Company Info Sessions: Intuit and Nestle

This past week, we had an info session by Intuit on Monday evening and Nestle on Thursday evening.   Michael Messner, John McMahon, and Kim McNealy from Intuit hosted us at the Orpheum Theater.  After a delish dinner, Michael and John (both CBPM alums) gave us an overview of their experience as both an intern and a full-time employee, and Kim gave us an overview of the corporate culture.  Also of note: they gave us ice scrapers with the Intuit logo to remind us of their southern California location as we scrape off 17 inches of ice off of our windshields come winter.  Clever!  Thursday, the Nestle team, consisting of Sara Lopez, Kristine Weeks, Jake Abel, Laura Hufschmidt and Lindsay Klahn hosted us at Brocach.  The latter three are all CBPM alums, and it’s always nice to see that what at times seems like the daily grind of b-school actually translates in to awesome career opportunities!  The Nestle team also conducted an Applied Learning on Friday morning, which deserves its own separate post… stay tuned!

Oh, and if I may be obnoxious for a moment: the Badgers beat Michigan in our final home game of the season on Saturday!!

Day Trip to S.C. Johnson

This past Friday, SCJohnson hosted the first-years at their Racine, WI headquarters.  The day started with a fourth-grade-esque bus ride (tres fun) to the southeast corner of Wisconsin.  We then had an overview of the company, its products and values, and a question & answer session over lunch.  After that, we had the opportunity to sit down with someone in the marketing department one-on-one and ask them about their lives at SCJ, which was awesome.  After that, fellow CBPM alums Terry Goins and David Miller accompanied us to their entomology lab (in case you aren’t up on your greek roots, that’s Grecian for BUGS).  We then learned about two of their recent product launches, Off! Smooth & Dry and Off! Clip-on, both of which have been quite successful.  In addition to Off!, SCJ manufactures Raid, which we’ll get to in a moment.  Anyhow, we then toured the lab.  Bonjour, cockroaches!  Salut, mosquitos!  Hola, flies!  We then watched a testing demonstration of various roach killers, which involves letting cockroaches loose and spraying them (which as you can imagine just delights them) and all I have to say is that Raid is “worth the price premium, people” – Katie O.  The difference in time ’til death is remarkable.   Here is Tom with a ginormous, God-I-hope-these-aren’t-in-my-apartment insect:

After that unexpectedly educational endeavor, we went back to SCJ’s Wingspread Center, which is gorgeous, and toured the facility and then had cocktails and hors d’oeuvres while mingling with the SCJ folks.   Here we are:

And here are our awesome hosts:

Thank you so much for having us!

Expanding Outside of the Grainger Bubble

I’ve tried really hard to make this post more interesting than, well, I don’t know, I suppose I’ve just tried to make it interesting, period, but somehow feel like it’s kind of a dud.  WAIT – I am in marketing, for Pete’s sake!  THIS IS THE BEST POST EVER!

Last Thursday, Erica and I noticed a poster at Starbucks announcing that Dave Eggers (one of my favoritest authors of all time!) and Valentino Achak Deng, subject of his novel What is the What, were coming to campus to speak about both the book and Valentino’s story.  She and I were both stoked, and last Wednesday crammed in to this auditorium (literally, we sat on the floor) to hear them speak.  It was completely awesome; if you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.  However, the point of this post is to point out the fact that during the presentation I was surprised to find myself refreshingly reminded that there is an entire University that we’re part of.  I’ve gotten so wrapped up in the B-school bubble and Grainger Hall, and it was so nice to tap in to part of UW outside of that. 

And, on a random note, Dave said something that sparked some ideas about my team’s ICA project, so that was a bonus.  You never know where you’ll learn something!

On Wisconsin!

Madison Halloween 2009

Well, it’s been a lot of work and a little less fun recently, so I’d like to illustrate the fact that we do in fact have a good balance of both around here.  This past weekend was Halloween, and for some reason, Madison has one of the biggest Halloween celebrations in the country.  As in, people (voluntarily) travel here (the arctic midwest in the Fall) to experience it.  A few years ago, things were getting a little out of hand, but now the city has embraced it and it’s a pretty well-functioning event.  On Friday, the GBA hosted a Halloween party, and here are some of us Branders dressed up to go out:

Rebecca Lopes and her boyfriend Andy

Sergio Trujillo and Luis Otero

Emily Spaulding and her husband, Eric

Sarah Greaser and Alex Castano

Hit by the Finance Bus

Well.

Last night was The Big Finance Exam, which has been built up since orientation to be this completely mind-blowing, impossible, ridiculous academic challenge.  And boy did it live up to that promise.  In fact, it blew that promise right out of the water.  This past week and weekend, Grainger was ‘a buzz’ with tangible studying vibes.  In fact, I’d like to share some of my fellow CBPM’er’s efforts.  Their captions are far better than I could ever come up with, so credit to Gustavo and Katie:

Gustavo, in a study room in Grainger:  “All this Capital Budgeting, EACFs, and DFs is making my brain blurry!”

Katie, also in a study room in Grainger: “I’m not watching Good Will hunting, people. This is my life.”

I can not even begin to explain how I felt during and after the test; the closest I can get is somewhere between humbled and ashamed.  I have never had an experience like that in my entire life.  I will be shocked, and I mean SHOCKED, if I score in the double-digits.  I mean, have you ever had a test where you left entire chunks BLANK?  HOLY MOLY.

But the story improves: as Coach K called time at 9:15, a completely unexpected surprise (in a good way!) presented itself, and at the risk of preserving a certain tradition, I will omit the details.  However, I can safely say that we all went out and blew off a little steam.  This weekend is the Halloween celebration Madison-style, so look forward to a fun post.  It’s about time!

