The Direct Marketing case challenges a team of two student participants to think both creatively and strategically in a time-constrained situation. The judges for this event will assume the role of the client in the case study scenario, and will evaluate how well each student team solves the challenge and presents its recommendations.
The Case Scenario
The students will know nothing about the situation or the client company before they enter the prep room. They will have 30 minutes to familiarize themselves with the situation. The students competing in this event will be expecting that the case scenario will focus on solving a marketing challenge using direct marketing strategies, which may include: building a relationship and loyalty with the targets, offering incentives, and following an interactive messaging and an integrated media approach.
General Judging Considerations
Given that the students only have 30 minutes to read and analyze the case scenario, it will be focused on solving a clearly articulated marketing challenge. Students should provide specific information about the objectives of the campaign and the target, as well as any evidence of any prior marketing communications campaigns. Hence judges will base their evaluation on the ability of the team to suggest strategies to meet the stated objectives and the creativity and practicality of such strategies to communicate with the target. Students should be able to discuss their plan using industry-standard terminology.
Event Objectives
To demonstrate the students’ ability to:
- Analyze a problem situation
- Develop appropriate marketing recommendations utilizing available Direct Marketing strategies
- Justify their recommended strategies based on the marketing issue identified, target market and budget
- Present the proposal in a convincing manner
Eligibility
All participating students must be from diploma-level marketing or marketing-related programs. Post-diploma, graduate certificate or degree program students are not eligible for this event. Repeat OCMC students cannot enter an event in which they have previously participated.
Student Preparation
- Participants should familiarize themselves with the evaluation criteria. Please refer to the case evaluation form below for details.
- Please refer to the case schedules in the program. No changes will be made unless a conflict situation exists.
- Participants will be escorted to a secure preparation room as per the case schedule. Cell phones are not permitted.
- Paper and pens and will be supplied along with printed copies of the case.
- A Windows laptop with wired 2 button mouse and current version of Microsoft PowerPoint will be provided in the preparation and presentation rooms. A clicker will be provided in the presentation room.
- A maximum of 7 slides are permitted in the presentation deck.
- Students may bring a prepared PowerPoint template into the preparation room on a USB thumb drive (USB A Style). Team branding is permitted.
- Internet access will NOT be available.
- Presentations must be saved on a supplied USB thumb drive which will be retained by the judges.
- Participants have 30 minutes to prepare their solution. Participants will be advised when five minutes remain.
- At the end of 30 minutes, the team will be moved to their presentation room.
Presentation
The presentation must not exceed 15 minutes, and will be followed by a 5-minute question period.
Participants are responsible for managing their time during the presentation (judges will ask the team to stop, if necessary, once the 15-minute timeframe has been reached). Judges will ask questions only during the 5-minute Q&A following the presentation. Students will leave the room following the Q&A while judges complete the evaluation form.
Evaluation by Judges
- Judges will ask questions (challenge the students) at the end of each presentation.
- Judges will not provide any verbal feedback to the participants during the competition.
- Judges will complete an evaluation form with numerical scores and appropriate summary comments.
- Judges will rank each team from top to bottom. In the case of a tie between any of the top 5 teams, judges will re-evaluate those teams to break the tie. There cannot be a tie among teams ranked one to five.
Feedback
Each team will receive feedback from the host College approximately three weeks following the competition.