Get ready to ride the next wave

March 25th is an important date for many reasons. It signifies the end of the second to last week of classes and in many cases the last of the ‘real’ lectures for the semester as well the Schulich Graduate formal.

It is also the day the Schulich Marketing Associaiton will host the Tsunami of all events – The SMA Marekting Conference 2011. The theme for the conference this year around is ‘Ride the Right Wave’. Watch and learn from experienced marketing professionals of cutting edge brands such as Facebook, Campbell’s, BMW, Sears,  Rubbermaid, Rogers, Mars Inc and the author of the groundbreaking book WikiBrands rip through the latest marketing trends and provide tips and tricks on how to stay afloat in the current rapidly changing brandscape.

So dont’ be an ocean liner that moves slowly through the water, instead be a surfer and we’ll show you how to ride the right wave.

Date: 25th March, 9:30am – 3pm

Place: Schulich School of Business

Tickets available at the Schulich Marketplace from March 9th – March 24th:

$15 – SMA Members

$20 – Non-SMA Members

$50 – Guests (Non-Schulich)

An eventful March for the SMA

This month is going to be one helluva month for the SMA. We have three extremely interesting events lined up for you starting with the SMA Marketing social followed by the Marketing Finance Workshop and last but not least the highly anticipated Schulich Marketing Conference !

Here are the details of the first two events. As for the Schulich Marketing conference, all I can say at this point is that it is going to be bigger and better than anything you have seen thus far so mark your calenders for March 25th. Tickets will be on sale soon. We look forward to seeing you all and hopefully more than once !

Marketing Social

Today we are holding our first ever marketing social. It will be located at the Roosevelt Room. No line and $10 cover until 12:30 pm. The $10 cover will go toward the SMA conference coming up at the end of March. Come out and dance the night away!

WHEN: Saturday, March 5th, 2011

WHERE:
The Roosevelt Room
328 Adelaide St. W
Toronto, ON
M5V 1R4
(Off Adelaide, just east of Peter)

DETAILS:
Come before 12:30
No Line and $10 cover for the SMA Conference
Mention that you are attending the SCHULICH EVENT at the door

 

A Marketing Finance Workshop with Prof. Joe Fayt

Are you majoring in marketing and hoping to avoid number crunching in your career? The reality is, even in a marketing job you need to be comfortable managing numbers, such as the budget and your product’s P&L statements.

This is your chance! (If you feel intimidated with financial analysis, this session will take the mystery out of it). A simulation dedicated to financials relevant to marketing decisions. Learn how to tackle …critical financial issues about a brand- like pricing levels, margin calculations and justifying promotional expenditures.

Join Professor Joe Fayt as he leads this Marketing Finance Workshop. A morning of simulation will be followed by an afternoon of financial analysis.

When: Friday March 11, 10am – 3pm (with lunch break)
Where: N109, Schulich School of Business

Cost: FREE, and moreover you’ll get a copy of Joe Fayt’s book, Joe the baker: Financial Reporting & Analysis applied to marketing.

Could you ask for more? This event was created just because many of you have asked for something like it – and hence we’ve decided to not charge at all – so PLEASE do try to be a part of it!

Preparation: 40 pages of light reading

Confront your marketing interviews, marketing cases and marketing positions with more confidence! Registration will limited to 50 people. Spots filled on a first come, first serve basis.

Please email sma@schulich.yorku.ca to secure your spot.

 

The SMA 2010 Recap

2010 has been a highly eventful year for the SMA. A number of initiatives were undertaken that were aimed at getting students out of the classroom and closer to the real world of marketing. In addition to the events below, the SMA also started a newsletter as well as this blog as part of its on going efforts to constantly keep the Schulich community at the cutting edge of marketing. We now look forward to 2011 with renewed enthusiasm and eagerly await our much anticipated annual Schulich Marketing Conference. Look forward to seeing you all soon.

The Career Roadmap
On Sept 21, 2010, esteemed guests – Nicole Avery (Director of Brand Management, Mastercard Canada), Nicole German (VP of Marketing and Communications, Descartes Systems Group) and Sarah Koval (Assistant Category Trade Manager, Unilever) shared their experiences about their respective fields in marketing and shared with Schulich students what to expect from a variety of marketing roles. The session was moderated by Professor Kozinets, who raised the issues that students often face. Thanks to all that attended and stay tuned for other career related support!

 



Smackdown
A charged debate which pitted Schulich Academic Faculty against Industry Experts around topics of current affairs in Marketing – had a record turnout of 77 attendees. We thank everyone for coming out and for helping us make this event a great success. The friendly discussion on November 25th between Schulich academics and practitioners surrounding controversial marketing issues created a lot of buzz. The debate was between our two esteemed Industry experts: Will Novosedlik, VP Brand and Communications, Wind Mobile and Cesar Valesco, Director of Marketing, Online Communications, Community Development and Game Operations, Toronto FC and Schulich Academics: Professor Zwick and Professor Fayt. The debate was moderated by Professor Konson.