CBPM Fall Board Meeting

The CBPM held its semi-annual board meeting Friday, October 17th.  The festivities began with dinner at the Ocean Grill on Thursday evening, where students, faculty, staff and Board Members enjoyed networking and a good meal together.  During the meeting day on Friday, we spent the morning hearing from all of the second-years about their internships.  It is nearly crazy to think that will be me before I know it!  They all seemed to have awesome experiences and learned a lot.  Following lunch, we participated in a quick case study, which was a great opportunity to work with fellow students and Board Members alike. 

Here are some photos from the event:

Mark Digman, Brian Ward, Richard Gerstein (Sears Holdings), and Victor Acquaah-Harrison

 Mat Odigie, Gustavo Leone, and Tim Cofer (Kraft Foods)

Scott Cook (CBPM Founder & Intuit), Sarah Greaser, Alex Castano, and Dick Antoine (Proctor & Gamble)

Applied Learning with Kraft-Oscar Mayer

This past Friday, Sarah Jones and Beth Goedell from Kraft-Oscar Mayer visited the CBPM for an Applied Learning on agency management.  It sort of morphed in to a great lesson on revitalizing a brand successively in addition to that, but all for the better.  They both work on Lunchables, which has just essentially re-launched itself with better product, new packaging, and new promotional campaign (which is where the agencies fit in).  I was surprised at the number of agencies they work with on promotions (around 10, if I was counting correctly), especially since some of the agencies can provide the full-spectrum of services.  The key take-away was that as Brand Managers, it is our job to coordinate all of these teams of people for the successful implementation of a cohesive brand strategy.

I totally remember wanting Lunchables as a kid: stacking the cheese and meat on a cracker was way better than some boring old PB&J.  Oscar Mayer provided us all with a Lunchable, which I think you know is tucked in to my locker for that day when I forget to bring my own and can’t stand the Capital Cafe for one more day.  I can totally embrace my inner 8-year old!

Thanks for coming to speak with us, Sarah and Beth!

Introducing: Mr. Rossi

I’d like to introduce you to Mr. Rossi:

Mr. Rossi is the wily Italian who has come to embody that which is Finance 700.  The Big Exam is Monday (from 7:15 – 9:15 P.!M.!), so my fellow first-years and I are studying away.  Grainger is literally humming with anxiety over this test, which Coach K (our professor) has informed us is “impossible to finish” and that “the average will be about a 35″.  That’s right, a 35%.  While this seems to be freaking most people out, I’m thinking that it’s wonderful that the bar is set so low.  It’s as though the 100 percentage scale has been merely sliced in half; 50% of the total exam is not even attainable.  There are also these wild rumors flying around that last year a student marked a 7% and still ended up with a B.  I’m just aiming for a score which doesn’t yield a “please see me in office hours” comment.

If nothing else, I’m scrawling “TIME VALUE OF MONEY!” for every question.  Now back to discount factors, the CAPM, and other such glamorous Saturday night material…

Do the Dew

Our specialization-specific course this semester is Brand Strategy with Prof. Tom O’Guinn.  Today, my group and I presented a case on Mountain Dew.  Sarah Greaser, Emily Spaulding, Katie O’Neill and myself spent class today presenting our analysis of the case and discussing the overall marketing and brand strategy for the ‘Dew.  I think you know that we also coordinated our outfits and supplied cans of the product for the class to enjoy:

 Oh… and our PowerPoint matched as well.  In addition to branding our presentation, we also made some (hopefully) good academic analysis points.  Welcome to life in business school!

A few other random thoughts:

• Our fall Board Meeting was this past Friday.  Stay tuned for a post!
• I was worried when school started about the Freshman 15 phenomenon repeating itself, but what I should have worried about instead was said phenomenon in relation to studying for The Big Finance Midterm (which is next Monday).  I just realized that I ate an entire row of Oreos while studying.  Net present value, cash flows, capital budgeting, bonds, stocks… eeek!

Applied Learning with Jonah Lehrer

Side note (may I begin with a side note?  Or is it a ‘top note’?): I really wanted to title this “AL with JL”, but figured people might wonder “What is this code?  Is this perchance this mysterious ‘fiNANce’ business that is continuously alluded to?”

This past Friday, we had an Applied Learning session with Jonah Lehrer (http://www.jonahlehrer.com/).  Visual aid, thanks to his website:

Jonah is the author of the recently published How We Decide, and has an education and bibliography that, if I may use a Bostonian colloquialism, is wicked impressive.  He came to speak at the WSoB about the science that is neuromarketing and via studies and anecdotes shared interesting conclusions about how the brain works in relation to marketing.  In example, a study was recently conducted using an FMRI scanner and participants were fed Coke and Pepsi, and knowing which one you’re consuming effects your overall experience of the product.  And, fun fact, did you know that parmesan cheese and emesis have the exact same chemical smell?  Thus, if you introduce the odor as “you would normally find this paired with Italian foods,” people smell the former; if introduced as “you would normally find this in an alley outside of a bar,” people smell the latter.  It’s all about expectations.

Jonah’s conclusion is that neuroscience sort of reveals what we’ve already been doing with marketing, but at the same time our understanding of the brain is still quite limited.  The most poignant point he made that I had as a take-away is that as marketers, we’re not ‘tricking’ people or using deception to get people to buy our products or services (obviously the bad rap marketing gets); we’re merely making consumers enjoy a product or experience more. 

Thanks for your visit, Jonah!