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February 2014: Vol. 9, Issue 1

MKTG@Mays

Retail Students Win National Product Launch Competition

by Kelli Hollinger

Children are twelve times more distracting

than mobile phones. They can also be messy as their Cheerios spill on floors and stuffed toys roll under seats. To solve parental problems of car safety and organization, Mays Business School

students developed a proposal for the “Backseat Bib” as part of the National Retail Federation Student Challenge, a national competition to bring a new product to the retail market. The team of four Aggies won against 13 universities and schools, and gained the attention of Babies“R”Us, America’s leading retailer for baby products and safety.

Diandra Esparza ‘15, Jamie Roy ‘15, Allie Miller ‘14, Christina Tharp ’14 – all are MKTG majors & Zale Scholars

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(cont.) The competition began in September 2013 with the critical step to come up with a big idea that customers will buy. Next, the team created a 90-second video pitch and 10-page business plan demonstrating its understanding of target market, trends, competitors, marketing, finance and retail concepts. Over a dozen retail executive judges from companies like H-E-B, REI, Sur La Table, and others critiqued the business plan and advanced the Aggies to Round Two. In November, a different panel of judges grilled the group via a phone Q&A session about their business plan. Two days after exams ended, the team learned they had advanced to the final round and would have a lot of work to do over the winter break!

Four M.B. Zale Leadership Scholars, or student ambassadors of Mays retail education program, competed. They included: Christina Tharp ’14, Allie Miller ’14, Diandra Esparza ’15 and Jamie Roy ’15. Last year, Christina and Allie won top presenter awards in the Stanley Marcus Retail Audit competition, though they did not know each other going into this competition. Allie is president of the Student Retailing Association; Diandra and Jamie are officers in the organization and both juniors. All are earning the Certificate in Retailing through the Department of Marketing, and aspire for professional retail careers.

By advancing to the final round, the team netted $10,000 to cover their travel to New York City and participation in the National Retail Federation Big Show, retail’s largest educational

and trade show event attracting an international audience of 30,000. On January 10, 2014, the team pitched the Backseat Bib product to executives from STORY, Shop.org and HSNi. On Sunday, competition sponsor careerbuilder.com announced that Texas A&M University had won first prize in front of a general session audience of 5,000. The top finish earned each student an additional $2,500 in scholarships.

Kelli Hollinger, Associate Director of the Center for Retailing Studies, coached the team and said she was impressed with their creativity, passion, depth of research and competitive spirit. “The Backseat Bib is a truly original product.”

Christina Tharp, who delivered the original video pitch, said, “We all brought different strengths to the table, and learned to work so well as a team.”

The group is not finished. With an invitation from Toys“R”Us to “call us” about the Backseat Bib, the team is reaching out to Aggieland Startup for guidance in applying for a provisional patent. They now also think about retail careers not just as store operations and merchandising, but entrepreneurship. Tharp said, “We fully expect the Backseat Bib to be a must-have baby registry item.”

Additionally, Allie Miller received a $10,000 Next Generation Scholarship through the National Retail Federation. Only five retailing students across America were nominated for this prestigious award.

Aggies Abroad

There are 8 Marketing majors studying abroad in Spring 2014. Each is in a different country!Gregory CaterUniversidad Autonoma de Barcelona, SpainJeremy CheungPeking University, ChinaElizabeth CookUniversity of Adelaide, Australia

Carson CunninghamWHU, GermanyAmanda EntringerMaastricht University, The NetherlandsCatherine NeilCopenhagen Business School, DenmarkAndrew WiewelHong Kong Univ. of Science & Tech., Hong KongSamantha WolfEM Strasbourg, France

MKTG@Mays Retail Students Win (cont.)

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winners. Only five students from each of 46 competing schools can win, which means the Aggies bested competitors from Harvard, FIT and Wharton. In total, 136 students earned $5,000 each.

The competition’s mission is to advance the fashion industry by providing promising students with financial and career resources. Member companies such as Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Nike, Lacoste and many others guarantee internship and mentoring opportunities to winners. All four of Texas A&M’s 2013 winners interned in New York City after completing this program; two started full-time careers in the city with Kenneth Cole and Macy’s Merchandising Group.

The 2014 scholarship recipients are Holly Vogel, Kailie Flores, Christina Tharp, Krystin Sessions and Shelby Zamzow. All are M.B. Zale Leadership Scholars earning the Certificate in Retailing through the Department of Marketing. Their project coach was

Cheryl Bridges, who spent 25 years in the industry and currently serves as director of the Center for Retailing Studies at Mays Business School.

