Welcome Back!

As the last weekend of summer draws to a close it is time to start thinking about back to school and what the 2012/2013 school year has in store. There is always a lot to think about as the new school year begins; what classes to take, how many classes to take, what books to buy, what events to attend, what clubs to join and if you are new to campus how to find out where you have to go!

Humber has some great resources for new and returning students to help with all of these back to school questions:

1) The registrar and program coordinators can tell you what classes are required for your diploma or degree or you can also go online and take a look at your specific program. See the Business Marketing Program link below:
http://www.humber.ca/program/business-marketing#curriculum

2) The bookstore has a list of required textbooks for each program and you can also order your textbooks online and pick them up from the bookstore once classes start!
http://www.bkstr.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StoreCatalogDisplay?catalogId=10001&langId=-1&demoKey=d&storeId=10303

3) Finally, the Humber Students' Federation or HSF offers many events and clubs that you can participate in throughout the year. The events are listed in a calendar on the HSF website by month. In September, be sure to check out Frosh Week from September 4-7 and Clubs Fair at North Campus September 19 and at Lakeshore Campus September 20.
http://humberlife.com/

For marketing students, there are a number of great conferences and events that can be attended depending on which classes you are taking in a given semester, but each year Humber participates in The Ontario Colleges Marketing Competition or OCMC, which takes place each year in the fall semester with recruitment taking place each April. The team for OCMC 2012 has already started actively preparing to show off their skills at this year's competition in November!

The Humber OCMC team is selected each year in April and the selection process consists of 'tryouts' or presentations for each event toward the end of the winter semester. Those interested in joining the Humber OCMC team must attend a mandatory information session where they are told about the competition and what each event entails. From there, each person selects the top two events that they wish to participate in. The audition process differs for each event. For the case events each person must present a solution to a problem with a given marketing case to a panel of faculty followed by a short Q&A session. The entire presentation can only be 5-7 minutes. For the job interview and sales presentation, students are given a job posting or item that they must prepare a presentation or interview for. Quiz Bowl consists of tryouts where the top 4-5 people who acquire the most points are selected for the team.

OCMC takes place over two days in November and allows students the opportunity to improve their public speaking, presentation and networking skills through a series of events. The two day competition consists of the following events:

• Quiz Bowl: this event is kind of like Jeopardy. This year's team consists of 5 members. 
• Sales Presentation: 1 member of the team is responsible for this presentation. 
• Job Interview: 1 member of the team is responsible for the job interview. 
• Case Competitions: there are 8 case competitions  which take place on day two of the event. Each case topic is prepared by a team of two.  The topics for the case competition include:
• Marketing 
• Retail 
• Entrepreneurship
• Integrated Marketing Communications
• Account Management 
• International Marketing 
• Market Research 
• Direct Marketing 

The Humber OCMC team is selected each year in April and the selection process consists of 'tryouts' or presentations for each event. Those interested in joining the Humber OCMC team must attend a mandatory information session where they are told about the competition and what each event entails. From there, each person selects the top two events that they wish to participate in. The audition process differs for each event. For the case events each person must present a solution to a problem with a given marketing case to a panel of faculty followed by a short Q&A session. The entire presentation can only be 5-7 minutes. For the job interview and sales presentation, students are given a job posting or item for which they must prepare a presentation or interview. Quiz Bowl consists of tryouts where the top 4-5 people who acquire the most points are selected for the team.

As a member of the 2012 OCMC team I am very excited that we are underway with this year's competition preparations.

As you can see, Humber offers students many opportunities to get involved and make the most of their time on and away from campus, so get involved and take advantage of these great opportunities

-Rachel

Career Advice for New Grads

When we are young we ask advice from our parents, friends, relatives and everyone close to us that we believe may be able to offer a solution to our problem or dilemma. But, when it comes to career advice even though we ask the same people we can get one million different solutions that confuse our path even farther. That is why recent graduates are the best option for career advice whether they are complete strangers, friends, family or alumni they know how to get their foot in the door and can tell us exactly what to expect.

There are a number of ways that graduating students can reach out to recent grads and ask them for valuable advice:

• Career websites
• Blogs
• Industry nights
• Social media 
• Networking events

Perhaps the  best way to meet recent grads and approach them about career advice is through networking events. These type of events allow soon to be graduates to meet people in their field that have already completed their job search, have their first job and can offer important insights into the industry. Humber offers soon to be graduates and opportunity just like this every year with 'Grads Give Back.'

Every March at Grads Give Back alumni of the Humber- Business Marketing program returns to offer words of advice to current students. This advice differs for each returning graduate but the important aspects remain the same:

• What interested them during their time at Humber (classes, opportunities, clubs)
• What area of the industry they wanted to get into (internet, digital, sales)
• How they started and went about their job search (Monster, Talent Egg, referral, internship)
• Challenges
• Information about their current positions

Events like 'Grads Give Back' allow students to talk to other people who were just students and get honest feedback about the current state of the industry and workforce. Watch the video below or click on the link  to see some highlights from the event last year:

-Rachel

Brandwashed

In marketing today it is so important to think of yourself and your clients in terms of an entire brand rather than just as individuals. Strong brands create an experience for the customer that creates word of mouth and customer loyalty, therefore increasing profits. My interest in how this experience is created led me to pick up Brandwashed by renowned brand consultant Martin Lindstrom.

In his book Lindstrom discusses nine tactics that marketers and advertisers use to help brands create experiences for current and potential customers that make them believe that they truly NEED a product. These nine tactics include:

1) "Buy Buy Baby:" marketing begins in the womb
2) "Peddling Panic and Paranoia:" fear and loathing can and will sell products
3) "I Can't Quit You:" smart phones, shopping addicts and brand addiction
4) "Buy It, Get Laid:" sex still sells in marketing and advertising
5) "Under Pressure:" the influence of peers
6) "Oh, Sweet Memories:" marketing using nostalgia
7) "Marketers' Royal Flush:" influence of fame and celebrity
8) "Hope in a Jar:" health has a price
9) "Every Breath You Take, They'll be Watching You:" privacy, or the lack there of

Having studied marketing for a while now I was no stranger to these tactics and had heard of many of them before so for me the most interesting part of the book was the social experiment that Lindstrom performed using a carefully chosen family, the Morgensons.

According to Lindstrom the point of the experiment was to determine the power of word of mouth marketing.This would be done by transplanting this family in "a real-life California neighborhood and then film them in every waking moment as they went about covertly persuading friends, colleagues and loved ones to buy a number of carefully selected brands."( Brandwashed, 238)

The experiment lasted one month and it proved that regardless of all the tactics that marketers use the most powerful influence by far is word of mouth. In fact, word of mouth holds more power than even traditional TV commercials. "In contrast to conventional TV or magazine advertising...an event takes place in our brains the moment other people recommend a car, a band, a makeup or a wine." (250) The brain releases emotions such as lust, pride, empathy and guilt along with the feeling of craving a certain product.

Word of mouth marketing allows our brains to fire on multiple cylinders that cannot be reached by traditional marketing tactics. Toward the end of his book Lindstorm makes what some may consider a bold statement, but one that I agree with:

Eventually, "families' like the Morgensons will be in communities world wide, hired by marketing firms to sell products because, "if you can get word-of-mouth influence behind your brand that influence multiplies the power of your brand exponentially." (251)

-Rachel