CMA-SMA Mentorship Program
The final leap for SMA in 2010 was the Marketing Mentorship program in partnership with Canadian Marketing Association. The mentorship program offers students a multi-faceted, well-rounded introduction to the ‘day in the life’ of a marketer that generally covers a range of activities, relative to whether the organization is client-based or an advertising agency. This program will help students get an industry mentor, who can help carve your marketing career roadmap for you. Thanks for your overwhelming response to this program. We hope the selected candidates get the most out of this program in the year to come. The selected candidates have been notified via emails.

So that just about wraps it up. If there’s something you’d like to see in our newsletter, you can write to us since we’re always open to change. Also, featured articles, speaker interviews or just “Buzz” news are very welcome – the best ones will be handpicked and incorporated into the next issue. Please send in your articles to sma@schulich.yorku.ca. You can also join us on Twitter (@SMA_Schulich) or our Facebook Group.

 

Marketing Mentorship Program in partnership with CMA

Marketing Mentorship Program in partnership with Canadian Marketing Association

After the battle of words between practitioners and academicians, it is time for a friendly mentorship program.

In partnership with the Canadian Marketing Association, SMA is organizing a Marketing Mentorship Program. The mentorship activity offers students a multi-faceted, well-rounded introduction to the ‘day in the life’ of a marketer that generally covers a range of activities, relative to whether the organization is client-based or an advertising agency. Students will typically visit a company in pairs, in February, March or April. This program will help students get an industry mentor, who can help carve your marketing career roadmap for you.

Slots are few, interests are many. The attached form along with your resume should be mailed to abasole09@schulich.yorku.ca and mark a copy to sma@schulich.yorku.ca as well.

Deadline: 14th December 2010

Mark the date friends; it’s going to get filled very soon. Selected candidates will be informed by personal emails.

SMAckdown

On Thursday, November 25th, marketing academicians and industry experts will come together in an intense thought-provoking debate. The first case study our panel of experts will be tackling is

Campbells Soup, Halal Soup see article

Campbell’s Soup in Canada recently obtained halal certification for some of its products. This bring politics into the sphere of marketing. For instance, market segmentation can have unintended consequences. What is the role of the brand manager? How does he/she act in a political context?

This week, you have the rare opportunity to gain insight from marketing professionals by submitting current case studies for deliberation.

CASE SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

1. Must be concise and must be sourced from reputable sources
2. Please include one or two suggested controversial questions to be discussed
3. A couple of possible topics for case study submissions are greenwashing and marketing to children
4. Submit to sma@schulich.yorku.ca and write ‘Smackdown Case Submission’ as the subject of your e-mailTwo topics will be chosen out of the submissions and the winner will be recognized during the event and will also get to announce his/her question to the panel.

GET INVOLVED!
Deadline for submissions is FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12th!

Welcome Readers!

Welcome readers! This blog is the first in a long series that the Schulich Marketing Association (SMA) plans to do from now on. The SMA blog will focus on strategically building a community of dedicated marketing enthusiasts and opinion makers in the process of building its(SMA’s) brand image. You can expect to find a diverse bouquet of interesting articles, opinions and discussions here. We’ll also be announcing events, updates, and fun contests through this blog, so get ready for a fun eventful ride!

The SMA facebook page will continue to be used in tandem with the blog to continuously provide fans with marketing content, responses to news articles and fresh pieces from other leading marketing blogs. Both, the blog as well as the facebook page will follow an overarching monthly theme to keep content in perspective and enable fans to have focused opinions.

Since this is our first post, we thought we’d try and give you a better idea of what the SMA is all about. For those who don’t know anything at all about it, the SMA is the offical Marketing Club of the Schulich School of Business, York University, rated in the top-10 business schools in the world recently. The club now has around 150 members, consisting of first-year and second-year students and is very actively pursuing marketing excellence in every arena, guided by our super-heroic Prof. Rob Kozinets, Head of Marketing, Schulich.

So what does the SMA stand for? Why do we exist? Well, in 140 characters (since that’s the norm today) here goes: “We want to revolutionize Marketing at Schulich – they way people see it and think about it. In short, we want to be the Kellogg’s of Canada!” There, perfectly 140 characters for those of you who still doubt! (heh)

In the coming weeks, we plan to introduce each member of our executive panel, cover event details (just like the first one we had this week – Career Roadmap!) and have “themes” every month so that readers can know what to expect from these posts.

Alright, speak to all of you soon – please post comments if you have any suggestions of what you’d like to see us cover! Adios.