Projects were evaluated by four retailing executives and scored by strict metrics. Bridges said, “We were told by the executives attending the gala that the Aggie projects ‘set the standard.’ Each of these students should be tremendously proud of her work.” The product lines include women’s career and kids’ designer apparel, a fitness line, runway-inspired housewares and a hip jean bar for guys seeking fashion advice while shopping.

In addition to recognition in front of the 1,200 people attending the fundraising event at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, the Aggies were profiled in the Sunday Style Section of the New York Times. Famed Times photographer Bill Cunningham captured them, alongside celebrities attending the event.

The Business of Fashion: Aggies lead in bothby Kelli Hollinger

In today’s fierce economic

environment, new product lines are as likely to come from business schools as from TV’s “Project Runway.” In a national competition through the YMA Fashion Scholarship Fund, five Aggies won major scholarships for envisioning fresh merchandise assortments targeting the millennial customers that JCPenney wants to attract. This generation is over 80 million strong and wields more than $200 billion in annual buying power, so every retailer is competing for this enormous customer segment.Mays Business School has participated in this competition since 2011; this is the second time the school garnered five

Fashion Scholarship Fund Case Competition Winners in New York:L to R Holly Vogel, Kailie Flores, Christina Tharp, Krystin Sessions,

Shelby Zamzow with coach and CRS Director, Cheryl Bridges

FSF Scholarship Winners

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MKTG@Mays Publications

Leona Tam ‘05 Research Coverage in Time Magazine

Title: The Rise and Fall of Humor: Psychological Distance Modulates Humorous Responses to TragedyAuthors: A. Peter McGraw, Lawrence E. Williams and Caleb WarrenJournal: Social Psychological and Personality Science published online 11 December 2013http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/12/10/1948550613515006Abstract: Humor is a ubiquitous experience that facilitates coping, social coordination, and well-being. We examine how humorousresponses to a tragedy change over time by measuring reactions to jokes about Hurricane Sandy. Inconsistent with the belief thatthe passage of time monotonically increases humor, but consistent with the benign violation theory of humor, a longitudinal studyreveals that humorous responses to Sandy’s destruction rose, peaked, and eventually fell over the course of 100 days. Time createsa comedic sweet spot that occurs when the psychological distance from a tragedy is large enough to buffer people from threat(creating a benign violation) but not so large that the event becomes a purely benign, nonthreatening situation. The finding canhelp psychologists understand how people cope and provide clues to what makes things funny and when they will be funny.

Leona Tam ‘05, Head of Marketing, School of Management, Operations and Marketing at the University of Wollongong in Wollongong, Australia is excited to share the recent Time Magazine coverage on her research:http://business.time.com/2014/01/09/want-to-save-money-stop-thinking-about-the-big-picture/

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Publications

Title: Physician Counseling of Overweight Patients About Preventive Health BehaviorsIn the American Journal of Preventive Medicine2014; 46(3):297–302.

Authors: Leonard L. Berry, PhD, Andrea G. Flynn, PhD, Kathleen Seiders, PhD, Kelly L. Haws, PhD, Steve Q. Quach, MD

Background: Numerous studies show that many primary care physicians (PCPs) do not discuss preventive health behaviors related to diet and exercise with their overweight patients.

Purpose: To investigate whether certain counseling approaches by PCPs in their clinicalencounters with patients are associated with improvements in care and resource utilization.Results: For each finding, the degree of physician–patient discussion of preventive health behaviors was strengthened when (1) physicians expressed confidence in patients’ ability to improve diet and exercise and (2) patients had confidence that their physician could facilitate improvement of these behaviors.

Conclusions: The associations between physician counseling and subsequent key improvements for overweight patients are strengthened by the physician’s confidence in the patient’s ability to engage in preventive health behaviors and the patient’s confidence in the physician’s ability to help in implementing these behaviors. Cultivating such mutual confidence is instrumental in optimizingphysicians’ influence on overweight patients’ health behaviors.

Title: Team-Based Care at Mayo Clinic:A Model for ACOs in Journal of Healthcare Management, January/February 2014; 59:1: 9-13.

