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As part of a service learning Principles of Marketing class, students of Mary Kate Naatus, Ph.D., assistant professor of business administration, recently participated in the Pearson & (RED) Challenge. The contest, which asked participants to concept the next (PRODUCT)RED™ for college students, was conducted via Facebook, giving students the opportunity to experience using social media for a professional marketing-related project.

Two teams from Saint Peter’s University made it to the top 10 in the national competition, which garners entries from college students across the country. The first was the Barnes & Noble team, led by Genesis Balarezo ’16 and Lauren Behrens ’16, along with Nelam Bidja ’16 and Jeremy Abuan ’15. The second was the Tough Mudder team, composed entirely of student-athletes Paolo Jimenez ’15, Alexandria Livingston ’14, Lance Weaver ’16, Nicholas Dilio ’16 and Steven Competiello ’16.

“It was really rewarding to use the lessons learned in class and apply them to ‘real life’ situations,” said Livingston. “I feel that this is the best way to really learn concepts. It was also rewarding to work with an issue as huge and important as raising money for HIV/AIDS.”

The Tough Mudder – events consisting of obstacle courses designed to test all around strength, stamina, mental grit and camaraderie – project aimed to appeal to college students by encouraging them to participate in a Tough Mudder race, where runners would be sponsored by various organizations and individuals with proceeds benefitting (RED). In addition, collaborative Tough Mudder and PRODUCT (RED) items would be created for the race to raise additional funds. These products include Tough Mudder “Conque(RED)” t-shirts, bandanas, headbands and squeeze-bottles.

“We decided with something as a community because we felt that (RED) was more of a community based and wanted to get as many people involved as possible. We tried to think outside the box,” said Jimenez.

The Barnes and Noble project focused on creating a (RED) Nook, a brand of e-reader developed by American book retailer Barnes & Noble. Individuals would purchase this product for approximately $199, and 10 percent of the price would be donated to the RED project.

In accordance with the competition, the Saint Peter’s teams created detailed marketing plans proposing the next corporate partner and nature of the product and design. They used iMovie software – with the help of Alejandro Villa ’14, a digital design major – to create a marketing video explaining and promoting their plan. After revision, the teams each posted their videos to a Facebook page, where outsiders voted on which videos they liked best.  The competition sponsors then selected the top 10 teams based on votes to determine the winner.

“For the video, we tried to grasp people’s attention with loud music and sharp words to try and build their adrenaline to get excited about the Tough Mudder event,” said Jimenez.

“For our video concept, we decided to go with a very clean look, simple pictures and numbers that would actually grasp people’s attention to have them think, ‘Wow, if everyone could buy a Nook, then we as a whole could make a huge difference.’”

The Challenge is sponsored by Pearson, a higher education business that develops content, learning tools and services; and (RED), an organization dedicated to change the number of babies born with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to zero by 2015. Pearson and (RED) invited students nationwide enrolled in a collegiate Principles of Marketing course to develop a marketing plan for the next (PRODUCT) RED, a fundraising brand licensed to partner companies such as Nike, Starbucks, Converse, Gap, Apple and more. To raise awareness and funds to help eliminate AIDS in Africa, these companies create products exclusively with the (RED) branding. The items are then sold at stores nationwide, with a percentage of the proceeds going to The Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in needy countries.

“This service learning project with (RED) was both challenging and rewarding for the students,” said Dr. Naatus. “They had to learn new digital technologies, collaborate in teams and think strategically about a real world marketing issue. The experience of delivering a ‘product’ to an external client on a deadline-driven basis is great.”

She added, “In addition, students felt it was fulfilling to work with a nonprofit organization that has a real positive impact in the world.”

Bidja agreed with Dr. Naatus’ sentiments, saying, “Overall, I found the service learning course to be fun and challenging. Not only was I able to put myself in the shoes of how and what people would actually do in the working world, but I was also able to learn and experience it.”