assigned. Students then have 36 hours to prepare marketing plans that are presented to a panel of judges representing the business and academic communities and to executives of the sponsoring company. This year, judges include four chief marketing officers from Fortune 500 companies, including one from the sponsor.

In addition to the competition, other summit events include the Undergraduate Challenge case competition and the Marketing Forum, which brings together leading marketing minds to discuss industry issues. This year’s forum, titled “Using Innovation and Creativity to Drive Your Brand,” will be held on Friday, Feb. 10, at Wait Chapel on the Wake Forest campus. The forum includes two panel discussions and a creative advertising competition hosted by the American Association of Advertising Agencies, and is open to the public. Discussion panelists include chief marketing officers or former CMOs from BellSouth, Jet Blue, Sonic, Verizon and Yahoo!

Each year, a marketing case is written for the MBA case competition based on information from the sponsor and focused on a key global business challenge facing the company. Past corporate sponsors have included Apple Computer, Coca-Cola, EchoStar Communications, GlaxoSmithKline, Heineken USA, IBM, Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse, Microsoft, Planters Life Savers, R.J. Reynolds, Sara Lee and Wachovia Wealth Management.

The competition exposes students to realistic business challenges and gives prospective employers an opportunity to gauge the students’ marketing skills. It also provides a number of creative solutions for the company, encouraging teams to think unconventionally in developing their marketing plans.

The competition awards $5,000 for first place, $3,000 for second and $2,000 for third. The winners will be announced at an evening awards banquet on Saturday, Feb. 11.
More information on all summit events is available at www.mba.wfu.edu/marketingsummit.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The identities of the corporate sponsor and judges and the details of the case are not disclosed to ensure that no participating team gains an unfair advantage before the competition begins. The information can be discussed with editors and reporters interested in covering the competition. For more information, contact Eric Whittington, associate director of external relations for Wake Forest’s Babcock School, at 336.758.5030, 866.925.3622 or eric.whittington@mba.wfu.edu.