Authors: Leonard L. Berry, PhD, and Dan Beckham, President, The Beckham Company, Bluffton, South Carolina

Title: The Enduring Culture of Mayo ClinicMayo Clinic Proceedings, February 2014; 89(2):144-147. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2013.10.025www.mayoclinicproceedings.org

Authors: Leonard L. Berry, PhD, and Kent D. Seltman, PhD, ret’d from the Marketing Division, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN

Update on Len Berry’s Institute for Healthcare Improvement FellowshipAs reported earlier in MKTG@Mays, Leonard

Berry, was selected as 2014 Senior Fellow by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), a leading healthcare quality improvement organization located in Boston.

Berry will be in residence at IHI’s headquarters during the second half of 2014 on a Faculty Development Leave. He plans to team with IHI staff on two multi-year research projects: “Improving Patient- and Family-Centered Cancer Care,” and “Improving the Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Wellness of Healthcare Workers.” Berry has been conducting research on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare service delivery since 2001, an interest stimulated by an earlier faculty development leave when he studied at Mayo Clinic; he is author of Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic and numerous articles on healthcare service in medical and business journals.

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MS in MKTG Students Shine in PwC News

…in an email from Mr. Adams he says, “I can't begin to tell you the amount of e-mails I received yesterday from all over the country commenting on the great ideas and what an amazing project this was. Just a further reminder to me and to everyone else of what a special program you [Dr. Mac] and the entire Marketing Department are running.” The email continues, “This project and project team have opened so many doors for the MS Marketing students within PwC. I would like to …. start to interview more of your traditional marketing students into our consulting/advisory positions… lead partners in this sector are fully on board with us moving forward ….”

Texas A&M graduate students’ semester project unleashes social media all-star potential PwC News--Jan 23, 2014, 05:29AM EST

Keeping up with social media trends and best

practices can seem daunting and time consuming. But with some training and a daily 15-minute

commitment, almost anyone can become a social media maven. Recently, a group of Texas A&M graduate students showed partner candidates and leadership from PwC’s Private Company Services (PCS) practice how to quickly increase their social media presence with easy-to-follow tips and learning resources.

The challenge Finding new ways to boost the firm’s social media presence in local markets is challenging. So when PCS Assurance Senior Manager and social media champion Charlie Adams ‘02 saw an opportunity to get a fresh perspective from Texas A&M marketing graduate students, he sprang into action. Charlie and members of the firm’s social media and PCS marketing team, including Noah Pivko, Tess Albertsand Katrina Najm, developed a business case that served as the students’ semester project. It focused on three areas: making connections at top PCS prospects, developing good social media listening habits and designing a social media playbook for events.

This team of Texas A&M graduate students used their Millennial knowhow to create a playbook that PwC practices can use to increase members' social media presence. Left to right: Dalton Schafer, Candace Robinson, Laura Kiker, Lauren Schwaeble, Christie Lind, and Austin Teague.

The following article was sent to over 40K people that work in the US PwC firm--and according to Charlie Adams ‘03, Sr. Mgr. in Assurance & Business Advisory Services at PwC, it has created quite a buzz.

Encouraging creative thinking The PwC team’s project plan gave the students a lot of room for creative thought. It provided structure with frequent status update calls and connected them to local PCS market contacts and other resources. “We didn’t just want our ideas repackaged; we saw the potential in having a group of Millennials think outside the box to create something extraordinary," explained Noah Pivko, PCS national marketing manager. Dalton Schafer, a member of the Texas A&M graduate student team, welcomed the PwC team’s approach. “In previous semester project work with other companies, we didn’t have much flexibility to fully explore and realize our ideas. The PwC team provided a target and let us figure out the best way to get there,” he explained.Dalton said he also gained skills that most graduates learn on the job. “From my interactions with the PwC team, I know what I need to do to be prepared for meetings and how to interact with peers and senior colleagues. The experience gave me an appreciation of small actions that can make a team very productive, like preparing a meeting agenda and distributing pre-read materials before update calls.”

