Eberhardt School of Business News

(July 1, 2009) -

By Maurice Powell

Dr. Sacha Joseph-Mathews of Pacific's Eberhardt School of Business imparted a blend of creativity and practicality in her latest assignment to students in her Marketing and Promotions course. The goal was to take the lessons learned in class and apply them to real-life situations that would benefit four non-profit organizations in San Joaquin County. So, with the help of Dr. Joseph-Mathews, the students embarked upon their task of assisting key non-profit businesses in San Joaquin County in creating new and exciting marketing and promotional materials.

The beneficiaries of the assignment were St. Mary's Interfaith Community Service, the Child Abuse Prevention Council of San Joaquin County, Goodwill Industries of San Joaquin Valley, and the Miracle Mile Improvement District. Since most of the challenges facing these groups stem from financial limitations, their latest endeavors required a great deal of time, energy, and planning that were essentially unaffordable for them.

The Companies

St. Mary's Interfaith Community Service
St. Mary's Interfaith Community Service needed to promote several of its programs, including the Family Clothing & Hygiene Center, Medical Clinic, Transitional Learning Center, Dental Clinic, and Dining Room as a means of providing services to those who cannot afford them otherwise.

Child Abuse Prevention Council of San Joaquin County
The Child Abuse Prevention Council of San Joaquin County is an agency dedicated to preventing child abuse, ensuring safety, and providing education and treatment for abused and neglected children, as well as abusive and at-risk parents. The Council's move to a new, larger facility gave them more room and resources to add more programs to the list of services they offer, but limited advertising left many of them unnoticed.

Goodwill of San Joaquin Valley
Goodwill of San Joaquin Valley initiated a campaign to increase the amount of collected electronic waste, especially among local businesses, through its free E-Waste Recycling Program. Stockpiling of old electronics had been a custom since proper disposal of these items were deemed too costly, and constrained attempts at advertising the service to local businesses yielded only 5% utilization.

Miracle Mile Improvement District
The Miracle Mile Improvement District is nearing the end of a year-long redefining project in which the nostalgic strip of Pacific Avenue in Stockton, featured in the filming of American Graffiti II, is seeking to replace its "classic" image in favor of a more fast-paced and youthful "millennium" look and feel to coincide with the change in culture. The most notable changes are the widened streets, and additional shops and vendors, but the Mile hasn't experienced much of an improvement in traffic as of late. Awareness of the renovations and the new shops along the Mile were of the utmost importance.

Project Hardships Faced By Students
For the majority of Dr. Joseph-Mathews' students, this assignment was a complete change of pace from the typical research project. Instead of having to delineate roles and responsibilities in order to fit together a group essay or presenta-tion, these groups of students struggled not only to adjust to the scale of the project, but also to make sense of this new level of autonomy they were granted by professor and corporate partner alike.

So, with a short list of requirements at hand, including clearly articulated goals and objectives, situational and SWOT analyses, market positioning and strategy, tactics and promotions, timelines, detailed budgets, and evaluation plans, the students set off to find viable solutions to their clients' problems using the empirical data collected throughout the process.

"[It was] more beneficial to work with a company in existence than one that was made up for class," said marketing student Karin Anderson, when asked what skills the students had developed throughout the project that directly transferred to their current places of employment. "Where one student may have the skills to write down the right answers on a test, I can say that I've actually implemented a marketing mix and written a business plan."

Student Eric Nurmi also indicated that he'd noticed a new level of confidence in his skills set when it comes to his current duties as a hospitality representative at the LynMar Winery in Sebastopol, California. Not only did the experience offer a chance to mature his time and personnel management skills, but it also forced him into a position where he had to teach himself how to use Adobe Photoshop.
When asked about why he had to go to such lengths to get his project completed, Nurmi answered, "You have deadlines to meet. If you don't know how to do something, you have to go learn it [and] after all those hours of work, it was really a confidence booster to see everything come together and work out the way it did."

Good for the Firm
All of the firms stood to reap huge rewards from having the students work so diligently on their projects. The Miracle Mile Improvement District, in particular, showed a great deal of appreciation for having the students offer their services in this project. Emily Ballus, the Director of the Improvement District also happens to be its only full-time employee. (The rest of the staff is comprised of a collection of volunteers.) Most of the stores and shops along the Mile stood to experience substantial gains since the majority of them are considered to be "small time retailers" or privately-owned "chains." That meant there wasn't a lot of expertise in terms of marketing, consumer research, or strategy formulation and implementation, for instance.

"The students approached the project like a business venture," said Ballus, "non-profits [like ours] are usually struggling with human resources, finances, and time." So, with Ballus providing contacts to the vendors and service providers for the students, the group was able to create a directory of the Mile that wasn't previously available, but was necessary with all of the additions in vendors, shops, and firms. The group also created customer surveys to study for future promotions, a dining guide, and a calendar, complete with coupons and timelines of events and other happenings along the Mile.

The capstone of the project, however, was a day-long event called Discover the Mile in which all shops and vendors showcased their products and services to guests in a block party atmosphere, all centered around the Valley Brewing Company. Discover the Mile's success contributed to the RTD's fourth largest ridership since its inception and even generated survey information that led the group to run its trolleys on Saturday nights in order to satisfy the demand for late night transportation to and from the Mile.

More importantly, both parties agree that the partnership for the project has already done a great deal to help dispel ideas that University of the Pacific students don't venture too far from the safety of the school grounds and that crime made Stockton a place into which one didn't want to venture too far. So great was the success, an annual event, Prowl'n the Mile, was created to keep the new spirit of the Mile alive for years to come. The first annual Prowl'n the Mile took place on Saturday, April 18th along Pacific Avenue. This family-friendly event featured booths from the Mile's shops, a fashion show, wine tasting, and live music. Since a section of the Mile was closed off by police for the festival, skateboarders were free to practice stunts on the ramps and grinding rails provided by event sponsors. Parents were able to enroll their children in a child identification program while children visited with local firemen and law enforcement officers including furry officers from the K9 unit. The favorite spots for children included a face painting booth, a jump house and especially the Baskin-Robbins' booth with its individual tubs of ice cream. The celebration continued far into the night as the crowd reconvened at Valley Brew for the after party. Prowl'n the Mile raised $1,000 to send 6th graders from El Dorado School to science camp.

The Results
Although each of the other beneficiaries cannot boast that they were able to organize an event like Discover the Mile, to scale, the results were similar for each group. The Goodwill Industries of San Joaquin Valley is better able to conduct its B2B marketing using the brochures, press releases, flyers and public service announcements developed by their group.

Like Goodwill Industries, St. Mary's Interfaith Community Service and the Child Abuse Prevention Council of San Joaquin County now each exhibit a set of flyers, press releases, and brochures. The Child Abuse Prevention Council, in addition, has been able to publish more articles and promotions locally in The Record, the Port Call and Caravan newspapers.

After completion of the project, senior marketing student, Gene Chacon commented, "I loved this experience because it took the learning out of the sometimes narrow and hypothetical realm of the classroom. While this was more challenging, it was also more rewarding." Given the success of this series of class projects, only time will tell how long it will be before this practice becomes the norm in business courses across the nation. 

 Strictly Business Spring 2009 Issue