The Marketing case involves a pair of student participants who will be presented with a marketing related challenge (case) and then given half an hour to prepare a presentation. The intent of the case is to challenge students to think creatively and strategically in a time constrained situation, allowing them to demonstrate their ability to think quickly and adapt to different situations. As a judge in this event, your job is to assume the role of the client described in the case scenario and evaluate how effectively each team presents their recommendation.
The Case Scenario
Unless otherwise noted, the students will not be aware of the client company before they enter the prep room, although they will be aware of the industry that the company operates in. They will have 30 minutes to familiarize themselves with the situation, formulate recommendations, and develop a presentation.
The presentation for the Marketing Case typically reflects a situation where students would take on the role of a marketing consultant giving a presentation on a strategic marketing decision to an organization’s senior marketing or management team. Typical situations could include new product launches, generating awareness, marketing plan development, increasing sales, branding considerations, or similar scenarios.
The Marketing Case typically focuses student recommendations towards any combination of product decisions, pricing, segmentation/targeting, promotional elements, or distribution decisions.
Within the scenario of the case, it will be assumed that the team has not yet met you, but has received a communication outlining your situation. Unless otherwise noted, students will be made aware of the industry that the client company operates in advance of the event.
General Judging Considerations
The students’ role in this event is to present recommendations for a marketing scenario as described in the case. Students should be able to identify the main problem/issue as part of the background, and outline the specific organizational objectives that apply to the scenario. They will outline possible alternatives and present a well-supported recommendation that includes implementation details related to timing, budget, and resources required. Presentations should be convincing, creative, and supported with data as indicated in the case scenario. Students are expected to use industry-standard business and marketing terminology during their presentation.
It is assumed that each judge is from the client company.
Event Objectives
To demonstrate the students’ ability to:
- Analyze a problem situation
- Develop appropriate marketing strategies to remedy the situation
- Present the solution in a convincing manner
Eligibility
- All students must be from marketing or marketing-related programs. Please note that post-diploma, graduate certificate or degree program students are not eligible for OCMC.
- Repeat OCMC students cannot enter an event in which they 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, pens and highlighters 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 be available, speed and quality of the connection cannot be assured.
- Presentations must be saved on a supplied USB thumb drive which will be retained but 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
- Presentations must not exceed 15 minutes. There will be a five-minute question period following the presentation with judges.
- Participants are responsible for managing their time when presenting. Judges will be conscious of time when listening to presentations and will ask a team to stop if necessary.
- At the conclusion of the question period the students will leave the room.
- The judges will use the remaining minutes in the cycle to complete the evaluation form.
Evaluation by Judges
- Judges are to ask questions of the students (challenge the students) at the end of each presentation.
- Judges will not provide any verbal feedback to participants during the competition. They are permitted to ask questions during the official question period.
- 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, they will re-evaluate those teams to break the tie. There cannot be a tie amongst teams ranked one to five.
- Judges decisions are final!
Feedback
Each student candidate will receive a feedback form from the host College approximately three weeks following the competition.
Event Scoring
| 1st Place | 10 points |
| 2nd Place | 8 points |
| 3rd Place | 6 points |
| 4th Place | 4 points |
| 5th Place | 2 points |