Delivering work beyond their years The Texas A&M students produced guides, an event playbook infographic and video tutorials that can help novice and advanced social media users increase their presence on LinkedIn and Twitter. You can check them out for yourself on Spark. In their Direct Connections manual, the students offer step-by-step instructions and clear examples for creating LinkedIn profiles, joining industry-related groups, sharing articles and commenting on what others share. The students’ second guide, Listening as a Habit, builds on the concepts covered in the Direct Connections manual. It gives actions and best practices for beginning, intermediate and advanced LinkedIn and Twitter users. To help PCS local market teams publicize

events on LinkedIn and Twitter, the students created an Event Playbook Infographic with an at-a-glance view of before, during and after event social media activities. It’s accompanied by an interactive PDF content calendar that makes it easy for users to document and track their LinkedIn and Twitter activities. David Himmel, Marketing Leader for Florida, was impressed by the students’ work. David leads the firm’s LinkedIn efforts and he’s added the Direct Connections manual to the firm’s LinkedIn training resources as external features and tips. “They presented the parts of an effective LinkedIn profile in a very engaging manner,” said David. “The examples and best practices, particularly guidelines on daily social media use and curfews, were exceptional.” “The professionalism in everything the students did − from their interactions with our people to the branding of their materials and presentation skills − was far beyond their years and more in line with a seasoned consultant,” Charlie added.

A winning experience As a result of the successful PCS and Texas A&M social media semester project, the firm got some creative training guides and resources that can help increase our social media footprint while the students got solid on-the-job knowledge and skills that will help to position them for success in their careers. In an email to the PwC team, the students’ professor wrote, “PwC was the highest rated client among the six this semester –- and it wasn’t close. On a 10-point scale for four questions (your professionalism, your communication with them, your responsiveness, whether their expectations were met), each student gave you a 10 on everything. The only exception is one of the students gave a 12 for the extent to which her expectations for the project were met.”

Questions or comments? Charles H Adams/US/ABAS/PwC

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MKTG@Mays PwC News (cont.)

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Venky Shankar Delivers Workshops in India

Recently, Venky Shankar delivered workshops in

the four major cities of India (Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai), as part of Guruspeak, an event organized by Indian Institute of Management alumni association.

Every year, the association invites a leading business thought leader (Guru) across disciplines for this workshop. Jag Sheth (Goizuetta, Emory), Mohan Sawhney (Kellogg, Northwestern), Nirmalya Kumar (London Business School) and Suresh Sundaresan (Columbia Business School) are some of the previous speakers.

In the past, it was restricted to one or two cities. Due to the popularity of the seminar, this year, the workshop was extended to the top four cities in India. Shankar was the 2013-14 speaker.

Please see the following media coverage, including a video interview in Mint--Wall Street Journal India.

http://www.livemint.com/Specials/rYeernjo0RPyESqZEJHp8K/Take-risks-to-manage-uncertainty.html

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-news/technology-is-changing-the-retail-game-rapidly/article5616015.ece

http://epaper.newindianexpress.com/219087/The-New-Indian-Express-Chennai/25012014#page/19/1

http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/retail-policy-should-be-encouraging-to-all-players-114012600718_1.html

Rishika Rishika and Ram Janakiraman’s paper,

“The Effect of Customers' Social Media Participation on Customer Visit Frequency and Profitability: An Empirical Investigation” co-authored with Ram Bezawada (SUNY Buffalo) and Ashish Kumar (Aalto University), has been selected as finalist in the Best European Research Paper of the Year 2014 election. TAMU Times’ excellent coverage of this interesting paper can be found at:http://tamutimes.tamu.edu/tag/ramkumar-janakiraman/#.UvPmCPldV8E

A brief background on the award: In order to promote the exchange of ideas, experiences, and knowledge among professionals and academics in the area of information and communications systems and technology management, the CIONET community of 4000 European CIOs, yearly acclaims this prestigious award.

Honors and AwardsMKTG@Mays

Mark DeFanti ‘06 recently received the Providence College School of Business Teaching Excellence Award for 2012-2013

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Interview with Venky Shankar in The TelegraphThe Telegraph, a leading Indian daily, recently interviewed Venky Shankar on marketing and retailing. You can zoom in to enlarge text. From: http://epaper.telegraphindia.com/details/55396-17430921.html

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Steve McDaniel has been selected by Texas A&M to be the University’s sole nominee for the SEC Faculty Achievement Award for this year.

* * * * * * Congratulations to Lisa Troy (Clinical Associate Professor of Marketing) on being selected for the honor of Namesake for Howdy Camp 2014. The honor is in recognition of Lisa’s enduring contributions to positively impacting the Texas A&M University student community through her hard work. As many of you may be aware, since joining the Mays Business School, Lisa has played a leadership role in creating and promoting the Certificate in Advertising Program. Her students have won a number of awards in national advertising competitions. Troy spends long hours coaching the students to prepare for the competition. Lisa has also been a great mentor to students as Faculty Advisor for student organizations including the Aggie Advertising Club.

