Brigham Griffin, professional in residence in marketing, and advisor for the UVU Marketing Association—the recently rebranded student marketing club—took two teams of UVU students to the second annual USU MarketStar Sales Champion Competition at the Huntsman School of Business in Logan.

 “This competition was a good indicator of the progress our student-driven club has made in the past year,” said Brigham. “Last year we managed to get a partial team of three UVU students to the competition, but this year the club recruited and prepared two full teams of eight students overall. Our first team, designated as our UVU Green Team, consisted of Alex Chao, McKay Luu, Nathalia Salazar, and Ethan Brady. Our second team, the UVU White Team, was Emily Olesen, Frazier Olsen, Christian Uribe, and Mitchell Rust. Nine regional teams were invited to participate, including teams from BYU, BYU-Idaho, Weber State, Utah State, and of course, UVU.”

 “The Sales Champion Competition brings together digital ad tech, social media strategy, marketing, and professional sales-skills into a real-world case event. Our students were required to prepare and present a marketing case to Pinterest executives. Carhartt, the workwear apparel company, was the client for this year’s competition. They were looking for a strategy to expand their appeal to a wider audience using the Pinterest platform. Our students had to show them how they would leverage Pinterest to appeal to various new market segments.”

 “This event provided a great opportunity for students to showcase their talents while rubbing shoulders with Pinterest and MarketStar professionals. MarketStar is a Utah-based marketing agency, and they were looking to recruit top talent. Our students had plenty of opportunity to exchange information with both the Pinterest and MarketStar talent recruiters. The Pinterest and MarketStar professionals were impressed with what they saw from our students, and the Pinterest recruiter invited several to interview to join her team at the Ogden campus.”

                                                                                                              

 “I was proud of the way our students represented UVU. Both teams prepared several weeks before the competition, putting together campaigns and working on their presentations. The two teams had different approaches, both in style and strategy. The UVU White Team had more experienced presenters, and in fact, of all the teams at the competition, they had by far the most polished presentation. The UVU Green Team were probably less experienced, and even had a couple of freshmen on their team who were getting their first taste of competition. Their presentation was very strong on the creative, ad-tech, and budget aspects of the campaign, which the judges liked. Their presentation was unique and authentic.”

 “Although we didn’t place this year in the case competition, we did have a couple of our students win some of the other events. Congratulations to Mitchell Rust for placing second in the Firefly Speed Selling competition, and to Emily Olesen for placing second in the Pinterest Speed Selling competition.

 “We had an excellent time together, built friendships, networked, mentored, and enjoyed some great meals during our time in Northern Utah, including eating at Maddox steakhouse in Brigham City, which was a first visit to Maddox for most of the students.”