School is cool.
Well, the undergraduate students in Professor Leslie Kendrick?s Advertising and Promotions course at Johns Hopkins think it is.
The 18 students in Kendrick?s class are working on a semester-long campaign for Sapphire Mobile Systems, a mobile banking and payments network, to introduce the company?s new consumer brand, Phire Network.
“It?s really exciting, because it?s so real,” student Clara Artschwager said. “We have an actual client and the product actually exists. At times it?s like having a real job.”
The Phire Network allows secure banking via your cell phone for business to consumer, or consumer to consumer. Phire allows users to check bank balances, transfer funds and make small transactions, all through a mobile device.
Kendrick and Johns Hopkins are working in collaboration with EdVenture Partners, an organization that develops partnerships between higher education and industry to provide business students with real world experiences.
“[My class] has been tasked with developing an integrated marketing communications campaign, which involves thinking outside of the box and using guerilla marketing tactics,” Kendrick said. “We had to look into using nontraditional media that will grab the attention of our target audience.”
That audience is mainly students on Johns Hopkins University’s campus ages roughly 18 to 21. Kendrick said that popular Internet outlets for young people like Facebook and YouTube were researched closely.
The students formed Veritas Blue Marketing Agency, each fulfilling a different industry role, like advertising, public relations or budgeting.
“This technology is meant to infiltrate the text-messaging culture, so our campaign is primarily geared towards college students,” Artschwager said.
Consisting of advertising, print ads, commercials on YouTube and a Web site created specifically for the Phire Network, the campaign culminates in a campuswide event today from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., called the Phire Fair, to boost knowledge of the brand.
This is the second course of its kind at Johns Hopkins. Last spring, business students in the class worked on an on-campus campaign with the FBI, to dispel myths and garner interest in the federal agency.