MKTG@Mays

CRS H-E-B Day Speakers

Jose GonzalesMike WarrenCatherine ArmstrongTony AtkinsMelissa MuellerLynette PadaleckiJody HallRich WhiteJohn SauterMichael NewkhamTracy CainDerek Kirchner

These speakers presented in over 22 classes at TAMU on February 18th. In addition, there were 14 other H-E-B recruiters and executives on campus to participate in the 2014 H-E-B Day and Career Day luncheon.

Howdy Camp namesake, Lisa Troy (far right), met with counselors preparing for “Camp Troy,” an orientation event held in January for spring transfer students.

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We want to include your news items in the next issue. Please submit to Laurie Marshall at lmarshall@mays.tamu.edu,

Berry to receive Marketer of the Year AwardMKTG@Mays

The Academy of Marketing Science is pleased to announce Matthew Berry as their 2014 recipient of the Marketer of the Year Award. Described as “One of the stars of the web” by the New York Times and as a "symbol of obsessive expertise" by USA Today, Matthew Berry is the most recognizable face in the fast growing billion dollar Fantasy Sports Industry. Known as “The Talented Mr. Roto,” Matthew is the Senior Fantasy Sports Analyst for all ESPN Platforms. He is one of the most read columnists on ESPN.com in terms of page views and the daily "Fantasy Focus" podcast he stars on gets approximately 600,000 downloads a day and was the #2 podcast overall on iTunes in recent months.Berry is an Emmy Award winner for his work on the show he co-hosts (ESPN2’s live Sunday morning fantasy football program Fantasy Football Now –the highest rated show on ESPN2) and appears regularly on ESPN television and radio shows including Monday Night Countdown, Sunday NFL Countdown, SportsCenter, NFL Live and more. Berry is one of four people to be a member of both the Fantasy Sports Trade Association’s Hall of Fame and the Fantasy Sports Writers Association Hall of Fame.

Named to Sports Illustrated’s “Top 100 to follow on Twitter,” and to Mashable’s “32 Must Follow Accounts for NFL Fans,” Berry (@MatthewBerryTMR) has over 500,000 followers on Twitter. Along with Facebook (250,000 subscribers) he has well over 750,000 engaged social media fans and per a study by ColumnFiveMedia.com, he is one of the top 100 people on Twitter in terms of who gets mentioned the most (over 80,000 interactions per month). His first book, “Fantasy Life” was released by Riverhead/Penguin Books in July, 2013 and debuted at number five on the New York Times Best Seller list. Matthew joined ESPN in 2006, when ESPN purchased his TalentedMrRoto.com website and installed Berry as its Sr. Director for

Fantasy Sports to oversee and help shape its fantasy business and direction.

The Academy of Marketing Science is the premier, all academic, professional organization in the world. It is dedicated to promoting high standards and excellence in the creation and dissemination of marketing knowledge and the furtherance of marketing practice through a role of leadership within the discipline of marketing around the world. The Academy has over 1,000 members. The Academy’s flagship journal, The Academy of Marketing Science, was recognized as one of the top ten most cited academic journals.

Each year, the Academy works through its Board of Governors to identify candidates for the Marketer of the Year award. These candidates are on the ‘cutting edge’ of their disciplines and marketing thought leaders. Barry Babin and Joe Hair, joint chairs of the AMS Board of Governors have stated that ‘The AMS Marketer of the Year Award is reserved for individuals who have distinguished themselves in the practice of marketing. Quite often the award winners are visionaries and thought leaders in their respective disciplines.’ Perhaps that has never been the case more than this year with the recognition of Matthew Berry as Marketer of the Year. He is on the forefront of the fantasy sports business and helping to fuel its growth. It is worthwhile to note that marketing excellence runs in Matthew’s family. His father, Dr. Len Berry, Regents Professor, University Distinguished Professor, Presidential Professor for Teaching Excellence and M.B. Zale Chair in Retailing and Marketing Leadership at Texas A&M University was named AMS Marketing Educator of the Year in 2000. Matthew will be honored at the AMS Annual meeting May 21-23 in Indianapolis, IN at the J.W. Marriott. He will be accepting the award and speaking to the group at the President’s Banquet on Friday, May 23.