Students market Acura through social media

FREEZE: URI students in the College of Business Administration's social media marketing class pose as mannequins – capturing their excitement for the Acura Business Challenge marketing event. / COURTESY URI/NORA LEWIS
FREEZE: URI students in the College of Business Administration's social media marketing class pose as mannequins – capturing their excitement for the Acura Business Challenge marketing event. / COURTESY URI/NORA LEWIS

The millennial generation is a tough nut to crack, but 34 University of Rhode Island marketing students have taken on the challenge of broadening car-manufacturer Acura’s popularity among 21- to 35-year-olds.

Using the generation’s communication mode of choice, social media, the students have been asked to promote the 2017 Acura ILX, an entry-level sports sedan, to millennials with disposable income looking to buy a new car.

URI is one of 20 colleges and universities participating in the Acura Marketing Challenge. Classes are given a $2,000 budget by Acura’s Boston-based marketing agent Mullen, and must present their ideas to EdVenture Partners, an industry-education partnership program that facilitated the opportunity.

URI students were broken into research and reports, presentation, finance, advertising, public relations and strategy implementation departments to manage the campaign and are also assigned to one of seven social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, WordPress, LinkedIn or Google+; to publish creative materials generated by the class.

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Tweets and Instagram posts authored by the student-run company, Vital Innovative Promotions, include: “Precision-Crafted performance, AKA: Sophisticated Muscle” and “Is sound quality important in your next vehicle? Turn up the volume in the 2017 Acura ILX to unveil the ELS Studio Premium Audio System.”

When Samantha Valenza, a senior from Plainview, N.Y., and the appointed agency coordinator, was first introduced to the project, she knew Acura as a “higher luxury, performance vehicle.”

In terms of preparing students for post-college, career-level work, Valenza said the class provides “real-world experience” and is a better learning opportunity than other classes and some internships.

“It’s important we learn different ways to market in social media,” she said, citing its popularity among the younger generation and arguing for its application in professional settings.

The class works with “real money, real events, a real company and real targets,” she said.

“Working in a larger company may not be as easy as you think and you need to keep a positive mindset rather than get frustrated over a negative response to the work you’re doing,” said Valenza, who received some negative feedback during the course and had to restart her campaign.

Partnering with companies such as Mullen and EdVentures on a marketing campaign for a nationally recognized car manufacturer is very different from normal college work, said North Kingstown senior Alison Plunkett.

“It’s definitely helped us realize that, in the real world, clients will change their mind, not like what you produce and make you start over from scratch,” she said.

She explained theirs wasn’t a “picture-perfect, textbook approach,” but rather a repeating sequence of production, presentation to the client, editing to the client’s feedback and re-presenting.

Taylor Burns, a senior from Cranston, explained that, for her, the high-level of teamwork and cooperation demanded by a hands-on program makes it one of the “most realistic [comparisons] to post-graduation life.”

Communicating with an unhappy client and receiving negative feedback, said Burns, is the hardest part, but perseverance is key.

“The first time it happens, it might not be what you want to hear, but if you stay with the focus of your campaign and work hard, you can make it the best it can be,” she said.

Assistant professor of marketing Christy Ashley encourages this process, saying it allows students “to practice failing.

“In the classroom, we don’t want the student to fail, [but] in this situation it’s OK,” she said. In the advertising industry, editing is commonplace and starting from scratch is “very realistic,” she added.

Ashley, who has been at URI for the past two years, previously worked on six projects with EdVentures at universities across the Eastern Seaboard.

“It’s not the easiest way to teach, it’s not the easiest way to learn, but in terms of actual learning that happens, it’s a great experience,” she said.

To Ashley, working without the backing of an advertising or public relations agency is more beneficial for students because they are exposed to all of the work a firm might produce.

“I always fear when you’re working with a firm there’s not necessarily the chance your work will be seen,” she said. “In this case, they’re developing everything, and these results will be their baby,” she said.

Putting the onus on the student teams forces them to work together, face communication challenges and be accountable to an external client while accomplishing their goals and, “ultimately,” said Ashley, “this is what they’ll be doing in the workforce.”

In the end, Ashley will grade students on their teamwork and final product, but more importantly, she said, “I care about how they respond when they fail, how they analyze and move on.” •

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