Three Stevenson University students attended the American Marketing Association’s (AMA) fourth Annual Regional conference on Nov. 4, hosted at Johns Hopkins University. The conference theme was “Play-By-Play of Sports Marketing.”
Attending the conference on Stevenson’s behalf were business communication majors Meghan Loveless, Taylor Cunha and Brian Covera-Flores, all sports editors of “The Villager.” They attended the conference to further develop their interest in sports and marketing.
The students had a chance to hear marketing executives from companies and organizations including Under Armour, the Baltimore Ravens and Major League Baseball, as well as 12 local industry marketers.
These professionals spoke about their use of social media, the development of marketing plans in certain fields, their career experiences and heard student pitches for a new mobile workout application for sports teams. The event included a light breakfast and lunch, and took place on Hopkins’ Homewood campus from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Covera-Flores explained that he thought it would be a great chance for him to get his foot in the door with a company like Under Armour.
Along with panels including marketing executives, there was also a competition between different AMA chapters in which each chapter presented its own original pitch for a workout app developed by sports group, TeamBuildr. During this competition, groups were given a case and rubric one week in advance and presented their research at the conference. The Stevenson group did not compete in the competition.
“The executives judged the case study competition. Not everybody got judged by everyone, but some got judged by the MLB executives, and the Under Armour executives also served as judges,” said Cunha.
AMERICAN MARKETING ASSOCIATION SPONSORS COMPETITION
“I attended to gain information about marketing in the sports world and to bring that back to class and put it to use,” explained Loveless. The American Marketing Association sponsors undergraduate conferences like this one in order to offer students professional development and networking opportunities, according to AMA.org.
“We went to network and learn more tactics with advertising and marketing,” added Cunha.
The AMA is North America’s largest marketing association, allowing members to “practice, teach, and study marketing worldwide,” according to the AMA website.
Cunha said the experience was fun. “We need to get more involved as business communication students because we’re creative and can present well, so if we got involved, we could win the case study competition.”
