Marketing group offers hands-on experience
Released: November 13, 2003
It’s an age-old problem for graduating college students: you’re at a job interview and your potential employer tells you they’re looking for someone who has experience working in your field of study; but you can’t get the work experience they want until someone offers you a job!
Fortunately, for UW-Whitewater students who are part of Creative Marketing Unlimited (CMU), that scenario won’t take place. The 45-50 students who join CMU each year get hands-on experience doing market research and writing marketing plans for real-world businesses and non-profit groups.
“The work experience I’ve gotten from being a part of this organization has been great,” said Andy Dahl, a senior from Beaver Dam and two-term president of CMU. “It puts me in a better position for job interviews. I’ve got something I can show prospective employers and say, ‘This is what I’ve done.’”
CMU was formed in 1986 by marketing Professor Jimmy Peltier. who continues to be the group’s advisor. Peltier said he wanted to create an opportunity for students to get “real-world business experience while they’re in school.”
“At that time, we had a strong chapter of AMA (American Marketing Association) and there were a lot of students who seemed interested in forming a group within the AMA that would take on real marketing projects,” Peltier said. The idea took off and now CMU handles three large marketing projects each semester.
CMU’s clients range from banks and bicycle shops to non-profit charitable organizations and school districts. “People come to us primarily for market research and marketing plans,” Peltier said. “Clients are impressed with our work and we’re affordable. A small or non-profit business might not otherwise be able to budget for the fees a big marketing firm would charge.”
The United Way of Sheboygan County is one such example. Dr. Jack Westfall, a member of its Board of Directors, turned to CMU last year for help in developing a community needs assessment. Westfall, who received his MBA from UW-Whitewater in 1993, had heard about the excellent work done by the students in the CMU group.
“CMU helped us develop a survey to assess the needs in the greater Sheboygan area,” Westfall said. “People ranked some 30 needs and as a result of knowing what these newer, emerging needs are, we were able to reallocate our resources and change programs in order to better meet those needs.”
Westfall was impressed enough with CMU’s work to hire them again, this time for the Sheboygan Area School District, where he works as the district’s Coordinator of Assessments.
“Education is changing,” Westfall said. “We’re seeing a real open market, with school choice, charter schools and private schools,” Westfall said. “Our district is seeing more students leaving through school choice than are coming in through school choice. We have to be responsive to the market.”
The school district hired CMU this year to conduct a marketing audit, which will include surveys, data collection and focus group studies. At the end of next semester, CMU will present the district with a marketing plan
Westfall said even though the district’s budget was extremely tight this year, the value of such research could easily be seen. “A little investment up front will pay off in the long run,” Westfall said. “If we develop a marketing plan that adds just one student, it will pay for itself.”
The fees charged by CMU go right back into the organization. “The money we make is used to buy computers and printers for the CMU office, provide yearly scholarships and pay our national association dues,” Dahl said. “No one working at CMU receives any money.”
The quality work of CMU is one reason why UW-Whitewater’s chapter of AMA has won Best International Chapter two of the last three years and more times than any other school. That kind of consistent excellence is impressive, Peltier says, especially given the fact that there’s 100 percent turnover of CMU’s membership every four years.
For Dahl, the CMU background has already served him well. “In job interviews, I’ve been able to relate actual experiences in business situations,” he said. Dahl, who will graduate in May, is considering several marketing job offers he has already received.
- Karen Kachel,lkkach@hotmail.com
