Schools

Swampscott Professor Uses Glass For Window On Marketing

Jennifer Fukuda's students surveyed the regional glass market and developed marketing plans for a real-world company — New Angle Glass.

 

A marketing professor from Swampscott and business owner who grew up in town dropped a real-world challenge in 24 college students’s laps.

The spring semester challenge: Develop a marketing campaign for business owner Andy Giller’s company — New Angle Glass.

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Professor Jennifer Fukuda’s thought was that this hands-on exercise would teach the 24 students in her Marketing 101 class at North Shore Community College more about marketing than the traditional read and lecture approach.

She was right — it did outstrip the traditional teaching model. But that’s not all.

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The students brought years of workaday world experience to the task and teacher and business owner alike learned from them.

Mercedes Grullon came to understand the local glass market, in part, by surveying people in Lynn, many of whom are Spanish speaking.

She asked them where they get their car windshields, windows, mirrors and other glass products and learned that by and large they had not heard of New Angle, even though it is located in Lynn on the Lynnway.

The owner needs to reach out and market to Spanish people, she said.

The owner has taken the recommendation to heart and plans to do so.

Student Frank Carolan has worked seven years managing Kelly’s Roast Beef on Revere Beach.

Frank's research determined that New Angle could promote its product more effectively by aligning the company with a professional sports team in the sports mad Boston area.

He talked with the Boston Bruins marketing department and ended up recommending a New Angle/Bruins advertising campaign.

Frank, who graduated from North Shore this spring and will continue his business studies at Salem State in the fall, also suggested that New Angle customize its glass selection presentation online.

Carolina Guzman, who has worked at a duty-free office at an airport in her native Dominican Republic, discovered that Andy’s product line needed to be marketed in a more organized fashion.

Some of the promotional materials appeared to jumbled, with windows, doors and table tops presented together.

The students broke into eight groups for their semester-long project.

Each group presented five ideas, for a total of 40 ideas.

A number of these ideas hammered home the importance of social networking, emails and other tech-savvy means of reaching customers.

As they developed their ideas, the teacher pushed them to delve deeper into their recommendations.

They needed to explain why they thought the plan would work.

Furthermore, she encouraged them to make this a regular part of their business studies and practices.

Being able to show employers that they have thought about and applied their ideas will help them in the business world.

“That is going to get you hired and keep you employed,” she said.

Their real world experiences, such as those in Marketing 101, will work to the same end.

For more information about this class you can email Jennifer Fukuda at  jfukuda01@northshore.edu


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